Kevin Boylan slowly pours water onto the fire. Flames rise high in the sky. The audience gasps. Boylan reminds families at the fire station open day of the dangers of a grease fire. As with many firefighters, Boylan's role affords him time for another venture, in his case, as co-founder of Firecloud365. A cloud-based fire safety software company, Firecloud365 targets public sector and hotel industry clients with large-scale building works. As a start-up, Boylan and co-founder Ryan Bradley participated in New Frontiers, an entrepreneurship acceleration programme. The co-founders received mentorship support, funding, and incubation space in the CoLab on the Letterkenny Institute of Technology campus, Boylan's alma mater. The Institute was among the company's first clients, offering Firecloud 365 credibility in the marketplace. In return, the Institute secured a fire safety system to align with its risk management portfolio. Stories like Firecloud365 show the immense potential of our alumni capital for start-up business success. The alumni-alma mater as a symbiotic relationship in action.

Symbiotic indeed. A recent University of Toronto Instagram post included this attention-grabbing caption: ‘Did you know #UofT has helped over 350 start-ups scale and bring their ideas to market?’ When I fact checked this post two years later, this number had jumped to 500. Other universities can also boast this claim. The scale might be different, but the sentiment is the same: universities support business. Our alma mater provides the tools, knowledge, and support for us to allow our business acumen to shine. While entrepreneurial universities are not new, an emerging trend is the key role of the university in the local economy to foster business growth. As part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, universities offer start-up incubation space, research support, technology transfer offices, and technology parks. They support spin-off companies and acceleration programmes, even academic courses designed specifically to meet industry requirements.

Alumni Action 13: Remembering the university is a city – and a potential client

Let's cast our mind back to the ‘university is a city’ concept. Companies permeate the campus: stores, cafés, restaurants, banks. Look closer. The university also has virtual subscriptions from computer software to online publications.