Program Overview
About BANFF Spark
Supported by Paramount+ in Canada, BANFF Spark offers training, and access to industry professionals and potential strategic partners to women entrepreneurs ready to scale up their own businesses in the screen-based industries. The program also seeks to empower women of colour, Indigenous women, women with disabilities, LGBTQ2S+ women, and non-binary individuals.
BANFF Spark will provide up to 25 selected candidates from across Canada with a tailored business planning curriculum, networking opportunities through a suite of virtual workshops as well as full access to the 2025 Banff World Media Festival.
For more information about applying to BANFF Spark, please visit the Eligibility and Submission Guidelines pages.
Why BANFF Spark?
With very few of Canada’s most prominent independent media companies primarily owned and operated by women, the overarching goal of this program is to result in more Canadian women-owned media companies.
It’s not only about economics. The vast majority of media businesses in the world are owned and operated by non-racialized men. It’s about the power that the media sector holds to tell stories, disseminate essential information, influence policy and change minds.
How would the industry change with more women, and specifically more Black, Indigenous, and women of colour, in ownership positions?
How would the world’s media – and indeed the world – change?
What to Expect
BANFF Spark will feature a curriculum designed to address the core components of business development. All program participants will receive:
- A suite of virtual workshops between October 2024 /February 2025.
- Networking opporttunities with an industry expert.
- A full-access pass to the 2025 Banff World Media Festival, a leading 4-day international industry conference and marketplace that provides a platform for the evolving media industry to develop its creative and business objectives ($1895 CAD Value).
- A $1500 CAD travel stipend to offset the costs of attending the 2025 Banff World Media Festival (on the condition of an in-person Festival).
- Supplementary resources/course materials
- A dedicated online peer networking community.
- Access and visibility within the Canadian and global media industry.
* BANFF Spark is a not-for-profit program; no capital funding is provided and we do not take equity in your company.
Application portal opens: August 2024
Application portal closes: August 12, 2024
Participant announcement: September 2024
Virtual workshops: October 2024 -February 2025
Banff World Media Festival: June 2025
