Five St. Paul’s GreenHouse ventures received grants to develop their socially minded products and services at the most recent GreenHouse Social Impact Showcase.
Mechanical Engineering student Richard Yim, who started in the St. Paul’s GreenHouse program last fall and will be a GreenHouse Fellow in the spring term, won a total of $35,000 for his landmine defusing venture this week.
The Big Ideas Challenge for Social Good went big this year and awarded 10 fellowships to aspiring social entrepreneurs: Five in a ‘People and Wellbeing’ category, and five in a ‘People and Planet’ category.
The competition, which was organized by St. Paul’s GreenHouse, had a circus tent theme. Director Tania Del Matto said that’s because GreenHouse seeks to “expand the tent of youth-led social innovation and entrepreneurship as a pathway for young people to build the business and career skills they need to be problem solvers and leaders.”
Above: Trishala Pillai, Elle Crevits, Benny Hua, Rachel Thompson, and Richard Yim
Five social innovators from St. Paul’s GreenHouse had the opportunity to speak at the premier global social entrepreneurship conference last week – the Ashoka U Exchange, hosted by Tulane University in New Orleans this year.
I describe this week as my dive into the startup world. Not only was I working on my own startup, I was also training as a social entrepreneur to work for other local enterprises through the GreenHouse co-op program.
St. Paul's GreenHouse is hosting a series of workshops to help prospective participants in the Big Ideas Challenge for Social Good prepare and enhance their pitch.
The third of these workshops will be led by MaRS and will focus on helping early-stage ventures understand the Lean Startup approach and learn ways to start collecting feedback from potential customers.
Above: Richard Yim, Rhea Daniels, and Trishala Pillai
St. Paul’s GreenHouse received $47,000 from the Libro Prosperity Fund today to launch a fellowship program that will provide up to 10 young entrepreneurs with residence in the GreenHouse program in the spring term.
St. Paul’s GreenHouse alumna Renishaki Kamal (BA ‘14) won $25,000 for her venture, Fidget, winning second prize at the Communitech Women Entrepreneurs Bootcamp pitch competition this month, while alumna Rachel Thompson (BSc ’15) received $2,500 for her venture, Marlena Books, from SoJo’s recent #SOCENT Idea Bootcamp.
Three members of the St. Paul’s GreenHouse social innovation community showcased their startup ideas at the Spring Social Innovation Showcase on Thursday, July 30, and received a total of $5,000 in grants for their early-stage, high-potential ideas.
The following startups received funding: