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.
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.
For students around the world whose lives and studies have been upended by the pandemic, it was important to them to see their projects through to the finish. Over the course of three days, 150 students from all over the world came together virtually to present issues they care deeply about.
On May 28th, 2020, four amazing panelists from social enterprises around Alberta shared how they are finding opportunities to survive and serve as small-medium sized businesses during this unprecedented time of COVID-19.
Amidst all of the changes to everyday life due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Map the System (MTS) Canada had the amazing responsiveness to think differently itself and evolve the program to a virtual competition for the 4th edition of the Canadian finals.
Bow Valley College has been a crucial partner for the social entrepreneurial space in Calgary and has engaged in a wide range of entrepreneurial activities in collaboration with the Trico Charitable Foundation.