The York Entrepreneurship Development Institute (YEDI) was ranked as the #3 University Linked Accelerator in North America at the 2015 UBI Global Awards. YEDI's mission is to provide free business education and mentorship to entrepreneurs to help build successful businesses. YEDI's President, Dr. Marat Ressin, believes benchmarks like the UBI Global award are important for the industry to understand its progress. After incubating over 100 startups and non-profits, attracting investments, YEDI recently opened an 80,000 square foot Business Acceleration Campus to support a diverse range of industries.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 4, 2015!
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CONTACT: Maria Konikov!
! ! Project Director !
! ! T: 647 919-YEDI (9334)!
! ! E: mkonikov@yedinstitute.org !
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Global Insights: YEDI receives award as #3 University Linked
Accelerator in North America – UBI Awards in North America
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TORONTO, ON, CANADA – On November 2 and 3, 2015, UBI Global and Ontario Centres of
Excellence (OCE) co-hosted a benchmarking conference & award ceremony for the 2015 top
performing university business incubators and accelerators in North America. The event was
held at TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King St W, Toronto, ON, Canada.
!The event highlighted best practices, hands-on-tools, analyses, success stories, and featured
inspiring presentations that allowed those who attended to network, learn from each other and
improve performance in order to enhance economic transformation and local, regional and
national development.
!The York Entrepreneurship Development Institute (YEDI) whose mission is to provide top-tier
free business education and mentorship to innovative entrepreneurs from any sector or industry
in order to build and accelerate successful businesses and efficient non-profit organizations,
ranked among the top 3 University Linked Accelerators in North America and #1 in Ontario.
!“We measure results to assess how we are impacting and improving the world through the
creation of effective and growing ventures” says YEDI President, Dr. Marat Ressin who was
unable to accept the award in-person as he joined Ontario Premier Wynne on her China Trade
Mission. He believes that the UBI Global Benchmark is an important tool for the industry to
understand where it stands and how to move forward.
!YEDI offers several programs to accelerate ventures and organizations including a joint
program with the Executive Education Centre of the Schulich School of Business (Incubator
Track) as well as Innovation York (Launch YU).
!After incubating over 100 start-ups and not-for-profit organizations who have attracted notable
investments in the past 2 years, YEDI recently launched its Business Acceleration Campus.
Committed to helping fuel high potential, high growth ventures, the 80,000 sq ft. facility is
complete with commercial, industrial, office, educational, TV studio and theatrical spaces to
serve a diverse mix of industries and needs.
2015 has been an exceptional year for North America’s incubators, the third largest region UBI
Global benchmarks in terms of sample size.
North American business incubators have attracted a total of $1.98b in investment. With regard
to deal flow North America as a whole accept 9.2k applications per year, equating to an average
of 154 applications per incubator.

2. In the last 5 years, North America’s business incubators have created 28.4k jobs (473 jobs per
incubator) and over the same time period generated $5.3b in sales, equating to an average of
$89m in sales per incubator. Although it has been in operation for only 2 years, YEDI has
managed to have a large impact on North America’s incubation and acceleration sector and
continues to do so with innovative programming and impressive results.
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Top University Business Accelerator
A Top University Business Accelerator is an accelerator managed or formal affiliated
with a university, that provide better value for the ecosystem and their startup clients
than their regional or global peers. They stand out from average-performing
accelerators with better outcomes on economy enhancement, access to funds and post
acceleration performance indicators.
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April 23, 2015!
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To whom it may concern, !
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I am writing you as President of the York Entrepreneurship Development
Institute (YEDI) to express my support for the residential housing project
that DANI is proposing. !
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DANI Director Ms.Kathy Laszlo is a current participant in YEDI’s Existing
Not-For-Profit Track which provides mentorship and education to leaders of
not-for-profit organizations in York Region. The program aims to provide the
education and resources necessary for organizations to become self reliant
and efficient.
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Given DANI’s accomplishments and current progress, I feel confident in
supporting the proposed social enterprise expansion with the inclusion of
community/residential housing.
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Respectfully yours,
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Marat Ressin, Ph.D,
President, York Entrepreneurship Development Institute