ACE Canada

ACE (Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship) is a national charitable organization that is defining the path of champions by teaching and igniting young Canadians to create brighter futures for themselves and their communities.

Working in partnership with business and higher education, ACE delivers experience-based programming that allows university and college students to move beyond the traditional path of post-secondary education. These students are challenged to address real world business and economic issues in their own entrepreneurial ventures and in their communities.

ACE currently delivers two programs on over 50 university and college campuses across Canada with the involvement of over 1,700 student leaders and student entrepreneurs.

PROGRAM #1 - STUDENTS IN FREE ENTERPRISE (SIFE)
Our “team” based program empowers students to create economic opportunity in their communities by teaching others about market economics, entrepreneurship, success skills, financial literacy and business ethics. Teams do this by implementing community focused and entrepreneurial based projects that have a notable impact on the target audience involved.

The SIFE National Champion is named the “Most Enterprising Campus in Canada”. They then move on to represent Canada at the global level of competition, the SIFE World Cup.

ACE is the official operator of the SIFE program in Canada. SIFE is a global organization that is literally changing the world through highly dedicated student teams on more than 1,800 college and university campuses in over 40 countries.

PROGRAM #2 - STUDENT ENTREPRENEUR
Our “individual” based program provides a vital service to full-time university and college students, who also operate a business. Through programming and competition, ACE creates a platform for these young entrepreneurs to network with like-minded students, showcase their business on a regional and national stage to top executives and leading entrepreneurs, receive relevant training and leverage valuable mentorship opportunities to accelerate the growth of their business.

The Student Entrepreneur National Champion is named the “ National Student Entrepreneur Champion”, taking home the CIBC Cup and a $10,000 cash prize. This individual then moves on to represent Canada at the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards.

ELEMENT OF COMPETITION

Both programs have the aspect of competition involved as SIFE teams and Student Entrepreneurs gather regionally and nationally each year to showcase the community focused projects and/or the entrepreneurial ventures they are operating while attending university or college full time.

ACE has partnered with Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE)*SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise), a global not for profit organization. SIFE is an international organization that brings together the top leaders of today and tomorrow to create a better world through the positive power of business. Through projects that improve the lives of people worldwide, the university students, academic professionals, and industry leaders that participate in SIFE are demonstrating that individuals with a knowledge and passion for business can be a powerful force for change.

ACE operates student teams at over 50 university and college campuses across Canada and their programs impact over 2000 student leaders and student entrepreneurs through 500+ SIFE projects with 80,000+ involved in student led projects and $700,000 reinvested into ACE communities.

WHAT MAKES ACE DIFFERENT FROM OTHER YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOCUSED ORGANIZATIONS?

It is the meaningful connections that ACE creates between business, academic and student leaders around a shared cause. By doing this ACE fills a gap in the current Canadian post secondary education system, allowing students to apply their in-class learning in an entrepreneurial manner, gaining hands on experience for their future endeavours as intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs.

History

During 1986, the Canadian Association of University Student Entrepreneurs (C.A.U.S.E.) was founded by Ian Aitken while at the University of Western Ontario with the objective of allowing University student entrepreneur clubs in Canada to exchange best practices and to encourage the formation of new clubs. During 1987, the name was changed to Canadian Association of Student Entrepreneurs (C.A.S.E.) so that college campuses could be included. The initial funding for the organization was provided by John Dobson. The name of the association was changed again during 1988 to Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs - Canada (ACE-Canada) to better align the organization with the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs (ACE) which was then operating in the United States.

Twenty years later the association is now known as "Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship Inc." and it has grown into a major national charitable organization that has positively affected the lives of many future Canadian entrepreneurs.

Alumni

Many famous young Canadian entrepreneurs have belonged to ACE Canada including Brian Scudamore, CEO and Founder of 1-800-GOT-JUNK, who credits ACE Canada with giving him a forum to dream, share and discuss ideas.

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