From LesAffaires, there’s an interesting article (in french) on how the government wants to encourage entrepreneurship, and hopes to get yearly 25% more businesses. They also want to reach out to different organizations and corporations to boost that fund to $2.6 billion.
The plan involves advertising, mass media campaigns, even a new TV show, doing awareness programs in schools, plus many other measures that would make it easy for entrepreneurs to start businesses as well get them past the dreaded 1-year stage.
For tech entrepreneurs, there’s nothing specific though, although the program might actually change how entrepreneurship is viewed in society, in Montreal or in Quebec city, and actually get more students from universities, CEGEPs, or people already in corporate jobs to try out entrepreneurship.
Of course, since this is your money, the question to be asked is if that’s the best of the money. A lot of those top-down initiatives are generally not aware of what entrepreneurs actually need, so they generally finish paying a top marketing agency how to “pimp” entrepreneurship, instead of actually having a person who’s been there and knows what he’s talking about. $450m is a also a lot of money; what if you give 450 startups each $1m? or maybe 4500 new businesses $100k ? Yeah, crazy idea, and perhaps with random results, but that would at least bring in jobs and new ideas. Let’s be optimistic though, here’s hoping they’ll reach out the community and participate in initiatives that matter
