Theory and practise come together in safe environment


This is something really good.!!!
Eighteen business students at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., will soon have $3-million to spend -- and it's not Monopoly money.


Queen's University School of Business is offering an investment management course that is the first of its kind in Canada. Students will invest in startup companies with real money, drawn from the new $3-million TriColour Venture Fund.


-Students will work in teams to research and recommend investments of $50,000 to $150,000, and an investment committee of seasoned professionals will provide sober second thought. Parteq Innovations, the technology-transfer arm of Queen's, will manage the fund on a day-to-day basis

-The course is open to up to 18 students in the MBA for Science and Technology and Bachelor of Commerce programs starting next fall.(2005)

-"From the student's perspective, it's the ultimate in theory-meets-practise," says Elspeth Murray, associate professor and head of the Queen's Centre for Business Venturing. "What you learn in the classroom you actually get to apply, in a safe environment."

-The program was inspired by the University of Michigan's successful Wolverine investment fund, created in 1998. Dr. Tom Kinnear, a professor involved with that program since its conception, met with Ms. Murray and Queen's business school in 2001 to discuss whether the project would work in Canada. A former Queen's graduate himself, Dr. Kinnear provided the seed grant for the TriColour fund -- which has grown to $1-million with donations from alumni and friends of the university.

-Profits from student investments are to be reinvested, building their portfolio of offerings in new venture management. Ms. Murray hopes to create pools of capital to help start new companies and fund student internships.

-An average venture capital portfolio of 10 companies would produce two winners, Ms. Murray says, with several companies in the middle, and two clear losers. The best ones, however, would have five or six stellar performers, two in the middle and two losers.

The article in the newspaper can be found here.