Incubation in the Quartier de l’innovation: Centech opens its doors to McGill’s budding entrepreneurs

The Centech, a technological incubator in the Quartier de l’innovation, now welcomes applications from McGill students.

Submit your application by September 19, 2013.

A unique incubator

The Centre de l’entrepreneurship technologique (Centech) is a business incubator created by l’École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) in the 1990s to help students and graduates who want to start their own companies.

We are pleased to announce that the Centech has now opened its programs to the McGill entrepreneurial community, as part of several new initiatives through the Quartier de l’innovation. This gives McGill students and graduates an unparalleled opportunity to take the first steps toward becoming entrepreneurs as well as to collaborate with undergraduates and graduate students from other institutions.

As opposed to the majority of incubators, the Centech stands out for its willingness to accept business ideas during their preliminary stages. Projects are selected based on the quality of their concept or a prototype that has promising market potential. Moreover, the program helps guide aspiring entrepreneurs from the start-up of their business all the way to the commercialization of their products.

Take your idea to the next level

Through the Centech, McGill students and graduates now have access to these services: 

• Accommodation: Start-ups that require a working area can apply for space within the incubator, located in the Quartier de l’innovation, at favourable and progressive rates. Offices and workshops include furniture, computers, hardware, electricity, phone with IP line, and more.
  
  
• ÉTS’s resources: Participants can benefit from the use of ÉTS’s laboratories and specialized equipment, and there will be plenty of opportunities to collaborate with existing projects and activities.
  
  
• Technological mentorship: Highly specialized McGill and ÉTS faculty, staff, and technicians will be available to consult on the technological feasibility of nascent ideas and prototypes.
  
  
• Business advice: The Centech’s team and network of multidisciplinary advisers helps entrepreneurs with the development of their company on many levels, including by providing feedback on business plans, funding research, strategic planning, commercialization, implementing accounting systems, and producing financial forecasts.
  
  
• Financial support available for prototyping: The Centech Fund invests in all sectors of activity, up to $150,000 per company.

Get started

To apply to the Centech, all you need to do is: 

• Develop an idea, a concept, or a commercial prototype;
• Form a multidisciplinary team;
• Be in your last year of your bachelor’s degree or have already graduated;
• Inform the QI team of your intention to apply by emailing isabelle.pean [at] mcgill.ca;
• Submit your application by September 19, 2013 at www.etsmtl.ca/Services/Centech/Soumettre-projet
  [The form is only available in French, but it can be completed in English if you prefer.]