Are you thinking about entrepreneurship but are a little nervous about the industry? Have you been wondering what it’s like to pitch an idea to investors? Do you want to see young entrepreneurs in action? If so, get inspiration from skilled entrepreneurs by watching them present innovative ideas and solutions at a pitch off event. Use entrepreneur competitions and events as an opportunity to get to know yourself as an aspiring entrepreneur and grow in the community. Here are some benefits you can gain just from attending networking events, pitch-off competitions, and more!
Learn from Leading Experts
The best advantage you can have as an aspiring entrepreneur is learning from those that are in the same journey as you. See for yourself what it's like to be in a higher level stage of the entrepreneurial journey. Take note of how these experts present themselves, their business, and their innovative solutions to key stakeholders such as investors, funding partners, and potential customers.
Get Inspiration from Like-Minded Entrepreneurs
If you are starting your entrepreneurial journey, inspiration and creativity is key to help you get started. If you are struggling with brainstorming, take inspiration from upcoming and rising trends within the industry and community to help kickstart your idea generation process. The best ideas are the ideas that people know and care about. So be curious and dive into areas that will inspire and motivate you!
Connect With Your Community
Attending networking events is the best way to connect with the entrepreneurial community. One of the most important benefits of networking is being able to meet influencers in your industry along with people in similar positions as you. This will give you valuable insight on your industry and community by having connections with people that may be able to share their knowledge and provide you with unique opportunities.
Motivation to Get Started!
The best way to get started with something you are passionate about is putting yourself in the perfect environment! Why not throw yourself right into it! Being exposed to people and situations that can help you grow to the entrepreneur you want to be can be extremely motivating!
If you want to take advantage of networking opportunities, check out The Impact Innovation Challenge Pitch Off Event happening August 24 and watch teams pitch their impactful ideas to create change in the world! Use this as your opportunity to grow as an entrepreneur and begin your journey. Check it out here to register and attend the free live event!
Our Annual Impact Innovation Challenge for young entrepreneurs across Canada has been mindblowing. Youth innovation is alive and rising! This year, the Impact Innovation Challenge consists of 3 categories of different kinds of ventures: Aspiring, Growth, and Non-Profit Entrepreneurs. The challenge focuses on entrepreneurs building a social impact venture and will pitch their startup and startup ideas for a chance to win cash, mentorship, legal support and coaching prizes to boost their startup. Thank you to our partners for supporting youth in Canada. These prizes are made possible by our cash prize partner SAP, RBC, Hootsuite, Osler, AO, Scale Collaborative and more! A special thank you to our submission review committee, our judging panel and Volition for offering pitch training for our finalists!
Here are the finalists that you’ll be seeing at our Impact Innovation Challenge 2021!
Aspiring Ventures:
The Aspiring Category represents aspiring entrepreneurs with brand new ideas that focuses on their idea and solution to their problem. This category is suited for youth exploring entrepreneurship for the first time and have been working on their problem and solution for less than a year! Here are your aspiring entrepreneurs!
Transition Space
Meet the Transition Space Team, Will, Charlotte, Caleb, Lindsay, and Sarah! Transition Space is an online hub dedicated to helping Ontario youth navigate the adult disability system. This team takes a collaborative approach to provide information on components of the disability system, share personalized community resources to connect youth to the adult disability system, and facilitate conversations between youth, families, and care providers.
Cequest
Meet Devinder, Founder of Cequest! Cequest has a vision to create a place where children can walk outside and breathe in clean air where biodiversity thrives both on land and sea. Cequest brings a solution with the potential to sequester over 10 Gt of carbon dioxide per year by 2050. Cequest sequesters carbon to produce clean hydrogen fuel as well as a bicarbonate that can be released into the ocean to combat ocean acidification.
Orwell
Meet the Orwell Team, Veer, Pranav, and Jai! Orwell is the world’s first anti-social media platform! Their goal is to mitigate social media addiction in an accessible manner allowing for the improvement of both mental health and productivity in youths and adults alike. They are a non-profit technology company committed to transforming mental health for everyone.
PALcares
Meet the PALCares team, Dylan, Darby, Sasha, and Luke! PALcares provides social good impact for community members who struggle to obtain relevant and applicable support and for government and non-profit stakeholders who lack the infrastructure to address service gaps, service duplication and sector inefficiencies. PALcares guides the community with an online interface that connects them to a personalized list of relevant social supports.
