Community Futures BC has received funding approval to deliver Industry Canada’s Small Business Internship Program http://www.communityfutures.ca/sbip/index.php (click link for further details on the program).

The Small Business Internship Program provides small and medium-sized enterprises financial support to hire a post secondary student intern to assist them in their adoption of e-business strategies to increase their productivity and competitiveness.

A significant number of SMEs are currently simply connected to the Internet or are passively on-line, and might not be taking advantage of the possibilities offered by e-business. The Small Business Internship Program seeks to improve the competitiveness of SMEs by supporting businesses to actively market on-line and improve their competitiveness with e-business practices and technologies.

Community Futures Central Okanagan is pleased to announce a new youth entrepreneurship program entitled Youth Means Business. The program is targeted at youth aged 18-29 who are unemployed and not Employment Insurance (EI) eligible and have not had an EI claim for the past three years (5 years if maternity claim). Those that are accepted into the program can expect:

Looking to sharpen your marketing edge? The Food Innovation Centre of BC is offering Food Marketing 101, a four-part workshop series to help producers and processors refine their marketing approach.

"Food marketing is different from any other kind of product marketing because it’s so emotional," says program facilitator Bill Henderson. "Understanding the fundamentals of food marketing and building a plan allows you to go out into the marketplace with confidence and achieve your business goals."

The half-day (9 am-noon) workshops will be delivered in four independent modules. Each session will build towards a specific goal or action plan that participants can apply to their business.

The series starts Thursday, March 15. The first workshop will focus on the fundamentals, including:

October 13, 2011

Federal Funding for Okanagan Valley High Tech Market Expansion

Kelowna, B.C. - Community Futures Development Corporation of Central Okanagan has received $60,000 from Western Economic Diversification, through the Rural Economic Development Initiative (REDI-BC), for the Okanagan Valley High Tech Market Expansion Project. This project is a continuation of the successful working partnership between the Central Okanagan Economic Development Commission, Community Futures of Central Okanagan and the Okanagan Valley High Tech community.

“The High Tech Market Expansion builds a foundation for exciting new economic opportunities in rural BC,” said Kelowna-Lake Country MP Ron Cannan, on behalf of the Honourable Lynne Yelich, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification. “This initiative will accelerate the diversification of the Okanagan Valley economy and will enhance competitiveness of our local high technology sector. It will also create jobs and grow the economy.”