The Experience Ventures program is back for students for another year!
Interested in getting a head-start in your career? Experience Ventures creates paid entrepreneurial thinking placements with innovative companies in Canada. The program aims to inspire your creativity, resiliency, and future vision—so you can shape your future with the right skill set.
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An entrepreneurial thinking placement is a structured, short-term paid opportunity with a startup or social venture that has partnered with ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥. The goal is to empower you to develop and apply entrepreneurial thinking skills aimed at making you ready for your future.
Experience Ventures offers five types of entrepreneurial thinking placements:
Entrepreneurial thinking placements build a bridge between today’s needs and tomorrow’s challenges. You will experience innovation first-hand and learn how to apply its principles in their careers.
As a student, Experience Ventures placements will enable you to:
Gain 5 important entrepreneurial thinking skills to prepare for careers in the innovation economy:
The required qualifications and application process differs for each placement; however, for all placements, students must be:
If you have any questions about eligibility please contact asc.el@queensu.ca.
The University invites applications from all qualified individuals. Queen’s is committed to employment equity and diversity in the workplace and welcomes applications from women, visible minorities, Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities, and persons of any sexual orientation or gender identity. In accordance with Canadian Immigration requirements, priority will be given to Canadian citizens and permanent residents.
The University provides support in its recruitment processes to applicants with disabilities, including accommodation that takes into account an applicant's accessibility needs. Candidates requiring accommodation during the recruitment process are asked to contact Human Resources at asc.el@queensu.ca.
Check back in Fall 2024 for new opportunities!
In this pilot project, participating small teams of Film and Science students will collaborate to identify, research and develop interesting stories surrounding research at Queen’s and worldwide in a way that is consumable for a wide audience. These ideas will be presented to established science-communication content creators at the end of the fall and winter terms with the top entries entering full production planned exhibition at the World Biodiversity Forum in the spring.
The Next Generation of Medical Simulation Hackathon returned this year in collaboration with Ingenuity Labs and Connected Minds. This experience tasked students with designing innovative solutions that focused on enhancing professional skills competencies in real-world healthcare scenarios. Participants were encouraged to explore intelligent innovative approaches, technologies, and methodologies to create designs that closely mimic the challenges faced by healthcare professionals in leadership roles and task-oriented environments. Congratulations to the innovative project teams of NeuroNeck and Med Vue for receiving top honours.
Learn more about the Next Generation of Medical Simulation Hackathon.
The Social Innovation Hackathon provided students the opportunity to create innovative solutions for social impact challenges that growing organizations are facing today. This year teams tackled a challenge presented by Kingston-based : design an app to make it easier for all famers to sell their produce directly to wholesalers and grocers. Congratulations to the team of Computing students who won first place with their Farming Forward app. Bridging the gap between local farmers and markets, they're sowing seeds for a greener, more connected future.
Learn more about the Social Innovation Hackathon.
The unique student-led case competition focusing on tick-borne diseases (e.g., Lyme disease) returned September 2023 and for the first time in-person. This week-long event was divided into three phases: a kick-off phase, a project phase, and a presentation phase. The opening conferences included panels, speakers, and workshops providing the opportunity for delegates to network with experts. Trans-disciplinary student teams were formed and presented with a skill testing dilemma. The competition concluded with teams pitching their novel approaches to enhancing tick borne detection to a panel of judges. Congratulations to the top 3 Team winners: TickTape, TickTract and LymeSafe Pro!
The Faculty of Arts and Science Experiential Learning and Programming partnered with Sustainable Kingston to offer a brand-new opportunity supporting sustainability initiatives in the Kingston community this year!
Sustainable Kingston is a local organization focusing on improving environmental sustainability in six key areas: sustainable transportation, economic prosperity, climate action, sense of community, environmental stewardship, and food security. Their mission is to enhance the livability and resiliency of Kingston, and they recruited seven undergraduate students who share that passion and drive to work on various projects including the Sustainably.eco podcast, Sustainable Kingston Awards, Fall Pitch-IN, Electric Vehicle Fundraising Event, and Kingston Climate Change Symposium.
The Experience Venture' network of partners hosted the second iteration of the Experience Ventures National Hackathon (EVNH), which focused on developing innovative, wellness-focused solutions that have the potential to enrich the lives of all Canadian post-secondary students. Leveraging entrepreneurial thinking, students nationwide developed potential solutions to address a question related to this year's theme of food security. Each team was challenged to develop a pitch that proposed a solution to the question of "What accessible, impactful, and scalable solutions can post-secondary schools implement to improve food security for students on campus?". Congratulations to the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ team, Good2Go, who placed third for their on-campus grocery store that aims to address affordability and accessibility to food products for all students.
Learn more about the Experience Ventures National Hackathon competition.
This course provided students the opportunity to engage with Agnes in a pivotal year of change as the new, future-oriented vision for the museum, Agnes reimagined was mobilized. In multi-disciplinary teams, students went behind the scenes to help reimagine Agnes and what the 21st-century museum can be. By researching online collections portals as co-creative spaces, reimagining how, what, why and for whom information about the collection is shared and displayed online, students produced research reports, prototype interfaces, activities for Digital AGNES to inform a new cutting-edge collections portal being implemented by the museum.
Learn more about .
This course gave students the opportunity to be involved in the pilot Youth Advisory Council of Agnes Etherington Art Centre and engaged them in developing the future of Digital AGNES through brainstorming new templates and initiatives. Students participated in hands-on activities and gained professional experience in an innovative institutional environment, leading to active and collaborative learning opportunities across disciplines.Students researched online collections portals as co-creative spaces, innovations in digital publishing, uses of AR/VR and mixed reality experiences, and interdisciplinary digital lab spaces within museums. Students then produced research reports, and prototype interfaces and activities for Digital AGNES to inform new cutting-edge templates being implemented by the museum.
The Department of Chemistry recruited students from outside of traditional science programs for 3 ‘students-in-residence’ positions:
Students worked with chemistry researchers in an interdisciplinary research environment, learnt about the fascinating ways our scientists worked on to create a better world, and contributed their unique perspectives and methodologies. Not only did students gain practical and professional experience, they also had the opportunity to connect with members of the Queen’s Chemistry Innovation Council (QCIC) which provided them with a forum for idea exchange, advice for innovation, and a network to potential employers in global industries or agencies related to chemistry and science.
The McDonald Institute partnered with Experience Ventures for unique virtual student placements that focused on building innovation networks, future preparedness, and making an impact. (Un)Hacking Downstream Consequences was a deconstruction of the typical hackathon. The event occurred online over 10 days between February 22, 2022 to March 3, 2022 with both synchronous and asynchronous pieces. This non-competitive event focused on championing collaboration and good-will amongst participants. Students were placed in small cross-disciplinary groups to brainstorm unique solutions to problem sets held by Institute-identified problem holders. The goal of the experience was to develop and apply entrepreneurial thinking and skillsets for resiliency, opportunity recognition, action orientation, risk management, systems thinking, and trans-disciplinary thinking.
Is your company interested in participating in an entrepreneurial thinking placement? Download our info-sheet or contact asc.el@queensu.ca for more information.
