IQALUIT
Five Iqaluit high schoolers are taking Bay Street by storm, chosen as this year's participants in Bay Street Bootcamp, a five-day summer course in Toronto.

Last year's top winners Caitlin Chua, left, Sahhara Leckie and Iqaluit student Katie Devereaux with Jr. Economic Club of Canada president and founder Rhiannon Traill after the trio won a $10,000 scholarship for their project to turn shipping containers into homes. - photo courtesy of Jr. Economic Club of Canada

Started four years ago, the program brings 50 high school students from around Canada together with CEOs and financial leaders to learn about financial literacy, entrepreneurship, anti-bullying, stress management and more.

Throughout the week, students work on a business plan, culminating in a trade show where students pitch their ideas to the panel of 'Mega Minds' judges -- business executives who select the ideas they would invest in. The top groups then pitch their ideas to a panel of experts and an audience, including their peers, parents and guests.

"We've had all sorts of incredible business ideas come through. We've had everything from apps that help students with homework and studies ... people are coming up with environmentally friendly ideas, new services and businesses and so it's just been a whole host of things," said Jr. Economic Club of Canada president and founder Rhiannon Traill, who host the event.

The best business plans will win scholarships and prizes -- this year the academic scholarships are worth around $15,000 in total. The program is completely free for students, with everything from flights to accommodation and meals included.

"My final project was a make-up app. Not really ideal, totally stereotypical for two teenage girls to come up with this, but I believe that many would have used it," said Cassidy-Ann Netser, one of the Iqaluit students who attended last year's Bootcamp. Her project didn't win, however she did win an award for her excellence and perseverance at camp.

"We like to try and teach the students about what social enterprise is, and social entrepreneurship. So creating a business that has a product and a value that also serves a social good, as well," said Traill. This is where many students from the North shine, coming up with unique ideas to tackle the complex realities of the Arctic.

Last year's first place business plan, created by Iqaluit student Katie Devereaux and teammates Caitlin Chua and Sahhara Leckie, was a plan to create "box homes" from shipping containers used to transport goods things to the North. For their efforts, the team won a $10,000 academic scholarship.

But for Traill, the relationships made during the program are the best part. Last year students came from the Greater Toronto Area, Ottawa, Rama First Nation, Wikwemikong Reserve and Iqaluit.

"Students make friends with kids that they wouldn't have otherwise met. I think that there's something so powerful in that," she said.

For Netser, the best part was something else. "I think I got confidence I was lacking out of the program. I didn't know what I wanted to do when I grow up, and I was too shy to talk to new people. Jr. Economic Club of Canada really helped me in that department," she said. "In the program I've learned how to present in front of judges, and I've learned how to create projects and work with other people. It may seem like small things, but it has definitely helped!"

Traill says the goal is to help students learn skills to get themselves career ready, exposing them to new ideas from across Canada. Which, she says, is one of the reasons they're eager to include more Nunavummiut-- while the program is still only offered to students from Iqaluit, she says eventually they'd like to expand to other regions.

"There's a need definitely, I think that there's a gap. Students from the North don't always get to have these experiential learning opportunities as much as kids in the south do. You know, there's lots of programming in the south for kids where they can come to Bay Street for a day, but in the North, just because of the geographical distance, it's sometimes hard to get students into those programs, and there hasn't always been the funding and the support for it," she said, adding that while it's open for any Northern student, they hope to have more Inuit youth involved. "A lot of kids in the North also are really thinking in an entrepreneurial way. They want to think about creating their own products, they want to think about marketing some of the things that they do, because it's an option that's viable. That's why it's important."

Netser says that getting more involved in the business world is something that's important not just for students but all Nunavummiut. "I think it's important for Nunavummiut to work in business like this. It helps give confidence," Netser said. "It also helps us interact with people outside of Nunavut, gives us good people skills. And it helps us with our leadership skills."

But it's not all a one-way street. Just as Northern students are exposed to the south, southern students get a chance to learn something about another part of Canada.

"It really opens the eyes and the horizon of these students to start dreaming a little differently and even bigger than they thought about what their future holds," said Traill.

Bay Street Bootcamp goes from Aug. 22 to 26.

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