Conferences, clubs, and hackathons give you a chance to dip your toes into innovation and entrepreneurship in whatever industry you are passionate about.
Fall 2024 Sponsorship Applications are now closed. Decisions will be emailed to applicants the first week of October.
Sponsorship
DDQIC sponsors student-led conferences, events, and initiatives that align with our mandate to support innovation and entrepreneurship at Queen's and in the Kingston region.
There are 2 applications released each year (you can only receive sponsorship once every year):
- Fall Sponsorship - applications released July/August, applications close September
- Winter Sponsorship - applications released November/December, applications close January
Ways to Get Involved
If you are interested in exploring entrepreneurship and innovation, learning new skills and putting these skills to practice, there are a number of relevant clubs, conferences and events you can get involved in:
A community of student, academic and business leaders committed to the use of entrepreneurial action to transform lives and shape a more sustainable world. Through financial literacy, environmental sustainability, entrepreneurial, personal and professional development, we strive to improve the lives of individuals within not only the Kingston community, but on a national and global scale.
The Queen’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Committee (QEIC) aims to educate aspiring student entrepreneurs about the world of entrepreneurship while providing mentorship to bring their innovative ideas to reality. Through the use of real-life cases, development workshops, networking opportunities with industry professionals, and collaboration amongst delegates, they help students build the foundation to create their own futures.
Queen's Women in Computing (QWIC) is a community for all women, underrepresented minorities, and anyone who is passionate about technology and share the same values of equality.
The Queen’s Software Developer’s Club is set to be a collaboration of students from every faculty on campus participating in both recreational and competitive hackathons, computing competitions, and other development projects. On campus, their goal is to initiate talks and tutorials on project management, programming, and project design. Off campus, they participate within Major League Hacking events other hackathons, and other Computing competitions.
Sudo is a Not-for-Profit based in Kingston with the mission to create a community where women can learn to code together. Let's get coding.
Engaging Young Entrepreneurs started in 2018 as a youth-run, non-profit organization founded by Myra Chan and Sarah Hesp in Kingston, Ontario. Their goal is to help all youth get a grip on business and entrepreneurship. The club strives to open up students’ eyes to business and entrepreneurial resources in the community, encourages the discovery of new opportunities and pathways, while aiming to inspire leadership, creativity, and innovation.
QHack's hosts Queen's University's annual hackathon. Join over 500 hackers, speakers and mentors to create, learn and share your ideas all virtually this year! Attend workshops, take part in hacker challenges, meet industry professionals, and some new friends. Out-of-the-box thinkers, creatives, and innovators from all faculties and skill levels are encouraged to attend.
Queen's Healthcare and Business Conference (QHBC) hosts debates, workshops and keynotes to provide delegates with a unique experience discussing aspects of the healthcare and business industry. They plan to spark a vital dialogue about the evolution of healthcare and business by providing a dynamic space for industry, academic, and student leaders to connect and collaborate.
QMIND is Canada’s largest undergraduate AI and machine learning organization with over 200 members and a portfolio that includes 30+ client-facing consulting teams, a published AI research wing, an extensive full-year educational program, a first of its kind incubator program, and a 300 delegate conference held annually in Toronto, ON.
Queen’s Startup Summit (QSS) is a student-run club founded in 2013, in partnership with the Queen’s Innovation Centre. Through its events, QSS provides student entrepreneurs with the opportunity to collaborate, compete, and realize their potential. The event is designed to be the first step in exploring entrepreneurship, so students from all faculties and years are welcome to participate. The Summit pairs together the most innovative minds around Ontario, for a fast-paced competition – it’s an event you don’t want to miss.
The Queen's Venture Law Society (QVLS) was founded to facilitate connections within the field of entrepreneurship and inspire students to think innovatively about the law. QVLS aims to expose students to the commercial and social value inherent to entrepreneurship through a variety of events that will engage with lawyers from emerging business groups, venture capitalists and new business owners in our communities. QVLS will provide a balanced exposure to everything the field has to offer- from a big-firm perspective to a community-centered style of social entrepreneurship.
TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that work to bring communities together to share a TED-like experience. TEDxQueensU is an independently organized TED event that unites the Kingston and Queen’s University communities. At their event, TED Talks and local, live speakers will be combined to spark deep discussion and connection among our attendees.
Composed solely of undergraduate students, our team is dedicated to organizing a competition where bright undergraduates compete for prizes that can transform their businesses. Competitors will also meet fellow young entrepreneurs from around the world, as well as learn from professionals, investors, and each other. Each year the competition receives numerous business plan submissions from around the globe, and the top 15 teams are selected to pitch their business plans to a panel of Canadian business leaders, competing for over $80,000 in prizes for the top pitching entrepreneurs.
