Among the nine Team Canada athletes to be awarded Game Plan Scholarships to build their business skills were two familiar names to the Lions pride. Two time Olympians Oluseyi Smith and Oluwasegun Makinde will be returning to the classroom over the coming months as they further their education at the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University.
Smith, just one of 12 athletes to represent Canada at the Winter and Summer Olympics, will enroll in the Executive MBA Americas – a 17-month program leading to Master of Business Administration degrees from both Queen’s University and Cornell University. Smith qualified for his first Olympic Games in 2012, representing Canada in the 4×100 metre relay in London. After failing to qualify for the Games in Rio, Smith took his speed and power from the rubber tracks of athletics to the icy tracks of bobsleigh. As a member of Justin Kripps four-man crew, Smith helped push Canada to a sixth place finish at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang.
A professional engineer, Smith, received his bachelor and masters degrees in electrical engineering from Loughborough University in the United Kingdowm and had been working for AltaLink in Calgary for six years before returning home to Ottawa last spring to work as a distribution engineer for Hydro Ottawa. In addition to his professional activities, Smith also served on the Canadian Olympic Committee’s Board of Directors, serving as Chair of the COC’s Athlete Commission, and is currently a Young Leader with the International Olympic Committee.
Makinde, a long standing member of Canada’s 4×100 metre relay program was part of both the 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams. The 29 year old Makinde will be pursuing his Master of Management Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Smith School of Business – a 12 month program designed for those who will start, grow, or drive new ventures whether in a start up or inside a corporation. Makinde, who graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Marketing from the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management in 2014, has become an accomplished public speaker alongside his athletic pursuits including speaking at this year’s McMaster University TEDx Talk. In addition to his public speaking duties, Makinde currently hosts two podcasts and volunteers as a member of Athletics Canada’s Athlete Council and the Diversity & Equity Advisory Committee of AthletesCAN.
The Smith School of Business scholarship program is one component of the COC’s Game Plan, Canada’s total athlete wellness program, helping athletes plan for success beyond sport. This new cohort of successful applicants will join the network of over 130 elite Canadian athletes who have been awarded academic scholarships since the program began in 2016