Four Western students now stand among 38 members of the fifth The Next 36 cohort, Canada’s most selective program for young entrepreneurs, following the organization’s annual National Selection Weekend. James Crocker, Engineering; Evan Ferguson, Engineering; Aishi Jiang, Science; and Nikita Zhitkevich, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, were selected from a pool of more than 630 applicants from 45 institutions across the country.
“Each year the finalist pool seems to gets stronger,” said Peter Carrescia, managing director of The Next 36. “Canada’s brightest young people now see entrepreneurship as the path of greatest opportunity – so many of our finalists already bring extensive start-up experience and an impressive array of other accomplishments to the table.”
Supported by more than 200 business leaders across Canada, The Next 36 provides world-class academic instruction, business mentorship and venture building to the country’s most promising entrepreneurs.
The Next 36 is open to Canadians from all academic backgrounds, and this year’s finalists come from disciplines such as business, computer science, engineering, kinesiology, industrial design, philosophy and health sciences.
Student entrepreneurs will spend the next seven months building their companies with the support of their mentors, a unique academic program and a pool of business advisors.
In addition to Western, the 2015 cohort includes:
- James Sun, Columbia University and Middlebury College;
- Taylor Quinn and Jeremy Tupper, Dalhousie University;
- Bryan Altman, Ivelin Bratanov, Zak Lefevre and Christina Moro, McGill University;
- Kurtis Berg, Janelle Hinds and Joshua Segeren, McMaster University;
- Dimitry Galamiyev and Julie Topp, OCAD University;
- Erica Baker, Jake Dancyger and Raju Patel, Queen’s University;
- Gursher Sidhu and Lauren Watkins, Simon Fraser University;
- Michael Ip, Sagar Malhi and Weini Zhang, University of British Columbia;
- David Bureau, Universite de Sherbrooke;
- Jill Cates, Leila Chan Currie, Adam Hueniken and Katarina Neskovic, University of Toronto;
- Amin Ghafelehbashi, Mark Kryshtalskyj, Dezhen Li, Michael Reid and Farzana Yusufali, University of Waterloo;
- Maddie Shang, Wilfrid Laurier University and University of Waterloo; and
- Manjeet Kaur, Dhaman Rakhra and Khady Seck, York University.
