College Boreal offers assistance with e-business.

• Author: Stewart, Nick
• Position: SUDBURY

With the rise of e-business and the advent of the Internet as a go-to reference tool for newer generations of consumers, business-assistance programs such as Student Connections as offered through Sudbury's College Boreal are becoming increasingly prevalent.

As a program offered through Industry Canada's Youth Employment Strategy, Student Connections seeks to hire knowledgeable post-secondary students to assist small- and medium-sized businesses with a variety of Internet-related training and assessment services. These include the analysis of existing company websites, direction on how to implement various e-business features such as electronic payment, and how to improve a company's Internet security features.

"It's all about streamlining business optimization," says Patrice Dubreuil, Student Connections coordinator, College Boreal.

College Boreal is just one of 14 post-secondary institutions across Canada participating in the program, and the only one with the mandate to deliver services in both of the country's official languages. Dubreuil credits this fact to the school's broad provincial reach, with coverage of an estimated 85 per cent of Ontario.

The program recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, with nearly 200,000 small business having been helped nationwide. College Boreal has been active in the program for the last six years, with nearly 190 students having been hired to assist nearly 7,400 businesses throughout Northern Ontario, including Sudbury-based Trillys Communications. Yorkshire Bed and Breakfast and Ground Control (Sudbury) Ltd.

"Businesses need to start mastering the tools or risk being left behind," says Dubreuil. "It's practically mandatory that they learn how to position their business on the Internet and to know where to look for...