Last weekend, from January 23^rd-25^th, I competed in the Bank of Montreal’s Apex Business Plan Competition, held at the University of Fredericton, as a representative of the Rowe School of Business and the Norman Newman Centre for Entrepreneurship.

The Apex Competition brings together aspiring entrepreneurs from across Canada to pitch their business plans to a panel of distinguished investors with backgrounds in marketing, finance and entrepreneurship.

For this competition I entered a business plan that I originally developed through a reading course with SIM professor Dr. Joyline Makani and Dr. David Roach, professor of entrepreneurship and innovation management at the Rowe School of Business. I then refined my business plan during Dr. Roach’s New Venture Creation course last semester, with much help from Dr. Ed Leach, director of the Norman Newman Centre for Entrepreneurship, and Dr. Tony Schellinck, the Rowe School of Business’s distinguished marketing professor.

In a competition consisting primarily of business students, with a few engineers spread throughout the teams, I stood out as the only Masters of Library and Information Studies student. Yet, at the end of the competition, the judges award me first place and a very large cash prize.

I would like to thank Dr. Makani for all her help and support. I couldn’t have done this without her. I’d also like to thank all the Rowe School of Business professors I worked with too, for setting aside time in between their classes and other work to help me improve my business plan and my presentation of it, despite the fact that I’m not enrolled in Dalhousie’s MBA program.