Fall 2023 Social Impact Showcase
GreenHouse celebrates their 30th Showcase; funded 6 new ventures!
Each term, GreenHouse hosts the Social Impact Showcase to celebrate the amazing work on students in our community. This term, 10 student-led ventures pitched their ideas for social and environmental change and 6 teams were awarded funding from the Social Impact Fund. Congratulations to all of our participants on the impressive progress that you've made this term. You make the United College community proud!
And the winners are...
- WhereCafe, awarded $1,500, Founded by solo travellers, Carla Castaneda and Wanetha Sudswong (MEng ’23), who want to empower other solo female travellers to travel around the world safely by using artificial and authentic intelligence to do the research for you.
- Real Research, awarded $500, is led by Faculty of Science student Ria Menon, whose student-run venture program is providing undergraduate students with more opportunities to get involved in scientific research labs on campus.
- Braille Buddy, awarded $1,500, is designing computer-vision powered braille books to help low-vision individuals learn braille independently. Led by Shaahana Naufal, Julia Turner, Mathurah Ravigulan and Ayla Orucevic, the group of fourth-year systems design engineering students are hoping to address the declining literacy rate among American children who have visual impairments and living in low-income communities.
- Rising SheFarmers, awarded $2,000, Founded by master’s student, Lydia Madintin Konlan, Rising SheFarmers want to empower rural women in Ghana to get out of poverty through mushroom farming.
- Patient Companion, awarded $5000, founded by Engineering student Christy Lee, Patient Companion is an easy-to-use solution devised as a communication app between nurses and patients to not only improve patient experience, but also helps reduce stress and burnout for nurses.
- Safi, awarded $8,000 Waterloo students Miraal Kabir, Martin Turuta and Daria Margarit, created Safi as the world’s first off-the-grid pasteurization monitoring unit to prevent the spread of milk-borne diseases in East Africa.