Gaurav Jain is only 23 and already vice-president of business development for a cutting-edge mobile solutions company.
How did he get to be so successful at such a young age?
Jain and his classmate Kunal Gupta hatched the idea of Polar Mobile last year while still cramming for exams and completing work placements at the University of Waterloo.
The idea became a reality in February when Canada’s largest publisher — Rogers Publishing Limited — bought in to Smart Solution, an application they built that delivers content to consumers who use mobile devices such as the Blackberry and Apple’s iPhone.
But years before Polar Mobile was even on their radar, the two software-engineering students came up with an equally ambitious idea: A non-profit, student-led organization promoting entrepreneurship among Canadian youth.
“It’s your typical dorm story where we talked about it in our dorm room,” Jain says with a grin from Polar Mobile’s brand-new loft-style office space on Front Street.
He said they owe all of their success to Impact Entrepreneurship Group, which they founded and poured their hearts and free time into during the four-and-a-half years they spent as undergrads.
From there, Impact blossomed into what it is today: A 120-member strong, student-run organization with chapters across the country.
Gupta, who is Polar’s president and CEO, was in New York on business at the time of this interview but Jain says Polar Mobile is a direct result of the skills they acquired through Impact.
And though they’ve passed on the reins to student successors, they hope to encourage even more young entrepreneurs to follow their dreams.
“The world’s your oyster; you can make it as big as you want and it’s all up to you,” Jain said.
Ray Cao, Impact’s current 22-year-old president and fourth-year systems-design engineering student at the University of Waterloo, says at the college and university level, there’s a lack of education about resources available for young entrepreneurs.
“The biggest hurdle people find is they’ve got a great idea but they don’t know how to make it happen,” he said in a phone interview from Waterloo.
Team members at Impact — who are hand-selected and some of the country’s top young minds — help other students realize their potential by encouraging them to step outside their comfort zone and make something happen, he said.
As the organization’s website states, entrepreneurship has a broader meaning than its commonly accepted definition.
It’s a mindset toward life that can help “achieve any dream, no matter what it is” as long as the dreamer possesses three key qualities: Ambition, passion and determination.
