Ideas with Impact
UNB Faculty of Management

At UNB's Faculty of Management, entrepreneurial and experiential learning gives students the knowledge and skills to solve real problems. Students wanting hands-on experience in new venture creation and entrepreneurship - at either the undergraduate or MBA level - have been doing amazing things in their community. 

MBA student Adineke Omolara is creating a circular economy digital platform for upcoming designers to tackle fast fashion waste due to overproduction. On Ecobosky, customers can buy new fashion on-demand and later resell, return, or recycle them, all on the same platform. Ecobosky is sustainable, affordable, inclusive, and Ultra-trendy. This one platform will meet all of her customer’s circular fashion needs. Adineke perfected the plan for this project in the New Venture Creation and Entrepreneurship course, offered by the UNB Faculty of Management MBA with a concentration in Venture Commercialization, Scaling and Investment.

Khaleem Shaik and his team worked on a project to enhance mental health for UNB faculty, staff and students. UNB plus – Wellness+ stream compared the resources at Canadian universities to determine what they provide to the students to assist them in their wellness education. They also consulted with UNB staff, students, and instructors to learn about their needs, leading to recommendations on mental health awareness and work-life balance. Their vision for UNB plus - Wellness+ stream includes the entire UNB community and focuses on mental health awareness and work-life balance. Khaleem worked on this project as part of the New Venture Creation and Entrepreneurship course.

MBA student Cassidy Hilworth combined her background in education and hockey with her business savvy to create Total Speed Hockey, a power skating, skill development, and goaltending program located in Fredericton, NB, that works with clients from three years old to adults. This year, in the UNB Faculty of Management New Venture Creation and Entrepreneurship course, she worked on adding a hockey facility to the programming that previously only included on-ice programs. The facility includes a skating treadmill and synthetic ice where athletes can focus on skill development and measure their improvement short term. “I am so excited to launch this in January 2023 and this course has been crucial for the new facility!” says Cassidy.

Twenty percent of electric vehicle (EV) charging happens on the road at "fast chargers", and the rest is typically done overnight at home. While existing fast charging infrastructure in the Maritimes enables an EV driver to reach every corner of the Maritimes, the stations are slow, sometimes unreliable, and sometimes incompatible with specific EVs. In the UNB Faculty of Management New Venture Creation and Entrepreneurship course, MBA student Regan Riordon has been developing a solution for this problem – a plan for charging infrastructure with integrated battery energy storage that will enable a charging station to have a smaller peak-power demand from the grid while still supporting the high-power fast charging that drivers expect. “This type of battery-integrated architecture will be necessary to transition to electrified mobility,” says Regan.

Learn more about our experiential management courses at UNB!