ACOA Provides Assistance for New Centre for Enterprise and Entrepreneurship
The Honourable Joe McGuire, Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) today announced a $1.69 million contribution to the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI) for the establishment of the Centre for Enterprise and Entrepreneurship (CEE).
The physical structure will involve a 20,000-square-foot facility adjoining the UPEI School of Business Administration. Key features will include a biotech hall, a 350-seat lecture theatre as well as a range of meeting rooms. The space will have resources for training, networking, incubation, business development, conferences and biotechnology industry events.
The work of the CEE will support and promote PEI's strategic sector priorities including biosciences, tourism, diversified manufacturing, food development and information technology.
"Initially the centre will focus on the bioscience cluster. In fact, the CEE will be the hub that will coordinate efforts of learning institutions, industry and government in the development of the bioscience cluster," said Minister McGuire. "If Prince Edward Island is to be a leader in entrepreneurship or any field, we must constantly be looking to the future, and finding ways to do things more creatively, more efficiently and with better results."
The CEE is also the catalyst for a new beginning for the School of Business Administration. A renovated Marian Hall will become the new home of the School of Business Administration and a focal point will be the CEE. Work on both the CEE and the business school is expected to be complete by Spring 2006.
"The CEE will be a major catalyst in achieving a new generation of entrepreneurship at UPEI and on Prince Edward Island," said UPEI President Wade MacLauchlan. "ACOA's financial support for the CEE combines with other investments in innovation and research to create an outstanding knowledge economy success story."
