To truly appreciate the uniqueness of the JEDI Aboriginal Business Accelerator Program, it’s a good idea to spend time with Cameron Paul.

Paul is the Economic Development Officer at the Joint Economic Development Initiative, or JEDI, which fosters economic growth for First Nations communities. In the spring, JEDI hosted the 10-week accelerator to teach business fundamentals to a group of aboriginal founders. And Paul, a Maliseet originally from the Tobique First Nation, stresses that the program was a key ingredient in helping the entrepreneurs flesh out their ideas and develop roadmaps to get to market.

But all accelerators fulfill such a role. In this case, there is a cultural gap between the aboriginal and business communities, and the accelerator brought them together to work at launching businesses.

But there’s even more to it than that. Paul, who has been with JEDI for four years, explained that people living on reserves do not legally own their homes. That means that native entrepreneurs who need capital can’t draw on equity built up in their homes – an option that is open to Canadians who don’t live on reserves. These types of impediments, he said, make the work of JEDI and the Aboriginal Business Accelerator essential in developing First Nations’ entrepreneurs – these organizations understand dynamics that aren’t familiar to run-of-the-mill accelerators. 

“I think that it’s definitely a revolutionary program,” said Paul. “We’ve definitely taken a risk in taking on this program, but we have established that there is a need for a high-level program like this.”

The Aboriginal Business Accelerator is the first accelerator of its kind in the country, and the story of how it all came together in January of this year is rather surprising. It is actually part of JEDI’s New Brunswick Aboriginal Shipbuilding Engagement Strategy, which was launched in 2014.

Governed by the four Aboriginal Tribal Councils in New Brunswick, JEDI is a not-for-profit that supports Aboriginal participation in the economy. It works with all levels of government and the New Brunswick Business Council. A few years ago, JEDI decided that something should be done to help Aboriginal businesses to participate in the multi-billion-dollar federal shipbuilding program awarded to Irving Shipbuilding of Halifax in 2011.

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So JEDI came up with a program that worked with various partners to help indigenous business people to gain work from the shipbuilding contracts. It mentored participants, for example, on how to gain the needed certification and respond to a request for proposals. But something was still missing. The group was generating some interesting ideas for innovative products, so the organizers decided they needed a vehicle to teach business fundamentals and product development. They launched the tech accelerator with the goal of teaching entrepreneurship for the defense and aerospace sector.

The surprising part comes when you meet some of the eight teams of entrepreneurs in the first cohort of the accelerator, which are not your typical defense and aerospace companies.

Consider Melissa Lunney, the founder of a startup called AppDigenous. As the name suggests, the company is developing apps. Specifically, Lunney is working on a cell phone app that would help disabled people to open doors. Many entries in public spaces have doors that open when someone pushes a button; but the location of the button often forces someone in a wheelchair to reverse or maneuver their wheelchair to get through the doors. AppDiginous is an app that automatically opens the door when someone approaches it with their cellphone.

Or consider Melvin Nash from Oromocto First Nation. Nash is the founder of WaterMoc One Power Corp, an Aboriginal-owned business that is developing a river turbine that can provide green energy. Nash has been working on the project for about eight years and has come up with a design for a device that floats on the water and produces an exponential gain in power the larger the turbine blade.

“We’re keeping it in line with the goal of preventing climate change, and it’s the most eco-friendly device there is because it doesn’t destroy any fish,” he said. “It is about as close to perfect as anything out there.”

WaterMoc One has been collaborating with the local researchers and post-secondary institutions to optimize its technology and create a prototype to demonstrate how its concept is a step ahead of any river turbine technology on the market today. The company will be concentrating on developing the technology so that it is scalable, green and economical.

JEDI Shipbuilding Strategy Manager Mark Taylor agreed these may not be typical “defense and aerospace” ventures. However, he said companies in the defense and aerospace field have a variety of needs. And the new government in Ottawa is demanding that there be a cleantech component to companies doing business with the federal government.

“If you talk to anyone in aerospace and defense these days, they’ll tell you that a huge area is technology with mobile platforms,” said Taylor. “And cleantech is heavily desired.”

Nash, Lunney and the other entrepreneurs entered the program with plans for what they wanted to do, but none was an experienced entrepreneur. Nash, for example, describes himself as an inventor who has a long career in putting his mechanical know-how to work solving such problems as how to clean commercial quantities of fiddleheads.

The eight teams met regularly at the National Research Council offices in Fredericton, going through a series of seminars.  Learnsphere, a New Brunswick-based training organization, facilitated the training and Dale Thibodeau of DJ Thibodeau and Associates was the lead instructor. The group also worked with community partners like the Pond-Deshpande Centre and business groups like Lockheed Martin Canada and the Saint John River Valley Tribal Council. Each entrepreneur was paired with a mentor with some experience in their business sector. Lunney, for instance, was paired with Trevor Bernard, an experienced programmer who has worked for three companies that have had successful exits.

Taylor said JEDI is now putting together a five-year plan, the amount of time needed to make sure the program evolves. It will include partnerships with other startup groups in the region like PropelICT, the regional accelerator. The next cohort is already being planned to take place in Planet Hatch, the entrepreneurship centre in Fredericton.

The entrepreneurs not only want to see their ventures succeed and generate profits. They also hope their success will put them in a position to give back to their communities. “We’re all trying to figure out ways to include First Nations in our businesses because they’re all in need of revenue,” said Nash. “And we can do it in ways that allow us to grow responsibly.”

Eventually, the JEDI organizers hope the program will include a fund to help provide seed financing for native startups. The long-term goal is to add the financing component on to the program that has helped entrepreneurs like Nash and Lunney to begin their entrepreneurial journeys.

“They offered this course to us and we learned so much,” said Lunney. “By the time it was over, I thought, I wish I could have taken it a long time ago.”