PR students to make a buzz for local charity

Posted on Friday, December 4th, 2015

ACPR
Expect our PR students to be busy as bees, and the campus to be buzzing with excitement next term – after hearing presentations from nine groups of their peers pitching on behalf of charities, Algonquin College public relations students have made a beeline for LiveWorkPlay. They will be fundraising for this important community agency through their annual charity fundraiser in the winter 2016 term.

“LiveWorkPlay is an Ottawa-based charity that works with individuals living with intellectual disabilities. Their goal is to help their members gain independence. They achieve this through assisting them with employment, housing, and arranging social events for members to attend,” said Rachel McWhinnie, a public relations student who pitched LiveWorkPlay to her classmates (just call her ‘Queen Bee’). “LiveWorkPlay is all about inclusion over segregation. We are excited to reflect that in our campaign.”

The Algonquin College public relations students will be hosting multiple events, starting in March, to raise funds and awareness for LiveWorkPlay. Last year’s campaign raised more than $26,000 for the John Howard Society. And if you’ll let us wax nostalgic for a moment, over the 27 years of the program public relations students have raised more than $300,000 for 27 different charities (and isn’t that sweet!).

“All of the charities pitched were deserving, and we would have been happy to work with any of them. We are very excited to come together next semester and work with one goal in mind. Everyone is buzzing to work with LiveWorkPlay,” said McWhinnie.

Public relations students have been pitching their charities throughout the month of November. In total, nine charities were originally proposed, and the program has worked with many of the region’s largest and smallest charities, such as the Royal Ottawa Hospital, CHEO, and the Valerie’s Flutter Foundation (apparently our PR students have a thing for bugs…but whatever you do, don’t buzz off as there are plenty of events to come and our students will be looking for your support!)

Here’s a glimpse of how things went down on (in chronological order)…

AC students attend FounderFuel Demo Day in Montreal

Posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2015

myAC FounderFuel

“Personally I got some clarity on what I am looking for in terms of technical co-founder. I know that Christina Miller received good feedback as validation for her business start up. Most of the teams that went through FounderFuel said it was a great experience.”

FounderFuel is a mentor-driven accelerator that helps early stage web, mobile, and software as a service startups raise seed capital. FF provides $50K – $100K of capital and access to veteran entrepreneurs, angel investors, venture capitalists, and senior executives, and over $400K in perks and services. Teams were eligible for $150K from BDC Venture Capital on Demo Day.

“To get to Montreal we took “the founder” bus which was packed with start up founders,” added Tomas. “Pizza, pop and small informal on the bus radio pitch competition happened before we arrived. The evening was full of great pitches, smell of pop corn and amazing networking session – I ran out of business cards!”

1,400 people were invited to FF’s largest Demo Day yet, offering plenty of opportunities for startups and prospective entrepreneurs, like our students, to pitch, network, and celebrate throughout the event. Learn more about this event.

To learn more about FounderFuel, visit founderfuel.com.

AC Brings the Thunder to the Ontario Colleges’ Marketing Competition

Posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2015

blog OCMC
For more than three decades, the Ontario Colleges Marketing Competition (OCMC) has been challenging Ontario colleges’ business students to take part in a unique skills competition that tests their marketing mettle in a series of exercises that emulate real-world business challenges. This year the competition was hosted by George Brown College in the heart of downtown Toronto. Over 300 students (16 from Algonquin College) and faculty coaches from 12 colleges in Ontario competed 10 events over the course of last Thursday and Friday.

Algonquin College performed exceptionally well, building upon its reputation as a hub of innovative thinkers. Congrats to all who represented AC so well!

  • 2nd place in Quiz Bowl, Gabriel Loranger-Gagnon
  • 2nd place in Quiz Bowl, Alaina Lau
  • 3rd place in Direct Marketing, Evan Foti and Patrick Gaudreault
  • 3rd place in Retail Marketing, Hailey Hamilton and Benjamin Valiente
  • 4th place in Entrepreneurship, Stephen White and Luke Vucetic
  • 5th place in International Marketing, Gabriel Loranger-Gagnon and Alaina Lau

Patrick Gaudreault and Evan Foti 3rd place, Direct Marketing

Patrick Gaudreault and Evan Foti, 3rd place inDirect Marketing

rtaImage

Hailey Hamilton and Benjamin Valiente, 3rd place in Retail Marketing