It’s not every day that we get to welcome a group of 20 international visitors through our doors, yet our newly launched Pioneer Program provided us the opportunity to do just that. Technology and innovation businesses from Vietnam, Iran and Brazil landed at Spark Centre for an immersive two-week program that gave individuals the opportunity to understand what it takes to do business in Canada.
During the two weeks, businesses met with advisors and experts in sales, marketing and finance, and took part in sessions delivered by our Elite Partners at Durham Recruiting, HMA Benefits, Roughley Insurance, Wilson Vukelich LLP, and Bereskin & Parr LLP. We also had our Silicon Valley partners, GrowthX, deliver engaging and interactive workshops on market acceleration.
A key part of the program was introducing what Durham Region has to offer individuals and businesses. During the second week, we took our visitors on a tour of Durham College & Ontario Tech University introducing them to the ACE Climatic Wind Tunnel, the AI Hub and all the innovation & technology labs onsite.
It wasn’t all business during their stay. We took the cohort down to the Distillery District so that our guests could visit the Christmas Market. On our last day with our pioneers, we did a tour of Durham to show them a little more of what we have to offer in our great region. The feedback we received is our visitors found the program insightful, invaluable and eye-opening.
Plans are already underway for our next cohort of international business in the new year! Thank you to all our partners and advisors for helping us to make this a reality.
