2019 Dean's Student Award for Social Innovation

Submitted by: Alicia Zaban

A friend and I have created this fundraising foundation to support a school and orphanage in Malawi, Africa. Since our recent launch our first goal was to help keep the preschool open. Due to a lack of funds to provide the children with food, the preschool had to be shutdown. To raise money for the first semester of school we sold paintings created by local Malawian artists, and launched a go fund me page. We reached our fundraising goal and raised enough money to reopen the preschool.

Fund Allocation

The funds will be allocated towards the second semester of preschool and any immediate necessities needed at the school and orphanage.

 Read more about this project (external link) 

Submitted by: Vincent Huynh

The Emerging Leaders Project was designed to connect students studying Business Technology Management (BTM) to industry professionals from women leadership initiatives. This professional development event acted as a career fair and information session to allow BTM students to connect with leadership initiatives in the business industry. The hiring period is at its apex during the winter season and this Project further supported students to acquire potential openings for summer internship positions and co-op placements.

Fund Allocation

The funds will be used to further expand WITM by investing in future events and implementing new initiatives to help students in gaining invaluable knowledge and connections. Lastly, if WITM will use the funding to create more opportunities for students to grow both academically and professionally.  

 Read more about this project (external link) 

Submitted by: Safiyyah Idroos

ThinkUbator is a social entrepreneurship incubator that fosters the social ventures of youth within their communities. It is a platform that engages youth within high priority neighborhoods to voice their ideas on the betterment of their community while giving them the funding, workspace, mentorship and resources to bring their ideas into fruition. ThinkUbator will welcome two cohorts of youth each year, for a six-month incubation. Youth will be able to develop their community-based social solutions from ideation to validation to fruition during the course of their incubation.

Fund Allocation

To build the platform

Submitted by: Amenah Rizwan

Lobby is a digital platform to help newcomers integrate into society by connecting them with mentors who have previously migrated to Canada and gone through similar experiences in areas such as employment, housing, healthcare, education, personal finance, family, and recreation.

Fund Allocation

To build the platform and continue the project

Submitted by: Rand Abou Ras

Project Angora is a micro-financing and educational digital application that empowers marginalized communities by providing them with opportunities to learn, finance and create sustainable profitable businesses through their inherent skills. Simply put, Project Angora is a platform that focuses on two main users: artisans and farmers.

Fund Allocation

To build the application

Submitted by: Sandeep Niranjan

High school students have the potential to be leaders of tomorrow. They are taught a variety of subjects such as Science, English, and Mathematics but do not have access to lessons on leadership and communication, which are truly essential alongside any field of study. Power of Communication is an initiative that I have organized, which delivers workshops, conferences, competitions, and assemblies.

Fund Allocation

Funds from the award will be used to hold a 7-hour conference on Toronto Met’s campus (in the month of May) that will attract 100s of students from 3-4 high schools in the GTA. It will showcase workshops from industry leaders, case cutting, and collaboration.

Submitted by: Lais Zaatara

Life school would be a 1 week crash course concentrating on topics that people deal with on a daily basis. The project would spend 1 day per life lesson. Life lesson would include, 1) Everything you need to know about filing your taxes. 2) What are the political parties and how exactly does politics work in Canada. 3) Money management. 4) How to get a job, how to look for one, what needs to be in a resume. 5) Basic Car maintenance and skills. 6) How to apply to university/college.

Fund Allocation

The fund would be used to hire the right people who would be qualified to teach the classes. The fund would also go towards the renting of the locations where the classes will be taken. The fund will also help minimize the cost of the lesson bundles, or even make them free for eligible users.

Submitted by: Abdullah Memon

Raising Scholars is a crowdfunding platform to provide scholarships to high performing, low-income students in India. Many students within villages in India don’t complete high school and advance into post-secondary education, not because of difficulty, but rather due to lack of funds to support tuition fees, transportation, and textbooks. We’re aiming to bridge that gap by working with the administration at these schools to identify top-performing students with financial need and raising funds to support featured students every year.

Fund Allocation

The funds awarded will be used toward developing the donation portal of the platform to ensure security & trust of our donors. The rest of the research, design, and development will be taken care of myself.

Submitted by: Dilpreet Matharoo

Project Secure is a sustainable environmental solution for the food waste here in Toronto. We take produce that would otherwise not be sold, sometimes simply because it's ugly, and transform it into nutritious juices & meals for marginalized youth here in our city. We are working with Scadding Court Community Centre to feed 35 kids each week, with nutritionally adequate meals that these youth need.

Fund Allocation

The funds will go into start up equipment costs for our consumer focussed product, the profits of which will go back into the project as we are a not-for-profit.

Submitted by: Sulaiman Wahid

AfghanChild is a project to provide clean drinking water facilities for Afghan families living in areas that do not have access to drinking water. In some Afghan provinces, children walk between 5-8km to fetch water for their families. This can be really tough in hot summers and in very cold winters. A country ravaged by decades of war, Afghanistan is far behind in terms of providing this basic human necessity to millions of people in many provinces.

Fund Allocation

The funds will be used to dig wells with water-pumps in villages that are in desperate need of drinking water. This will also enable children to go to school rather than worry about fetching water for their families.

Submitted by: Hamza Khan

In today’s world, Local farmers, indigenous communities and members of TCHC. are lacking the capacity to sell and promote their products. Farm Sted-E, created a non-profit mobile application and web-app that connects farmers, urban youth, impoverished communities and other small business owners with the potential consumers of their products. A technology based solution that will innovate on insufficient institutional capacity of small farmers, impoverished/underprivileged communities and businesses to sell and promote their products.

Fund Allocation

Since we already have built our app, any funds received towards our mission will be used towards marketing efforts. Traction and engaging users is currently our biggest issue.

Submitted by: Temirlan Toktabek

Advocating for accessibility of adequate study spaces, we thought that implementing a design strategy that incorporates robotics, data collection and infographics is a way to solve this problem. Vacant is a system that allows students to get real-time information on available study spaces across campus. Based on a series of motion-sensitive sensors, Vacant is able to provide accurate data for desk and room availability on demand. Our primary goal with this project is to propose a solution that would benefit students, but it does, also, provides benefits for the administration.

Fund Allocation

We have received a Letter of Intent from Toronto Met Administration and in the next 3-6 months, we are planning to run a pilot in Toronto Met’s Student Learning Centre. We are fundraising to cover the cost of material and pay for the development by Toronto Met Students for Toronto Met Students.

Submitted by: Lili Cao

To support the CAMH One Brave Night initiative, TRSM Cares is putting a spotlight on mental health issues and fundraising for the cause. To showcase that no one should suffer alone, students will stay up all night long in solidarity to lend their support and be a part of the mental health movement during the final exam season. By giving a safe space for everyone to share their stories and voice their struggles, students are empowered to think differently and end the stigma surrounding mental health illnesses. With the goal of $25,000 this year, we need all the help we can get. On April 5th join us and be a part of the change.

Fund Allocation

A portion will be donated directly to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and the rest will be used for content creation and expanding our marketing campaign to raise awareness around our event and spark conversations about mental health.