ClinicalVR
Meet the ClinicalVR team, Andrew, Kalter, Sanchi, Tyvaughn! ClinicalVR utilizes virtual reality (VR) technology. They are an early-stage start-up trying to change the lack of VR in clinical practice by providing hospitals and outpatient clinics with VR headsets, VR software which includes VR experiences developed based on patient and healthcare provider feedback, and VR support/training.
Kaptis
Meet the Kaptis Team, Anupra, Taira, and Riya! Since the beginning of the climate crisis, carbon dioxide has been viewed as a pollutant we need to remove. Kaptis views it as a resource. The Kaptis team is aiming to build a reactor that can convert captured carbon dioxide to valuable solid carbon products, with a focus on graphene.
MODASTY
Meet Roaa, founder of MODASTY. MODASTY will be the only online marketplace for modest fashion. Inspired by the shopping challenges of all women who shop for modest fashion, MODASTY will aggregate modest and islamic inventory from brands and boutiques all over the world and bring it into one online space for one seamless checkout. MODASTY is the Amazon of modest fashion.
Growth Ventures
The Growth category represents entrepreneurs at an early stage for profit impact business that have been operating for less than two years and have validated their model through early traction! Meet your Growth entrepreneurs!
FlutterCare
Meet Dolma, CEO and Founder of Flutter Care Inc., a digital health company based in Vancouver, B.C. whose technology promotes positive pregnancy experiences and outcomes. Flutter Care, a new technology designed to predict and prevent pregnancy complications, has received recognition from 8+ institutions. This includes the Canadian Medical Association, British Columbia’s Medical Device Development Center, and Innovation UBC. In 2020, Flutter Care was announced as a winner of Startup Canada’s SDG Impact Pitch Competition for their work to advance gender equality.
Apricotton
Meet Chloe Beaudoin and Jessica Miao, Co-Founders of Apricotton! Apricotton is a Toronto-based teen bra brand that helps girls across Canada and the U.S find bras that fit and make them feel confident. They eliminate the awkwardness of going to the store to buy a girl’s first bra. Most importantly, they design bras tailored to every girl’s body type, so that they can grow as she grows.
Typha Co.
Meet Alec and Julien, Co-Founders of Typha Co. Typha Co. vision is to ultimately bring production in-house by deploying the first of its kind Typha bio-refinery, which will integrate a spectrum of bio-based products (chemicals, materials, feed) and bioenergy (heat, electrical power, biofuels). They are empowering the collective good to solve Lake WInnipeg’s environmental crisis!
PEKO Produce
Meet the PEKO Produce Team, Arielle and Sang Le! Peko Produce delivers "peculiar" products to your doorstep for up to 40% off retail prices. Peko Produce purchases otherwise unsold “imperfect” produce from farmers and brokers at wholesale, providing them revenue that would have otherwise been unrecognized and discarded. They then compile all the varieties of produce into a box, sold at a fixed cost to the consumer at a heavily discounted price (in contrast to other retail grocery stores). Their mission is to empower access to affordable, healthy diets and rescue local food waste, one delivery at a time.
Reusables.com
Meet the Reusables Team, Anastasia and Jason! Reusables was founded to help eliminate single-use plastics from our daily routines. Despite the convenience of single-use plastics, they present a threat to our planet and we would prefer to live in a world without them.They decided to break down the barriers between private, public and academic institutions and design a robust solution that is reshaping the way we consume.
Hydronos Financial Technologies
Meet the Hydronos Financial Technologies Team, Jeremy and Philip! Hydronos establishes and offers an investable tokenized product for small-scale, sustainable infrastructure. The digital security, which uses blockchain technology to represent a tradable asset, enables private retail investors to invest in an asset class that had been previously difficult to invest in due to lack of liquidity, high transaction costs and limited transparency.
ROVR
Meet the ROVR Team, Anthony and Kyle! ROVR is a VR Social Network that connects people based on common interests, mutual friends, and groups. ROVR enables the coolest thing about Social VR (and the Metaverse): that you can meet really interesting people easily, for free across any distance, and naturally befriend them. As VR hits the mainstream, ROVR will bring niche communities together, starting with the power VR users of today. When people make friends in VR, or bring their IRL friends to VR, they become power-users and realize the potential of Social VR. ROVR will be the social glue of the Metaverse.
Non-Profit Ventures
Meet your Non-Profit Entrepreneurs! This category represents early stage impact driven nonprofits that have validated their model through early traction.
