Restart on Startup 101: NORCAT's Entrepreneurship 101 has rebranded as Startup 101 for 2016, all classes live this year.

• Author: Myers, Ella
• Position: SMALL BUSINESS

Sudbury's Northern Centre for Advanced Technology's (NORCAT) Entrepreneurship 101 sessions are no more, but they're living on in a more local format as Startup 101 this fall.

In previous years, the sessions were offered by NORCAT's Innovation Mill as a collaboration with a Toronto-based innovation hub, the MaRS Discovery District. This year, NORCAT partnered with the Sudbury Regional Business Centre, which helped develop their calendar.

While Entrepreneurship 101 was a 29-week program with courses divided between web-streamed lectures and live lectures, Hailey Short, NORCAT's communications specialist, said Startup 101 offers 25 weeks worth of live lectures with more local content.

"It's hands-on and more interactive this year," said Short.

"We try and mix it up a little, so we have 'lived-it' lectures where we bring in an entrepreneur to tell their story about how they became an entrepreneur, the highs and lows. The rest of the time we bring entrepreneurs who are experts in their field to : do lectures on one topic."

One of their speakers this year, Conway Fraser, has presented in previous years, but is looking forward to returning this year.

Fraser owns Fraser Torosay, a public relations company with offices in Waterloo, Toronto, and Sudbury, the latter city being where he started out after leaving a career at Sudbury CBC seven years ago.

His involvement started with a committee position at the Innovation Mill three years ago.

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"Don Duval, when he came in, he had this incredible idea to come up with this committee of mentors from different walks of professional life, and we're all volunteers, and our goal is to be there as mentors for tech startup companies, and to create...