For students like Miles Leslie and Jade Shi, Western’s new Ronald D. Schmeichel Building for Entrepreneurship and Innovation is the place to turn their ideas into real-world solutions.
Open to the entire Western community, the state-of-the-art, net-zero facility is home to Canada’s largest maker space available to all students across all faculties, as well as staff, faculty and alumni. It’s equipped with everything from woodworking and metal tools to sewing machines and 3-D printers, plus plenty of open space for collaboration.
Named in recognition of a $10‑million gift from Western law grad and Canadian entrepreneur and financier Ron Schmeichel, JD’95, it brings together the university’s key entrepreneurship programs, including the Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship, Powered by Ivey, along with its incubators, accelerators and networks.
Leslie is a fourth-year medical sciences student and Shi, a third-year nursing student. Both are members of the Founders Program, which provides entrepreneurial education, mentorship and a $20,000 tuition bursary.
Shi sees the Schmeichel Building for Entrepreneurship and Innovation as a place to create a tool or business to address health-care system inefficiencies. “The more I learn about nurses advocating for patients and policy changes, the more I believe health-care providers should collaborate with the entrepreneurship community to drive real change.”
Leslie shares a similar vision for the new building. “I truly believe in the power of entrepreneurship to change this world. This dedicated space can help to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs, by teaching them to embrace creative problem solving and the mindset to adapt through challenges.”
