A little bit about Sarah..

Sarah has just completed her third year at the University of Aberdeen studying Anthropology and Psychology and is originally from Morpeth, Northumberland. Having studied a wide variety of cultures and the issues faced by individuals, Sarah is keen to reduce inequality and sees the potential in social enterprise to make a huge impact on others. Her placement will be with StartUp Canada based in Ottawa, Ontario. This social enterprise is a grassroots network of entrepreneurs working together to build an environment for entrepreneurship in Canada (www.startupcan.ca). Sarah will be able to put into place her research experience gained from her degree and will research the impact of social enterprises and develop educational resources to build capacity amongst entrepreneur community builders across Canada. 

The research project

Startup Canada has communities in many cities across Canada which help local entrepreneurs by hosting events, workshops and networking opportunities. I have been set the challenge to develop their 2015 Communities Impact Report which looks at the impact that these communities are having. The report has been broken down into four research questions for me to look into which are:

- What is the value and what are the implications of the grassroots startup movement in Canada?

- What is the value of the Startup Canada Communities ecosystem to entrepreneurs, government and industry?

- What lessons have been learned in building local communities?
- How can a membership program feed into the communities program?

I am really excited to start this and I look forward to announcing my findings in August when it is published!