by Ida Viani | Jun 8, 2021 | Canadian Social Enterprises, Front Page, Post-Secondary, Social Enterprise, Social EnterPrize, Trico Charitable Foundation, What's Next YYC
Founder and CEO of aGRO Systems Inc. (aGRO), Victoria Ross, found her passion through wanting to solve a problem that struck close to home. Victoria’s father has been a beef cattle rancher for almost 50 years. While completing her Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of Calgary, Victoria found that around half of all Canadian farmers need a second job to make ends meet, similar to her family’s own experience. This spurred the creation of her social enterprise, which provides service and grain bins to breweries, distilleries, and cideries to transform their waste into affordable livestock feed that is sold to local farmers. aGRO is helping make family farmers more profitable, improving the global food system, and reducing carbon emissions from livestock.
by Ida Viani | Mar 17, 2021 | Canadian Social Enterprises, Front Page, Post-Secondary, Social Enterprise, Social EnterPrize, Trico Charitable Foundation, What's Next YYC
Co-Founder and CEO, Carrie Gour and Co-Founder and COO, Beth Thompson created PwrSwitch as a result of trying to solve their own problems. Unfortunately, they both experienced a high conflict divorce and when lawyers asked for documentation, Carrie and Beth, like many others, could not keep up because of the volume of communications. PwrSwitch supports victims of cyber-stalking and cyber-harassment including those experiencing a high conflict divorce or separation by providing a means to effortlessly collect and consolidate the electronic communications evidence they need to seek legal restitution or therapeutic counsel. PwrSwitch realized the extreme need for automated documentation.
by Ida Viani | Mar 1, 2021 | Canadian Social Enterprises, Front Page, NU Board, Post-Secondary, Social Enterprise, Trico Charitable Foundation
The Trico Charitable Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of the NU Student Social Entrepreneurship Awards. These awards will be given to student social entrepreneurs in 2021 and are meant to celebrate the best and brightest student social entrepreneurs in Alberta. The NU Awards joins a number of Trico Charitable Foundation initiatives, such as What’s Next YYC and the Social EnterPrize, in advancing Alberta as a leader in social entrepreneurship.
by Ida Viani | Jan 19, 2021 | Canadian Social Enterprises, Front Page, Post-Secondary, Social Enterprise, Trico Charitable Foundation
Social entrepreneur Aishwarya Khanduja firmly believes in pursuing her passions to their fullest extent, and there are plenty of examples of her doing so. The Trico Foundation had the privilege of working with Aishwarya when she joined the team as 2019’s summer student social entrepreneur, where she developed her social enterprise LoopEducation as she brought her venture through our A.S.E.S.S. process.
by Ida Viani | Jan 5, 2021 | A.S.E.S.S., A.S.E.S.S. TLC, Canadian Social Enterprises, Events, Front Page, Investment Readiness Program (IRP), Post-Secondary, RECODE, Social Enterprise, Social EnterPrize, Trico Charitable Foundation
Happy New Year! The start of 2021 gives us the opportunity to reflect and learn from 2020. Although 2020 came with its many challenges, the past twelve months were busy, historic, and made great progress in advancing both social entrepreneurship and Calgary’s role as a hub for social entrepreneurship.
by Ida Viani | Dec 10, 2020 | Front Page, Post-Secondary, RECODE, Social Enterprise, Trico Charitable Foundation
Over the month of August, 20 Mount Royal students from 15 unique programs on campus took part in the inaugural Social Entrepreneurship Sprint (MRU Sprint) hosted by the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The five teams ended the five-week Sprint with interesting social enterprise ideas that can be launched through the Institute’s LaunchPad program. A few of the students were ambitious enough to enter into a second Sprint, the Student Entrepreneur Sprint with Platform Calgary (Platform Sprint), in September. We had a chance to chat with three of the students, Leah Pottinger, Shargeel Hayat, and Avery McLellan on their social entrepreneurship journey with the two Sprints.
