Sitting Down with the SVZ's Fall 2024 Cohort
Introducing the four new startups at the SVZ tackling issues ranging from underrepresentation in archiving to healthcare accessibility.
By: Stevie Zouri & Aqsa Rehman
February 4th, 2025
In the Fall of 2024, the Social Ventures Zone welcomed a brand new cohort of ventures into the SVZ Incubation program. The four startups offer a wide variety of innovative solutions tackling today’s social issues. We sat down with the founders to learn more about each startup and the unique problems they’re solving.
SVZ: What problem are you solving, and why should we care?
Imogen Coe, HerGhana: Our startup is called HerGhana, and it's focused on empowering girls and young women in rural Ghana by providing them with education about reproductive health and menstrual hygiene products. We know that there's significant dropout in school because of a lack of menstrual health and products and we want to keep girls in school.
Ben Compton, Everyone Archives: The problem that we’re trying to solve is that a lot of people have family history or community history or objects that hold sentimental value in their lives that they want to preserve. We do that through training—so basic entry-level workshops on what is called archival preservation, how to preserve things—and then resources. You should care because these objects give you a sense of identity, and if they are not preserved, you risk losing them, this object that holds important meaning in your life.
Theleepan Marcandu, Prestar: We're addressing the pressing issue of financial exclusion and predatory lending practices that are trapping millions of Canadians in cycles of debt. Many individuals, our community members, lack access to affordable credit, especially for their essential needs like groceries and transportation. Financial stability is foundational for personal well-being and solving this problem can lead to stronger, more resilient communities.
Trista Gile, Parmazip: People don't like waiting, especially when your health is on the line. Canadian healthcare faces challenges from long wait times. A 2023 study found that patients wait an average of 27 weeks to see a GP and receive treatment for their condition.Expanding access to pharmacists for minor ailments will not only make it convenient for people to receive treatment, but it could also alleviate ER congestion and allow faster care for more urgent cases.
SVZ: What's one thing that you wish more people knew, either about your startup or about the problem that you're trying to address?
Imogen: I wish more people knew that this is a persistent and ongoing problem in rural parts of Ghana and in rural parts of Africa. Poverty is still a huge issue, even here in Canada and I wish more people were aware of those numbers. They're really quite alarming and community-led and community-based approaches can be really effective.
Ben: Archiving is a term that I don’t think everyone immediately understands but everyone has a relationship to archiving. And that’s because everyone has objects that hold that kind of sentimental value or relationship to identity or history. Everyone already is doing various kinds of preserving that material and organizing that material.
Theleepan: I'd say that we wish more people understood the magnitude of the financial barriers faced by our communities, and how predatory lending exaggerates these challenges. Our startup isn't just about providing a financial product, it’s about empowering individuals with the tools and knowledge to improve their overall financial well-being.
Trista: We have learned that there are several global initiatives that have been put in place in Canada's healthcare system but many people are not aware of this. When we did surveys with people that we spoke with, around more than 50% of them said that they do not know they can ask for prescriptions from pharmacists for minor ailments.
Financial stability is foundational for personal well-being and economic and mental health and solving this problem can lead to stronger, more resilient communities.
SVZ: Would you be able to tell us a success story or about a milestone that your startup has achieved recently?
Imogen: We have been fortunate to start to be able to build some connections within the educational ecosystem in Ghana with some other organizations doing similar but not the same work. One of the partnerships we've had is with a program out of one of the universities in Ghana called She Codes, and it aims to teach basic coding skills to girls, particularly in rural places and disadvantaged, underserved communities. We have delivered 10 computers this fall to two different schools in rural Ghana…it was very well received by the community.
Ben: So two weeks ago, we held a workshop at Library and Archives Canada, a huge archival institution in Ottawa and it was amazing. In partnership with an organization called Black Memory Collective, which is a network of Black folks working in archiving, in history, community organizing, it was basically a workshop welcoming people into a huge archival institution that can often feel kind of intimidating, and then also doing some basic training in how you might approach cataloging a collection that you’re trying to organize. I think it will lead to some really fruitful collaborations down the line.
Theleepan: One of our significant milestones is successfully lending over 60K of our own funds to more than 200 users across Canada that facilitated about over 700 transactions. Remarkably, we've maintained a default rate— the percentage of loans that weren't paid back— of just under 6% compared to typical industry standards, payday loan standards of 20%.
Trista: As we go along and talk to our customers, we're able to listen to their stories and understand how significant virtual tools like pharmacists can change how people look at solving everyday problems like minor ailments. Having this platform that can be accessible, in 30 minutes, you can get a pharmacist to at least help you feel at ease that it's not something urgent that you need to give attention to.
SVZ: What advice would you give to TMU students or students in general who are considering starting their own business?
Imogen: I would say if a TMU student is considering starting their own business, I think the amazing thing is there's so many resources and there's so much help. I feel like I'm a student and I’ve had a crash course in entrepreneurship since I started in September while other team members were in Ghana doing the work on the ground. So if you've got an idea and you want to start a business, just reach out and ask for help.
