There are a growing number of events connected to social entrepreneurship. Many of them happen in our home city, demonstrating what an incredible hub of activity Calgary is. The Trico Foundation team is pleased to attend many of them and wish we could attend more.
This list from the last 30 days is our attempt to thank the hosts of these events and help get the word out about their great work:
- Unstoppable ideas with Jeremy Gutsche hosted by the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
on October 18th, 2016 - Lion’s Den Social Innovation Challenge hosted by The Soul of the Next Economy on October 18th, 2016. Congratulations to all the ventures and ideas that participated, and a huge congratulations to the recipients of the awards:
- 1st Place: Enable Your Community
- 2nd Place: Water Without Waste by Do it Green
- 3rd Place: Green Cup
- People’s Choice: Care Styling Training Institute
- Quadruple Bottom Line: Canadian Seniors Renovation Program by Dave Bonk, founder of Social Impact Entrepreneurs
- Delaney Sod Turning Celebration hosted by Trico Homes on October 20th, 2016
- Sector Social Calgary hosted by Imagine Canada on October 20th, 2016
- Thrive’s 2016 Community Huddle hosted by Thrive Calgary on October 27th, 2016
- Social Finance Forum (SFF) hosted by MaRS Discovery District on October 27-28th, 2016. SFF hosted three events that celebrated social enterprises:
- Social Venture Showcase:
- Hearing Access TM (Recipient of the Social Venture Showcase Award): making technologically advanced hearing aids accessible and affordable
- Think Dirty (Finalist of the Social Venture Showcase Award): a mobile social commerce platform that connects ingredient-conscious beauty shoppers to natural beauty brands
- C-fu Foods (Finalist of the Social Venture Showcase Award): using patent-pending processes, C-fu FOODS is creating the next generation of insect based ingredients for use as high quality meat, dairy and egg replacers
- Ulula: providing software and analytics to global brands to prevent human rights and labour abuses in their supply chain
- Textbooks for Change: collecting and re-purposing used textbooks to improve the educational landscape for students around the world
- Flashfood: allowing grocery stores and restaurants to sell high quality surplus food at steep discounts to savvy users who can browse deals in the area and purchase items online
- Charity Republic: a software platform that takes schools and non-profits from paper to digital, creating efficiencies to track and mange student and volunteer hours and activities, including co-op, safety and volunteer activities
- Fresh City: a city farm that delivers farm-fresh meals and ingredients
- Social Venture Village:
- Building Up: providing training and employment in the trades to those who need it most
- Eva’s: helping youth experiencing homelessness by providing safe shelter and caring support to build the skills they need for a better future
- Exeko: using creativity – art and philosophy – to promote social inclusion for the people experiencing or at risk of exclusion
- Hop: created Canada’s first inner-city compost facility, and pioneered a closed loop around it
- impak Finance: a fully transparent finance company that will ENABLE its customers to direct investments into socially responsible projects
- Inner Analytics: Creating disruptive technologies for individuals with type 1 diabetes. Currently developing a carb counting photo-recognition app.
- Jump Math: an innovative, research-based program used by teachers to foster a deep understanding and love of math in their students
- Doctr.ca: the Doctr app gives you access to the occupancy rate of 120 emergency rooms in Quebec in real time. It also lists the walk-in clinics that you can go to as an alternative to the emergency room
- Localize: transforming how grocers label, promote, and source local and specialty food products
- Out of This World Cafe: besides providing our customers with great food at great prices, Out of this World Cafe builds our community by creating jobs
- Soular: A backpack that channels the sun’s energy into creating a brighter future for every child
- The Social Finance Forum Awards:
- Ewart Newton Award for Social Innovation: Trish Nixon, of CoPower Inc.
- Impact Investor Award: the Lundin Foundation
- Social Enterprise of the Year: CoPower Inc.
- Impact Investor of the Year: Engineers Without Borders Canada
The Social Venture Showcase was made possible by RBC and Trico Charitable Foundation was honoured to help make the Social Venture Village Possible.
