About 90 novice entrepreneurs will gather in Fredericton tomorrow to go through the Bootcamp of the 2013 Breakthru competition, the biennial contest for New Brunswick entrepreneurs organized by The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation and the law firm Cox & Palmer.

NBIF Chief Executive Calvin Milbury said his agency this year received 47 applications to participate in Breakthru – a rise of more than 50 percent from the 31 entries for the 2011 competition. They feature a range of startup segments, including ITC, biotech and cleantech, and they come from all parts of the province.

“We’re pretty pleased with the turnout,” said Milbury yesterday. “A lot of the entries are in fact teams, so you get a lot of multi-disciplinary partnerships – business grads teaming up with researchers, etc.”

If history is anything to go by, what we'll see this weekend is the next wave of entrepreneurs in the New Brunswick startup community. What's especially interesting about this group is it is they are the first ones to enter Breakthru since Radian6 exited in March 2011, an event that ignited excitement in entrepreneurship in the region.  

The fourth Breakthru competition will assess viable business ideas and teams’ ability to plot their development and then execute on the plans. NBIF and a host of other sponsors have contributed a total of $406,000 in prizes for the top three entrants, making it the largest competition of its kind in Canada. The grand prize is cash and services worth a total of $192,000.

The first event in the competition is the Bootcamp, which will be sponsored by the New Brunswick Securities Commission. The session will be led by Barry Bisson, President of Shad Valley International, the program of science/entrepreneurship camps for high school students held every summer at 10 Canadian universities.

Bisson will deliver sessions detailing the use of lean startup canvasses and financial modeling, after which there will be six smaller sessions dealing with such topics as business accounting, legal issues and banking. The speakers include former Breakthru finalist Yan Simard, now the CEO of ZapTap, whose software allows consumers to “zap” a product label in a store with their smartphones, and immediately receive information on the product such as technical specifications, warranty information, etc.

NBIF will announce five finalists for Breakthru late next month, all of whom will be profiled on CBC television and Radio-Canada. Viewers will then vote on their favourites for the Viewers’ Choice award. That award and the overall winners will be announced at a banquet March 20.