ADH-Meet wins 2023 Dean’s Social Innovation Prize
People diagnosed with ADHD may have a new way to connect with friends thanks to this year's winner of the Ted Rogers School's Dean's Innovation Prize.
The winning presentation, ADH-Meet, is the brainchild of Kanya Navanathan. Their winning pitch to a panel of judges May 4, 2023 was especially impressive because it was their first time pitching.
“The students that I was going up against were more experienced and established than I was in business,” they explained. “They were mentor figures during our study sessions because they would teach me things as they were talking about their ideas as well. I admire them greatly.”
So, it was a big shock to the first-year retail management student that they won.
“It was amazing being able to pitch to a group of people including Advisory Council members and receive such a positive reaction, which to me, solidifies that this idea has a space in this community,” Navanathan said. “It just makes me all the more confident in my ideas and in what I want to do.”
The Dean’s Social Innovation Prize
The Dean’s Social Innovation Prize, created in 2018, is funded annually by alumni and other external supporters of the Ted Rogers School of Management. The $2,000 award is presented each year to Ted Rogers School students who have overseen a project that has made a significant impact on the community, for example, addressing social challenges like isolation, mental health, climate change and homelessness.
The award competition is only open to students who have participated in the Social Venture Zone’s Paid to Innovate program, a 12-week long process dedicated to developing research skills required to deeply understand a social problem and build a solution centering on the target community. The students first went through the Ideation phase to define the problem they sought to solve, followed by the Incubation phase to come up with a creative solution.
“It just opened my whole world up to the possibility of being able to do something I love and also be able to cater for a community of people that I care for dearly," - Kanya Navanathan
Navanathan found out about the Dean’s Social Innovation Prize through an email and signed up for workshops to learn a bit more about business and entrepreneurship because they found those things interesting and wanted to use their business education to create social change.
“It just opened my whole world up to the possibility of being able to do something I love, which is business, and also be able to cater for a community of people that I care for dearly, which is the ADHD community. So, being able to have those two things intersect in a project like ADH-Meet that I felt would better a lot of young people’s lives, it was amazing,” they said.
ADH-Meet
Kanya Navanathan’s project ADH-Meet brings young people with ADHD together by playing board games that encourage people to work together. The goal of the games is for people to get to know each other, to combat social isolation and facilitate connections among youth who experience bullying because of their ADHD diagnoses.
“ADHD can isolate people from the world around them,” Navanathan explained. “Factors like sensory issues, fear of social rejection, or just struggling with mental health overall can affect a person’s social life. There aren’t many initiatives that encourage adults with ADHD to build friendships with fellow ADHDers.”
The Dean’s Social Innovation Prize will be used by Navanathan to secure venues to run board game events for the ADHD community and fund the purchase of games.
The two other finalists for the 2023 Dean’s Social Innovation Prize included Maya Peters and her project The Conscious Container, and Kalid Musse and his project, Ordercode.
The Conscious Container
Maya Peters’ project, The Conscious Container, is aimed at helping reduce student plastic waste on campus and in residences and hopes to empower the university community to be more sustainable.
“We plan to tackle the single use plastic problem by creating refill stations on Canadian university campuses that offer a variety of cleaning and personal care products in refillable containers,” Peters explained.
“By working with manufacturers and supplies we can buy products in bulk and cut out the packaging process. We will work closely with manufacturers and suppliers with established sustainable practices to create a circular or closed loop supply chain.”
Ordercode
Kalid Musse and team member Harishanth Gunasekaran’s project was called Ordercode, and is a startup that is committed to addressing the issue of inefficient and inaccessible ordering processes at restaurants and drive-thrus for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. Ordercode provides a user-friendly and inclusive ordering experience that aims to enhance customer satisfaction and improve operational efficiency for businesses.
“Our application employs a patent-pending technology that enables seamless communication between customers and staff, eliminating the need for handwritten notes,” Musse explained. “This project has the potential to make a positive impact on people's lives. Seeing individuals with communication barriers… inspired me to create a solution that simplifies the process and eliminates communication barriers.”
Husse and Gunasekaran planned to generate revenue through licensing Ordercode as software as a service (SaaS) to establishments and charging a subscription fee, which would create a sustainable source of income. They are currently working in partnership with Canadian Hearing Services (external link) (previously Canadian Hearing Society).
The Paid to Innovate Program paid students to participate in this learning opportunity. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada’s Innovative Work-Integrated Learning program and CEWIL Canada’s iHUB.
CEWIL (external link) partners with post-secondary institutions, community members, employers, government, and students to champion work-integrated learning (WIL). Additional funding was made possible through the Experience Ventures program which enables students to make an impact alongside real-world innovators through entrepreneurial thinking placements.
“By offering innovative WIL opportunities at our institutions across Canada, we continue to see growth in students’ personal and professional competencies,” said Charlene Marion (external link) , executive director at CEWIL Canada. “The skills and competencies gained through these experiences serve to support students as they transition to the workplace, entrepreneurial endeavours, or future studies.”
Judges for the 2023 Dean’s Social Innovation Prize included Ambreen Bhaloo (external link, opens in new window) , a certified co-active professional coach (CPCC) and founder of Ambreen Bhaloo Coaching, Juanita Lee-Garcia (external link, opens in new window) , the executive director at the Upside Foundation of Canada, and Manu Kabahizi (external link, opens in new window) , the head of Accelerator at Canadian Digital Service.