Debuting its transformational journey in 2008, Queen’s Leaders Engaging in Change, previously known as Queen’s Conference on Philanthropy, has brought together students from across the nation to lead, engage, challenge and empower delegates to take action within their communities and achieve positive change. QLEC strives to inspire delegates with a memorable weekend comprised of stimulating speakers, workshops and activities.
The annual Commerce and Engineering Environmental Conference (CEEC) CEEC is a unique event presented through a partnership between the Smith School of Business and Smith Engineering. The conference welcomes students from all faculties from Universities across Canada. CEEC brings together the brightest 150 students from a wide range of academic backgrounds to face the ever-growing challenges and opportunities of environmental sustainability.
Join Queen's Commerce and Engineering Environmental Conference
The Global Biomedical Design Conference aims to target health related topics on a global scale. Personal comfort and quality of life impact everyone across the globe on a daily basis. This is why the GBDC has decided to aim its focus on the overall quality of life in countries where access to resources necessary for improvement may not be as readily available as they are in developed nations. We work with the intent to discuss current limitations to progress and to introduce individuals to a systems oriented way of designing solutions that will solve a variety of global issues.
Twenty-five years ago, QWIL began as a women in financial markets conference that aimed to empower and inspire young women to pursue their career goals in this field. As they have evolved, QWIL has expanded to include a wide diversity of industries, engaging voices across faculties, universities, and genders.
The National Undergraduate Genetics Symposium is an event that allows undergraduate students to showcase their research achievements in genetics and molecular biology and gain valuable experience in research presentation and communication. Students will have the opportunity to present powerpoint presentations or research posters of their research done during the undergraduate degrees.
The Queen's Vertical Farming Team (QVFT) is Canada's first undergraduate engineering team of its kind. Recognizing this rapidly emerging industry, QVFT is designing and building a functional, software-automated aeroponic vertical farm on Queen's University campus. The majority of existing research in this field is conducted privately and is thus inaccessible to the public. Through its open-source approach, QVFT aims to democratize vertical farming knowledge and research. Their 25 alumni and 8 current members come from diverse academic disciplines and represent all four years of study.
The Sustainability Hub is an interactive learning experience that promotes a circular economy by encouraging individuals to repair, reuse, and recycle their items instead of buying new, while working with the Queen's and Kingston communities towards a collective climate action. During their events, Queen's students, faculty, staff and the Kingston community can bring items that need to be repaired or correctly recycled.
The CIC Kingston Local Section is an organization working towards creating a community for chemical professionals in Kingston and the surrounding area. As a subsection of the Chemical Institute of Canada, our goal is to form strong connections between chemists, chemical engineers, and chemical technologists at all stages of their careers within Eastern Ontario through networking, mentorship, professional development, and outreach events. CIC Kingston is made up of a passionate group of students, faculty members, and industrial professionals who share a common goal - to create stronger bonds in the Kingston chemical community.
We envision the CIC Kingston Local Section to act as “The Chemical Hub” for our community!
The Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Association (CEGSA) unifies the chemical engineering graduate student community, organizes social events, and ensures a mechanism for graduate students to communicate questions and concerns to the department. CEGSA's goal of building a sense of community and camaraderie amongst fellow graduate students is greatly benefited by being inclusive to a wide range of students and a diverse array of viewpoints regarding our department.
The Queen's University Engineering Sustainable Solutions and Technologies Competition is designed to foster a culture of innovation and empower the future generation of Queen’s students to become advocates for positive change. The competition challenges members to think creatively and produce innovative solutions to real-world problems. Through this initiative, delegates will have the unique opportunity to connect with industry experts and receive valuable mentorship to enhance their critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. The aim is to inspire and equip Queen’s students with the ability to create sustainable solutions and have a positive impact on society and the environment
The Queen's Conference in Business and Governance (QCBG) aims to give students the opportunity to enhance their leadership, awareness and social engagement in governance and business relations. QCBG provides resources from and connections to the worlds of business and government by connecting students with industry professionals through networking sessions, interactive workshops, panels and insightful keynote speakers.
QSIA's Social Innovation Startup Pitch Competition is a day-long competition designed to ignite a passion for generating positive societal change through transforming innovative ideas into tangible realities, while showcasing and supporting impact-based startups through exposure and advancement opportunities.
QWeb or Queen's Web Development Club is a student-run club for all things web development, including frontend, backend, design, and everything in between. Join us and learn the fundamentals of web development like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript over our fall education tutorial series. Also, sign up for our winter term development sprint, where you will get the chance to develop a website for a local Kingston Organization or Queen's Club. All students interested in web development looking for education, experience, or to meet new like minded peers are welcome to join our club!