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(Wolfville,
NS) - After months of research and preparation,
the creator of Hal’s Mussels took first place in Acadia’s Wes Nicol
Business Plan Competition. Hal Montgomery, a business student at
Acadia University, will soon be on his way to the National
Championships in Ottawa on March 23.
“I wasn’t in the
competition to win,” says Montgomery, a second-year student at
Acadia. “My goal was to see if my business idea was feasible.
Winning was obviously nice and has opened up opportunities.”
Sponsored by Ottawa
entrepreneur Wes Nicol, the competition is designed to generate
interest in entrepreneurship on the part of Acadia students and to
help develop skills that will assist them as entrepreneurs.
Montgomery will be taking his entrepreneurial business plan to
Ottawa next month to compete in the national Wes Nicol Competition.
“Hal has done a very
effective job of analyzing this opportunity in terms of its
marketing, financial, and operational feasibility,” says Paul
Callaghan, a professor at Acadia’s Manning School of Business
Administration. “Regardless of how he fares in the national
competition, the new venture he is planning to develop has a very
high probability of succeeding.”
Montgomery was one of
four teams of university students that competed in the Wes Nicol
Competition at Acadia on February 17 for the first place prize of
$6,000. In the Competition, students investigate business ideas and
models, then develop and pursue an idea they want to establish. The
prize money received by winning teams could potentially be used as
seed capital to start a venture.
“The Wes Nicol
Competition acts as a catalyst to move concepts out of the minds of
students toward reality,” says Lisa Lowthers, a certified small
business counselor at the Acadia Centre for Small Business and
Entrepreneurship. “From technology to aquaculture, our students are
identifying viable business opportunities that they will translate
into successful local businesses with global impact.”
The second-place team
winning $3,000, the Nedia Trading Company, included students Tony
Agbonkhese and Howell He. Third-place winners Rakesh Gupta and Dave
Rankin won $1,000 for their business idea, Advanced Bath Innovators.
Acadia University, in
Wolfville, Nova Scotia, has long been recognized as one of Canada’s
premier undergraduate institutions. With its nationally and
internationally recognized research initiatives, small class sizes
and technology-rich teaching and learning environment, Acadia offers
students an experience that includes academic achievement combined
with personal growth and development. For more information about
Acadia, visit our website at
www.acadiau.ca.
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