How York University’s Bilingual Entrepreneurship Program Empowers Students
For students pursuing non-business degrees, entrepreneurship may seem unattainable. But at York University’s Glendon College in Ontario, an innovative initiative is proving that business acumen isn’t just for commerce students.
The Glendon Entrepreneurship et Innovation À L’international (GENIAL) program is a bilingual incubator designed to equip Glendon students and Ontario’s francophone community with entrepreneurial training, research opportunities, and extracurricular activities. It provides a space where students from all academic backgrounds can learn how to identify and develop viable business opportunities.
GENIAL was founded in 2017 by Professor Angelo Dossou-Yovo, a faculty member at Glendon College specializing in management and entrepreneurship. Initially, his focus was on Glendon’s dual-degree business program, which allows students to split their studies between York University and Emlyon Business School in France. However, he soon realized there was a growing demand among liberal arts students for entrepreneurial education.
“In this initiative we try to create an entrepreneurship mindset by focusing on the early stage of the life cycle of a business. We look at how to identify and develop business opportunities. How to know when something is worth spending time, money and resources on in the long run. The starting point is solving problems, and how to discover and identify opportunities, but also how to test them and make sure that you come up with something with a higher probability of success,” says Dossou-Yovo.
The program includes a 15-week Entrepreneurial Skills Passport (ESP) program, which features hands-on workshops, mentorship, and experiential learning. It’s a comprehensive approach that ensures students feel equipped to enter the business world, even without a background in finance or commerce.
The initiative received a major boost through funding from Desjardins Financial Group, which contributed more than $775,000 to GENIAL and YSpace’s ELLA program for women entrepreneurs. This investment expanded GENIAL’s infrastructure, provided additional modules for the ESP program, and introduced funding for student-led startups.
One of the biggest highlights of the program is the Student Entrepreneurship Competition, where participants pitch their business ideas in hopes of securing seed funding. This year’s competition will once again give students the chance to showcase their ventures and secure funding to bring their ideas to life.
The GENIAL program focuses on developing adaptability and critical thinking that students can apply in various careers. Dossou-Yovo stresses that the skills learned through the program are beneficial even for those who don’t intend to become entrepreneurs.
“We’re in the business of helping would-be entrepreneurs and those interested in entrepreneurship to develop entrepreneurship skills they can leverage later on either to create a business or to look for a job in organizations where intrapreneurship skills are needed,” he says.
As more students recognize the value of entrepreneurial education, programs like GENIAL demonstrate that innovation isn’t limited to business majors – it’s a mindset that can empower anyone willing to take the leap.
