Indigenous Business in Canada off to a great start
We’re sharing a few photos from the May 17 launch of Indigenous Business in Canada: Principles and Practices at the Membertou Trade and Convention Centre. It was quite the event.
Emcee Keith Brown, co-editor of the book and holder of the Purdy Crawford Chair of Aboriginal Business Studies, was joined by a number of excellent speakers, including Sr. Dorothy Moore, a Mi’kmaw Elder and scholar who was instrumental in creation of the Mi’kmaw studies program at CBU nearly twenty years ago. That program has grown into something substantial with the creation of Unama’ki College under Dean Stephen Augustine.
Describing the book’s genesis, Keith Brown said “In 2012 we reached out to dozens of Aboriginal post-secondary students from 19 universities in nine provinces in a series of roundtables. The students told us they did not exist in any textbook or case.”
“They were, in fact, invisible to anyone who studied business in Canada. The driving force behind this book was to give voice to these students and all future students about the realities of Aboriginal business in Canada.”
Indigenous Business in Canada addresses contemporary concerns and issues in the practice of Aboriginal business in Canada, reveals some of the challenges and diverse approaches to business in Indigenous contexts from coast to coast to coast, and demonstrates the direct impact that history and policy, past and present, have on business and business education.
The Chair, and its initiatives also received a boast from RBC on this occasion – a $ 500,000 contribution!
News of the book was picked up by a variety of media, including the Cape Breton Post, Information Morning on CBC Radio One Cape Breton and NationTalk. More to come, no doubt.
Photos by Vaughan Merchant, courtesy the Purdy Crawford Chair in Aboriginal Business Studies.