Ben: Yeah, this is the most exciting question to me. Many people didn’t understand what my project was until I had a proof of concept. And for my organization, that proof of concept looked like our first event. So once we had our first event, we had a poster for it, we had social media presence, then we had photos after the event, and we had testimonials from people who were interested. As a piece of advice, I would say try to see your project into existence, and it’ll snowball from there…just get it off the ground.
Theleepan: I would encourage students to focus on solving real world problems, there are plenty out there. Find something that you're passionate about and try to tackle that problem, I think being resilient on that problem would go a long way. And then I'd say deeply understanding the needs of that target community will help you along as well.
Trista: Starting a business is a combination of risk, excitement, and challenges. Be prepared to experience your best and worst times, and make sure at the end of the day, you're building something meaningful to you or those around you. If there's one piece of advice that I can give to students who want to start a business, I would say just be ready to fail because it's always there. In every aspect of our life, failure is always there and it's really important to be ready for that.
SVZ: What do you believe sets your startup apart from others in the same industry?
Imogen: There's a couple of things that differentiate us in Ghana and for similar initiatives in other places like East Africa. So one, obviously, is that we're the only initiative in Ghana that is offering these B-free cups, this gets us away from disposable and expensive pads. Her Ghana was founded by the queen mother of a rural village in Eastern Ghana, because she had this lived experience of being a girl who struggled to stay in school because she had no support. Those that deliver the programming are from the community, there's a lot more trust, there's a lot more relationship there and I think that's a differentiator.
Theleepan: I'd say that it's a holistic approach and a community-centered approach. As I mentioned, I still volunteer in the community that I grew up in. I spend a lot of time speaking to community groups, including food banks and other non-profits. So unlike traditional lenders, I'd say we spend a lot of time, you know, grassroots movement.
Ben: I think the biggest thing is that we give people the tools to archive stuff on their own terms. So what differentiates our organization is that we offer people the training and the tools to do that archiving work on their own terms. With that, we also believe that by offering people those tools and training, a lot of the ways in which stories are preserved, history is preserved, can be done in a more culturally sensitive way that actually prioritizes care, like community care.
Trista: So we have been in the digital healthcare space for almost a decade already. Joff, Ned, and I have been working together ever since. I believe the combination of our skills and experience working together as well as having the first mover advantage as a secure on-demand telepharmacy platform is something that makes our business stand out.
The SVZ team's approach to asking questions through the lens of social impact is very insightful. And I believe it brings greater value to our startup because it gives us a different angle to pitch it.
SVZ: What role do you see students playing in the future of your startup or in the industry that you're in?
Imogen: I think students can be incredibly important because we know that the near-peer effect is real and slightly older girls can be incredibly impactful and helpful to slightly younger girls. We're really targeting that demographic, the student kind of level, from 12-year-olds to, to 30-year-olds and beyond. And so having that kind of peer-to-peer support, mentorship and leadership is going to be really important.
Ben: I would love to involve more students who are studying archival preservation, library science, history, any sort of degree that involves some kind of community organizing, public history. However, when I talk about building the financial sustainability of the organization too, I am part of the SVZ because I am looking for insight into the business side of things. So I totally see a role that business students can play in making our venture viable.
Theleepan: I'd say students play an integral part of our future and the financial industry at large. Students are very open to innovative ideas and fresh perspectives and they also have a keen understanding of emerging technologies. We can provide opportunities for students to contribute through internships, research, researching the effects of high-interest debt on communities.
Trista: In my experience, students have the freshest brains that could help solve problems that we've been staring at for some time. If we've been dealing with this business for quite some time, it helps that there's a new person coming in, who has a fresh perspective on how these problems get. They can definitely be really a great help to startups like us and in any company in general, because I believe the younger generation have that kind of perseverance different from past generations.
SVZ: And finally, what are some of the skills or knowledge you've gained while being part of the Social Venture Zone?
Imogen: Really learning to think differently, I've had to shift my thinking from the not-for-profit, to actually thinking about it as being a business enterprise. And that's really been helpful in terms of thinking about moving towards sustainability, moving towards who is the consumer, who is the customer, and framing what we're trying to do within a much more realistic context. So the skills and knowledge have been huge, I can't really articulate a specific thing, but it's certainly shifted my thinking in terms of how do you make these kinds of enterprises successful and sustainable.
Trista: The SVZ is helping us fortify our startup as a social enterprise. Being able to bring value to what matters not only to our target customers, but how our startup impacts the community in general, brings a different perspective to the table. The SVZ team's approach to asking questions through the lens of social impact is very insightful.
Ben: I think the Social Venture Zone has given me a vocabulary to think about both the day-to-day operations of my organization and how they connect to a much broader strategy and plan for what the organization looks like.
Theleepan: The sense of community that the Social Venture Zone brings is huge for us. But it's also about networking, strategic partnership development. I think that's huge because it brings a lot of like-minded individuals to the table. We're looking for the greater good as well so pairing up and partnering with individuals with that mindset is huge for us.
