Investing in immigrants will pay off
It was not lost on many observers that the couple behind a promising new vaccine against COVID-19 is a German couple with Turkish roots.
Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci are the founders of the German-based company, BioNTech, which has been working for months with Pfizer. All made headlines last week when news broke that their vaccine was proved to be 90 per cent effective in its Phase 3 trials.
The announcement was remarkable not only for its possible global impact, but because it was another example of the immense potential that immigrant and racialized communities represent, despite the tensions that sometimes follow the opening up of borders and the efforts to address systemic racism.
Here in Canada, a recent Nanos poll showed only lukewarm support for the federal government’s recent commitment to raising immigration targets in the coming three years to help support the economic recovery post-COVID. That tepid support points to a lack of appreciation for the ways in which immigration drives economic innovation and job creation.
Furthermore, the German-Turkish couple’s breakthrough is yet another reminder of the importance of creating opportunities and removing barriers to economic success that can hold some communities back. In fact, experts and entrepreneurs here in Canada say one of the largest barriers here at home is the lack of access to capital.
Take Aminka Belvitt, a Black Canadian tech entrepreneur and immigrant who founded Wofemtech Solutions, a video conferencing platform she softlaunched this year. While Zoom is a significant competitor, Belvitt said her customer base is growing but she’s setting her sights on the U.S. where there are far more investment funds available to people like her.
“When you are a woman of colour, you have to start from scratch in terms of finding capital,” said Belvitt, who has participated in consultations around the federal government’s new Black Entrepreneurship Program. “In Canada, there are more government grants and government supports and some bank loans. Yet in the United States, there are significant funds for Black entrepreneurs that range from $500,000 up to a million and more.”
The lack of seed money available to newcomers and, specifically, refugees was the impetus for a collaboration between the Syrian Canadian Foundation and Jumpstart Refugee Talent, said Bayan Khatib, executive director at the foundation. Using a government grant to fund a training program and competition, the two organizations launched Her Startup and are raising $100,000 to incubate the winning project.
More than 180 refugee women applied to the program; 30 women completed the training and created teams to vie for the grand prize. A trio of Black refugee women won with their proposal to create a digital application that connects users with child-care services.
“Imagine a refugee claimant with no credit history, with no permanent address, trying to start their own business,” Khatib said. “How will they get a bank loan?”
Besides, most refugees aren’t able to bootstrap their businesses at all because they simply don’t have the same networks that more established entrepreneurs lean on, pointed out Mustafa Alio, managing director at Jumpstart Refugee Talent.
And there is empirical evidence that venture capitalists ignore certain communities, said Darrell Pinto, formerly with the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association and who delivered a business communications module as part of the Her Startup training. Changing perceptions is key.
A further complication, though, is that investors are often looking for fast, Silicon Valley-type growth, suggested Joanna Reynolds at the Centre for Social Innovation, part of the Women of Ontario Social Enterprise Network.
It’s clear that Reynolds and others are right in encouraging Canadian investors to view racialized, newcomer and immigrant communities as an untapped resource.
It’s a paradigm shift that could lead to untold discoveries, as well as diversify Canada’s financial success stories.