How to Start an Atlantic Canadian Entrepreneurship Revolution

UNB professor Dr. Dhirendra Shukla is on a mission. He wants to help transform the Atlantic Canadian economy through an entrepreneurship revolution. The Scale Up Atlantic Canada initiative is his latest effort.  

Dr. Shukla convinced one of the world’s leading thinkers about entrepreneurship and rapid growth, Dr. Daniel Isenberg, to partner and they have put together an impressive program to help ambitious entrepreneurs achieve their high-growth potential. 

Dr. Isenberg is the CEO of Entrepreneurship Policy Advisors, a celebrated author, global investor, former professor at Harvard Business School, and current professor (adjunct) at Columbia Business School. 

In this wide-ranging conversation, Isenberg and Shukla push back against some of David’s conventional views of entrepreneurship and bring some interesting new ideas to the table. Shukla and Isenberg discuss the Scale Up Atlantic Canada program, its recent successes, and the new cohort starting in July this year.

The bottom line? They believe there are anywhere between 2,000 and 4,000 companies in Atlantic Canada with the potential to scale up and build world-class companies. If only a fraction of these companies make it big, the impacts on our regional economy would be profound.