Scott Stirrett, a Canadian graduate from Georgetown University, noticed various acquaintances, classmates, and a roommate apply to a novel organization called Venture for America that promoted entrepreneurship. Although Stirrett himself could not apply because he was not an American citizen, the existence of Venture for America prompted him to ask, “What about trying to create this in Canada?”

In 2012, Stirrett — following the Venture for America model — founded Venture for Canada, a non-profit organization that he describes as a “career accelerator.” The program recruits promising recent Canadian university graduates and matches them with positions in emerging start-up companies, with whom the selected graduates — known as fellows— complete a two-year work placement.

The organization recently selected its inaugural class of 20 fellows, which includes two University of Toronto students, Anna Afshar, a Rotman Commerce student, and Isabelle Dutil, a recent graduate of the MHSc in Clinical Engineering program from the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto.

Stirrett says the organizations plans to hold another Fellow Selection Day in March, where they will select approximately 10 more fellows.

According to Stirrett, the hope is that, instead of following the well-traveled route of pursuing a Masters of Business Administration degree and working for an established company, successful candidates may launch into personally tailored careers just after finishing their undergraduate degrees.

According to Stirrett, fellows are “passionate about what they do, intellectually curious, well rounded, empathetic.” However, they must also know how to “fight for themselves,” due to the tenuous nature of entrepreneurship.

Stirrett adds that successful start-up companies are “innovative enterprises” that can be scaled up, or replicated, because they do not face the constraints borne by traditional businesses.

Since the best start-ups have high growth, Stirrett says that these businesses will become a major source of employment and job creation in the future.

“Let’s say I open up a software business. Let’s say I currently have five customers. But I have the potential to have five-hundred thousand customers in two years,” Stirrett says.

He explains that the ability to replicate is one of the key differences between a start-up and a small company, even though both types of businesses may use limited resources and hire fewer people than “big” businesses.

However, “big” companies like Facebook still qualify as start-ups, Stirrett says, since they are branching out of their primary products and have not yet achieved a flat growth rate.

For this year’s cohort of fellows, Stirrett is planning a training camp during May, with help from Queen’s University.

He says one of his immediate goals is to match fellows with start-ups.

Editor’s note: Anna Afshar is an advertising executive at The Varsity.