Free Periods Canada Foundation
Meet the Free Periods Canada Foundation Team, Zeba and Niki! Free Periods Canada Foundation is a grassroots, youth-run, registered non-profit organization. They are focused on fighting menstrual inequity and period stigma in Canada. Their solution is a unique integration of technology and community engagement in the field of menstrual equity advocacy, which does not currently exist in Canada. This tool can also be used as a networking opportunity for those interested in menstrual activism to connect with each other and other sexual and reproductive health experts.
Threading Change Foundation
Meet Sophia, Founder of Threading Change Foundation! Threading Change is a youth-led not-for-profit organization envisioning a future where fashion is ethical and circular, rooted in justice with climate, gender, and racial equity at the forefront. They work at the intersections of consumer education and industry transformation through our tri-impact model of education, innovative storytelling, and policy research.
Warrior Yoga Network
Meet the Warrior Yoga Network Team, Casse and Jesse! Warrior Yoga Network is a worldwide network of yoga and meditation teachers taking action to create a more inclusive and accessible yoga community. They are solving for the barriers that prevent people from accessing yoga and meditation as wellness practices. These are financial, social, cultural, geographic, physical barriers that prevent people from accessing wellness practices. These problems exist largely because the commodification of the wellness industry prioritizes profit - because of this, various systems of oppression are replicated and many people are left behind.
Youth Helping Youth Non-Profit
Meet Anjali, Founder of Youth Helping Youth Non-Profit! Youth Helping Youth (YHY) is an international organization that promotes youth development. YHY aims to bridge the accessibility gap of resources and opportunities (scholarships, jobs, volunteer positions, tutoring resources) available to youth in low-income communities through easily accessible digital marketing platforms such as Instagram or Facebook.
Break the Divide Foundation
Meet the Break The Divide Team, Sukhmeet and Abhayjeet! Break The Divide solves the challenges of apathy, denial, and polarization about issues through connection. They provide a space for young people to come together and connect with one another through genuine and intentional conversations. They help tackle the problem of the difficulty of tackling global issues by helping students focus on the challenges from local perspectives.
Accesso Canada
Meet the Accesso Canada team, Kath, Katie, Abigail, Tejas, Cecilia, Jim, and Gloria! Accesso Canada is a student-run collective of over 40 members from various backgrounds and interests. Based in Toronto, Accesso is focused on making the city more accessible through in depth reviews on how accessible malls and stores are across the GTA. Accesso Canada is not only an organization to promote the awareness for accessibility needs but also one to promote the youth voice and perspective regarding various issues.
Viability (Rebranding to Neurodivergent Futures)
Meet the Viability Team, Eliana, Vale, and Annanya! Viability is a youth-led organization dedicated to empowering neurodivergent youth in work, school, and life and supporting businesses in becoming more neuro-inclusive. Having operated in a disability space for 3.5 years, Viability has grown to offer a range of services including employment coaching, leadership programming, recreational programming, educational workshops, process consulting and community events. Unlike most other organizations in this space, they are disability-led and peer-to-peer, with 70% of our core team members identifying as neurodivergent.
Wow! We are blown away by the sheer number of ideas and innovation there are in this group of astounding finalists! Along with the diversity of applicant ideas and applicants residing from coast to coast of Canada. Now that you have met all the finalists, get ready to watch their amazing pitches at our Live Free Pitch Off event! This is a Pitch Off you don’t want to miss!
The finalists will present their impactful and innovative ideas for prizes on August 24, 2021. Come listen to the top teams pitch to a panel of judges for amazing prizes (including up to $5000 per category) and mentorship opportunities! Each category will be in its own breakout room and audience members can choose which room they’d like to attend! Click here to register and get access to the event! Support your community and favourite finalists!
Starting your first business can be intimidating and is not the easiest thing that you will ever do! However, it very well may be one of the most rewarding things that you do. As an entrepreneur, you have the power to disrupt, innovate, and shape a better world! Your inspiration will likely come to you least expect it! For the founders of Batch 3.0 of Foundations, this was finding a way to reduce loneliness and companionship during COVID-19, discovering the power of being present while enjoying a cookie that you baked, or seeing the damage one-use coffee cups have on the world’s environment. These are just some of the fantastic stories that came out of Foundations Batch 3.0. Often the most challenging part of starting a business is frankly deciding to “just start.” The thought of starting a business can be overwhelming and daunting, and that is why the League of Innovators (LOI) is here to help!
