Startupifier wants to help students become entrepreneurs

Plenty of university students do co-op, work study or apprenticeship programs to get some real-world experience on the way to a degree. But a Finnish-born Montrealer has a different idea: become an entrepreneur yourself, and be your own co-op program.

To Riku Seppala, part of the problem with university education is the lack of cross-discipline studying; business students only working with other business students, engineering students with engineers, et cetera. Of course, the real world doesn’t work this way; you have to be able to collaborate with individuals of varying backgrounds outside of school.

That’s why Seppala created Startupifier; instead of waiting for a big corporation to hand out opportunities for university students, Seppala is promoting Startupifier as a way for students to collaborate with students in other disciplines to create start-ups of their own and make their own success.

“Startupifier is an organization that wants to catalyze the creation of start-ups among students.” Seppala said in an interview with NextMontreal. “This includes creating an entrepreneurial culture and really doing anything we can to bring knowledge to students, connect them with each other and other resources. And most importantly, get them to do stuff!”

Seppala and the crew at Startupifier will be hosting an event at McGill University from October 22–24 to drum up some entrepreneurial spirit called Startupifier Bootcamp. At Bootcamp, participants will learn firsthand what it takes to build and launch a product with a team of like-minded individuals. Prizes will be awarded and mentorship will be provided throughout the process. You can register here.