Building for
A competitive future
From basement hustles to boardroom plans, we’ve been busy building against the odds. Now it’s time to Build Loud.
Who we are
The Black Entrepreneurship Alliance (BEA) is a Community Economic Development organization (CED) that works on the ground to amplify and advance Black entrepreneurs, founders, professionals and the diaspora in Northwest Toronto and beyond. We engage directly with communities to help them achieve inclusive innovation and local economic power.
We do this through entrepreneurship programming, talent development, applied research, and events, giving thinkers, doers, and creators access to strategic partnerships and improved economic infrastructure.
Founding Partners + Funders
BEA started with a simple belief: talent was never the problem. Access was. Founded in 2021 by Black Creek Community Health Centre, YSpace, and the York U-TD Community Engagement Centre, with FedDev Ontario as the founding funder, BEA was built by institutions that showed up for the community. Today, we carry that vision forward: Black entrepreneurs and professionals building, owning, and leading.
Driven by devotion.
Powered by Truth
The Toronto–Waterloo Corridor powers a $360B+ economy, but it consistently bypasses Northwest Toronto, home to extraordinary Black and racialized talent. For too long, these communities have been systematically cut off from the networks, funding, and infrastructure that fuel Canada’s innovation economy.
The Black Entrepreneurship Alliance is building an inclusive economic ecosystem big enough to flip that script. We’re here to invest in Black potential, reshape Black futures, and support the risk-takers, change-makers, and builders of our communities in the loudest ways possible.
More than just an initiative, the Black Entrepreneurship Alliance (BEA) is an active force for wealth creation, self-sovereignty, and lasting, self-sustaining economic prosperity in Northwest Toronto and beyond.
The Barriers We Face
Build Against The Odds
Research shows what Northwest Toronto has been living through, that opportunity has been concentrated elsewhere, leaving their neighbourhood with higher unemployment, lower wages, and shrinking middle-class stability. The BEA exists to disrupt that cycle, confronting the uneven geography of innovation and investing where the data proves investment is most needed.
Northwest Toronto vs. The Enemy
The brilliance of Northwest Toronto was never in short supply, but access, opportunity, and recognition too often have.
Despite the talent, Northwest Toronto has been deliberately left out of the innovation map, and this exclusion isn’t accidental. It’s the product of what we call the enemy: a system of geographical bias and exclusive networks that keep opportunity locked in a few hubs and out of reach for many.
The enemy
A combination of ingrained practices, biases, and structures that unfairly concentrate innovation resources (funding, networks, opportunities) in limited geographic areas and within exclusive social and professional circles, often reinforced by characteristics of the Canadian innovation landscape.
The rise of
Toronto’s “Third City”
Decades of research confirm what our communities live every day: Northwest Toronto is the epicenter of concentrated disadvantage.
The concept of the “Third City” comes from a landmark 2010 report by Dr. David Hulchanski at the University of Toronto, which documented the city’s transformation from a primarily middle-class city into a polarized one. Hulchanski projected that, absent intervention, low-income “City #3” neighbourhoods would grow from 40% of the city in 2005 to nearly 60% by 2025, concentrated in Toronto’s northwest and northeast corners.
That projection year has now arrived, and the data has tracked the forecast: by 2015, low- and very-low-income neighbourhoods already made up 39% of the GTA, up from 21% in 1980 (United Way, The Opportunity Equation, 2017), and follow-up research found no sign of the trend reversing. Northwest Toronto remains a primary location of this “Third City,” facing systemic barriers to economic opportunity.
66% → 29%
Shrinking middle class
Toronto’s middle-income neighbourhoods dropped from two-thirds in 1970 to less than one-third by 2005. (Source: Hulchanski, U of T, 2010)
19% → 53%
Rise of Low-Income Areas
Low-income neighbourhoods more than doubled between 1970 and 2005, concentrated in outer suburbs like Northwest Toronto. (Source: Hulchanski, U of T, 2010)
14.1% vs. 9.4%
High unemployment
Black Creek’s unemployment rate in 2021 was nearly 50% higher than the Toronto average. (Source: City of Toronto, 2021 Census)
39%
Nearly 4 in 10 GTA neighbourhoods are now low or very low income, up from 21% in 1980, with the losses concentrated in Toronto’s inner suburbs. (Source: United Way Greater Toronto, The Opportunity Equation, 2017 update)
3.3.x Higher
Nearly half of workers in Toronto’s inner suburbs are employed in low-wage jobs, compared to far fewer in central areas. (Source: United Way Toronto, 2014)
36
Toronto’s 36 innovation hubs are concentrated downtown, and support falls off sharply in the inner suburbs, especially the northwest corner: one of the city’s most economically depressed and demographically diverse areas. (Source: Innovation Economy Council and City of Toronto, A City of Entrepreneurs, 2021)
From then to now
Meet
The Team
Olu Villasa
Program Manager
Nunu Francisco
Program Officer, Startup and Technology
Kanishia Mensah
Program Officer, Talent Development
Mary Olabanwo
Senior Marketing and Creative Lead
Board of Directors
Cheryl Prescod
Board Chair
David Kwok
Director
Byron Gray
Director