Three years ago, social innovator Caleb Grove was inspired to start his first entrepreneurship project before he left for Bambalang, a small rural community in the North-West region of Cameroon. Caleb recently completed a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering (BSc Mechanical) at the University of New Brunswick (UNB).
Green Cup is a new project started by post-secondary student Austin (Ozzy) Lang and co-founded by his colleague Emily Bartlett. This for-profit endeavour aims to make a positive impact on the environment by creating compostable coffee cups. Calgary does not currently have a compost system, so these cups are thrown out in bins labelled with the Green Cup logo and instructions for disposal.
To commemorate the first official Social Entrepreneurship Day in Calgary, Trico Charitable Foundation is pleased to announce $700,000 in local social entrepreneurship programming.
“The existence of the Social Entrepreneurship Day Proclamation as well as the wonderful sentiments it contains (the Proclamation is attached to this News Release) are a fitting testament to the extraordinary momentum Calgary is gathering as a hub for social entrepreneurship” says Dan Overall, Director of the Trico Charitable Foundation. “We are honoured to both celebrate and support that momentum with this commitment to our home city.”
Our Q & A with Kody Baker, Founder and CTO of VeloMetro, discusses the founders’ social entrepreneurship journey, “Aha!” moments, the startup lifestyle, their vision that drives them, and much more.
It was an idea Julian Sharpe couldn’t let go – the devastation caused by the 2004 Mega Thrust Earthquake and Tsunami Wave in Indonesia. It didn’t help that the more research he did, the more he learned that this was a global issue, meaning it would happen again and in more places.
We are pleased to announce the five local social ventures that will be competing for $10,000 on September 16 as part of Social Entrepreneurship Day in Calgary (listed alphabetically):
Age-in-Place Laneway House
aGRO Systems
Bundles of Hope
Deepwater Farms
Green Cup
This is part of our series focusing on The World of Social Entrepreneurship, showcasing social impact stories at Beakerhead 2016. Our Q & A with Gavin Armstrong, Founder and CEO of Lucky Iron Fish, discusses his personal social entrepreneurship journey, the joy and challenges of pitching, the art of pivoting and much more.
Eden Full Goh, Founder of The SunSaluter, describes 2016 as a building year for The SunSaluter and many things that were put into motion a few years ago have finally come to life. Overall, the two major focal points Eden and her team have been concentrating on is getting their open source materials out and amplifying partnerships.
Recently, we had a chance to catch up with Shobhita Soor, Chief Impact Officer & Co-Founder of Aspire Food Group to find out what they have been up to for the past year. As with many budding and successful social entrepreneurs, the issue of disciplined focus loomed large.
As part of the Enough For All, a cohort of stakeholders came together to understand how they each support social entrepreneurship in Calgary. Working collectively, the cohort met in depth with nine social ventures and interviewed three others. The intent was to understand the wider social entrepreneurship support system in Calgary while seeking to strengthen the supports available to local social entrepreneurs.