Supporting Entrepreneurs in Oxford County

Wednesday, 13 April 2016 14:16

The Oxford Youth Entrepreneurship Partnership Table has been created to encourage and support entrepreneurship in the County.

The Oxford Small Business Support Centre has teamed up with 11 organizations in Oxford to create the Oxford Youth Entrepreneurship Partnership Table.

OYEPT's goal is to encourage and support entrepreneurship throughout the County. The group includes Oxford Workforce Development Partnership, Community Employment Services, Woodstock District Chamber of Commerce, Fusion Youth Centre, Fanshawe College- Woodstock Oxford Regional Campus, Rural Oxford Economic Development, Woodstock and Area Small Business Enterprise Centre, Meridian Credit Union- Woodstock location, Fractaline Terrarius, Oxford Young Entrepreneurs Advisory Committee and Future Oxford.

They recently received a $36,000 grant from the Ministry of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure which they had to match in kind. Program Coordinator with he OSBSC Lindsay Wilson tells Heart FM most of the money was used to hire a consultant to find out what it is like to be an entrepreneur in Oxford.

"And how we can improve what it is like to be an entrepreneur in Oxford, so entrepreneurs came to focus, came to the DesignJam and really kind of laid out what the best community might look like and how we can support them. Cultivating entrepreneurship and fostering entrepreneurs has been repeatedly identified by several stakeholders as far back as the Oxford Workforce Development Partnership Strategy in 2011 and the Refresh Strategy 2015 and as recently as the Future Oxford Community Sustainability Plan, released 2016. Building an entrepreneurial culture requires a widespread, collaborative effort and this report will give us some explicit direction on how to move forward with collective impact and the economic needs of Oxford in mind.

The report will be released during their speaker series on April 21st at the Woodstock Art Gallery.