March 3, 2023 – RDÉE PEI: The dynamic duo of Geneviève Ouellette of Rollo Bay and Brent Chaisson of Miscouche impressed the judges the most at the finals of the 2023 Francophone Ignition Contest and earned a handsome investment of $25,000 to further develop their bilingual audio-visual production company, “On y va! Média”.
From the audience’s perspective at these March 2nd finals, organized by RDÉE Prince Edward Island and held in Abram-Village, the competition seemed extremely close. The other two finalist projects seemed equally viable; they were a high-end fashion producer and retailer, Swenn Workshops Inc. by Kristell Geffroy of Charlottetown, and a potato grating company, Spud Ventures Inc. by Marc Bastarache of Freetown.
Each of their seven-minute presentations and their 10-minute question-and-answer periods, in the style of the TV shows Shark Tank and Dragons’ Den, all seemed to be quite compelling.
The judges for the finals were Alfred Arsenault, chief operating officer of the Provincial Credit Union’s 10 branches, Char Doherty, owner of Mini Acres Farm and former owner of Chez Char restaurant, and Claus Schmidt, co-owner of MaiYa Pearls and general manager of CBDC Central PEI in Summerside. Their task was to select the entrepreneurial project they felt had the greatest potential of success.
Read the full news release here