If you have not heard of LOI before, we are a national charity that fuels the fire of young entrepreneurs through various programs at all stages of their business! Foundations came to fruition to make entrepreneurship less intimidating and more attainable. We do this through expert guidance on starting a business and connecting youth with a community of like-minded people! Foundation is a 6-week program that provides knowledge, resources, tools, and mentorship to help take their ideas to action. It truly takes a village to launch and scale a business. The League of Innovators is here to support and make connections!
That is enough about us! Let’s start to dig into some of the fantastic founders we had the honour of working with within Batch 3 of Foundations. Batch 3 of Foundations consisted of 38 Ventures and 58 Entrepreneurs under 25 years old. These ventures came together from 8 different provinces from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Victoria, BC. Our founders came to Foundations with various business ideas, from selling unique crafts at farmers’ markets to apps, service-based businesses, and more! To help show you what is possible in just three short months, I want to share three founders’ stories from Batch 3.0 of Foundations.
Serge Livingston - Founder of Treaźe
The first story we would like to share is Serge Livingston, the founder ofTreaźe. Treaźe is a fun family adventure company based out of Kelowna, BC, that run treasure hunts. So how does it work? Easy, you buy a map fromTreaze.co, and on the hunt day, you hit the streets of Kelowna and search for clues (locks with QR Codes), the first to solve the riddle wins a prize. It is a safe and fun way to social distance and bond with friends and family. So how did Serge come up with this idea?
When Serge was a child, his father used to plan Treasure hunts for him and his siblings; it was simply a buried chest with pop and popcorn. Jump forward ten years, and COVID-19 hit, and times are tough! Serge decided to start running Treasure hunts for his friends and family for fun. Then he had the idea, “ why don’t I do this for the public as a business.” Serge joined Foundations in October 2020. Throughout the program, Serge worked diligently to get Treaźe off the ground. By the end of Foundations, he won our Founders Pitch Competition and was a week away from his first treasure hunt. Jump ahead three months; Serge is continuing to crush it, having run two treasure hunts with over 500 participants; he has two full-time employees and four interns! He is continuing to improve his hunt by working on an interactive app for the hunts. His next treasure hunt is on February 15th, so if you are in Kelowna, BC, buy your map now!
Tanya Griffiths - Founder of Being Baked Cookies
Next up is Tanya Griffiths, the founder of Being Baked Cookies. Being Baked Cookies bakes and sells gourmet cookies with a unique handwritten message to promote being present. In the summer of 2020, Tanya decided to leap into entrepreneurship. She did not feel confident in her experience and knowledge of launching a business. That is when she was referred to LOI by a friend. In her time in the program, Tanya was challenged and kept accountable continuously, making her more confident and supported while digging into problems that she can solve and what she wants to achieve as an individual and a business. By the end of Foundations, Tanya has sold over 200 cookies in the Greater Vancouver Area and continues to grow. You will soon find Tanya at Farmers Markets across Vancouver and working closely with local non-profit organizations that provide mental health and mental health illness resources.
Angelica Tso Co-Founder BYO
The third story we would like to share is Pricilla Lam and Angelica TSO, the BYO founders. BYO was started to reduce the waste from single-use coffee cups, eliminating waste from landfills. They plan on tackling this problem by creating a mobile-based incentive program that rewards patrons for using reusable coffee cups when ordering at cafes. COVID-19 added some obvious struggles into their business development as most coffee shops temporarily do not allow reusable coffee cups. However, that did not stop the duo!
Priscila Lam Co-Founder of BYO
Through the Foundations program, Angelica and Pricilla tested and validated their idea through customer research and interviews with both users and coffee shops. Through this experience, they have made the most out of the situation and now have a very clear gameplan moving forward to build and launch their minimum viable product. Today the BYO team is looking to expand as they gear up to develop and launch their MVP. Hopefully, as COVID-19 restrictions start to subside, you will see BYO in coffee shops near you!
We are incredibly proud of all the hard work that every member of our 58 founders of Batch 3.0 has put in this past fall! We are even more excited to be continuing to work with all Batch 3.0 ventures as they launch and scale their businesses in the months to come!
Are you feeling inspired? Do you, too, want to start your own business? Don't wait! Check out out the Foundations page to learn more on how LOI can help you get started and apply for Foundations Batch 4 🙂
