Ten teams of students and entrepreneurs will vie for $10,000 in seed money in Startup Sunday, the highlight of the Halifax Entrepreneurship Expo, which culminates on March 21.

Philip Calvert, the head of Calvert Events and the organizer of this event, launched the fourth Entrepreneurship Expo on Thursday at St. Mary’s University.

The Expo comprises several events spanning 11 days all at the Cunard Centre, ending with the Dine with a Legend on March 21 which will feature an address by Arlene Dickinson, star of CBC’s Dragons’ Den. (The event used to be called Dine with a Dragon, but Dickinson is the third Dragon at the event and Calvert realizes he’s running out of the mythical creatures.)

“We’re doing this to help change the culture of entrepreneurship in Nova Scotia,” said Calvert at the launch. He said his main goal is to get young people – and not just university students -- involved in entrepreneurship. One-thousand tickets to the Daytime Expo on March 21 will be given to school children, in collaboration with the organization Kidpreneurs.

The series of events begins March 10 when 10 teams meet to begin the Startup Sunday competition. Each team, consisting of two MBA or EMBA students from St. Mary’s and one entrepreneur, will be given a market segment to establish a business in. They will spend an entire day working together on coming up with a business idea and plan. They can work separately for three days and then meet with judges for the first time on March 13.

March 21 is the main day of the Expo, and it features the final pitches of the Startup Sunday contest.

The Daytime Expo itself will feature 57 booths in a trade show for entrepreneurs and three 90-minute interactive sessions in which entrepreneurs work with peers and mentors to improve their business.

The Dine with a Legend dinner – for which 350 tickets have already been sold – will feature the address by Dickinson and the announcement of the Startup Sunday winners.

There are three events taking place in three provinces around March 18-24. As well as the Entrepreneurship Expo in Halifax, East Coast Startup Week will take place March 20-24 in Fredericton, and NewfoundOceans will be held March 18 to 22 in St. John’s.