Venture for Canada announces 2020 RBC Fellow Leadership Honorary Awards
Venture for Canada annonce les lauréats des Prix honorifiques 2020 de RBC
Venture for Canada (VFC – Le Talent Entrepreneurial) a annoncé les lauréats des Prix honorifiques 2020 de RBC. Poursuivant sa collaboration de plus de cinq ans avec RBC, la communauté de Venture for Canada a sélectionné quinze participants au programme pour leur excellence en matière de leadership et leur esprit entrepreneurial. L’esprit d’initiative des Canadiens est essentiel pour surmonter les plus grands défis de notre pays.
Selon Scott Stirrett, fondateur et PDG de Venture for Canada, « les lauréats des Prix honorifiques de RBC de cette année ont vécu leur première expérience de travail en tant que jeunes diplômés en pleine pandémie. Ils ont tous dû faire face à l’ambiguïté, s’adapter à des environnements numériques et éloignés et apprendre un tout nouveau rôle et un ensemble de compétences au moyen de méthodes de collaboration et d’outils qui sont nouveaux pour nous tous ».
Que ce soit en travaillant au sein de l’une des entreprises en démarrage canadiennes dont la croissance est la plus rapide en 2021 comme InkBlot Therapy, en aidant bénévolement les entrepreneurs à gérer les répercussions sociales et environnementales de leurs activités, ou même en mettant sur pied des initiatives secondaires qui deviennent des entreprises à temps plein, les lauréats des Prix honorifiques de RBC ont fait preuve d’ambition et de leadership pour surmonter des difficultés imprévues.
Ces lauréats ont été nommés par leurs pairs, et chacun recevra un certificat de reconnaissance, en plus de profiter d’une occasion d’apprentissage exclusive auprès de employés de RBC.
«Qu’il s’agisse de se former à nouveau ou de partir de zéro, il est clair que les compétences nécessaires pour exceller dans le monde du travail d’aujourd’hui changent, a déclaré Mark Beckles, vice-président, Impact social et innovation, RBC. C’est l’objectif de RBC Future Launch, et grâce à notre partenariat avec Venture for Canada, nous espérons permettre aux jeunes d’identifier, d’articuler et de développer leurs compétences – et plus particulièrement aider les jeunes entrepreneurs à les développer.»
En 2019, avec le soutien des Services aux investisseurs et de trésorerie et dans le cadre du programme Objectif avenir RBC, la Fondation RBC s’est engagée à verser 300 000 $ sur deux ans afin de renforcer l’impact du programme de bourses de Venture for Canada. Cet investissement a permis la tenue de plus de 30 programmes de bourses, l’amélioration de l’offre de formation de VFC – Le Talent Entrepreneurial, le mentorat des boursiers par les anciens participants et l’approfondissement des liens entre eux tout au long de 2021.
Objectif avenir RBC est un projet d’investissement de 500 millions de dollars étalé sur 10 ans visant à aider les jeunes Canadiens à se préparer aux emplois de demain – le plus important engagement envers un enjeu social de RBC. Cette initiative, qui met l’accent sur le réseautage, le développement des compétences, l’expérience pratique de travail, ainsi que le soutien et les services en matière de bien-être psychologique, vise à éliminer les obstacles auxquels les jeunes sont souvent confrontés. =
En 2020, RBC s’est engagée à fournir 50 millions de dollars de financement ciblé par l’intermédiaire de RBC Future Launch pour créer des voies de prospérité significatives et transformatrices pour jusqu’à 25 000 jeunes de NAPDC d’ici 2025, avec des investissements dans des domaines tels que le développement des compétences et le mentorat.
Pour en savoir davantage sur Objectif avenir RBC, cliquez ici.
Venture for Canada has announced the 2020 recipients of the RBC Fellow Leadership Honorary Awards. Continuing the over five-year collaboration with RBC, the Venture for Canada community recognized 15 Fellows for their excellence in leadership and entrepreneurial spirit with this honorary award. The resourcefulness of young Canadians is essential to addressing our most pressing challenges.
“This year’s recipients of the RBC Fellow Leadership Honorary Awards have experienced their first year of work as recent graduates amid a pandemic. They’ve each had to cope with ambiguity, adapt to digital and remote environments and learn a whole new skill-set and role using tools and collaboration frameworks that are new to us all,” states Scott Stirrett, Venture for Canada’s Founder and CEO.
From working at Canada’s fastest scaling startups of 2021 in customer success like InkBlot Therapy to devoting time to volunteer to help entrepreneurs manage the social and environmental impacts of their businesses to starting side-hustles that become full-time ventures like RBC Fellow Leadership Honorary Awards recipients demonstrate ambition and leadership in the face of unforeseen challenges.
Each recipient is selected through a peer nomination process and receives a certificate of recognition, as well as an exclusive learning and networking opportunity with RBC employees.
“Whether it’s retraining or starting fresh, it’s clear that the skills needed to excel in today’s workplace are changing,” said Mark Beckles, Vice President, Social Impact & Innovation, RBC. “That’s what RBC Future Launch is all about, and through our partnership with Venture for Canada, we hope to enable young people to identify, articulate, and build their skills — and specifically help young entrepreneurs to develop them.”
In 2019, with the support of the Investor and Treasury Service and RBC Future Launch, the RBC Foundation committed $300,000 over two years to Venture for Canada to further the impact of the Fellowship Program. This commitment has supported over 30 Fellowships, enhancing the training offerings and Alumni mentorship and connections with Fellows through 2021.
RBC Future Launch is a decade-long, $500 million investment to help Canadian youth prepare for the jobs of tomorrow — RBC’s largest commitment to a social issue. With a focus on networking, skills development, practical work experience, and mental well-being support and services, the initiative aims to break down the barriers facing young people. In 2020, RBC committed to providing $50 million in focused funding through RBC Future Launch to create meaningful and transformative pathways to prosperity for up to 25,000 BIPOC youth by 2025, with investments in areas such as skills development and mentoring.
To learn more about RBC Future Launch, click here.
Click to jump to each recipient.
Abhinav Bhargava:
As a recent Physics and Philosophy graduate from the University of Toronto, Abhinav Bhargava has grown on a diet consisting of large-scale, difficult-to-solve practical and ethical problems. He is fascinated by how successful entrepreneurs are able to identify an unspoken problem and develop a solution that sends ripples across the globe. Currently, Abhinav is a 2020 Venture for Canada Fellow working at Juniper an Operations Specialist, where he is rapidly executing, designing, and implementing order, inventory, and product launch management procedures. Drawing from his entrepreneurial experience at Venture for Canada and his operational expertise at Juniper, Abhinav aims to one day develop his own solutions that will address the big problems we are facing as a global community.
Ana Balach:
After graduating from McMaster University with a degree in Engineering and a passion for entrepreneurship Ana Balach joined the Venture for Canada fellowship. During a project management internship at a consulting firm in Guangzhou, China she realised that effective communication is one of the most important skills that one can attain. Through VFC she found ContactMonkey, a tech startup and began working as a Business Development Representative helping large companies better inform and engage their employees. Ana is also an active member of First Oakville Toastmasters Club. She can be found at the gym, improv class or outside on a run.
Ben Herringer:
After graduating from StFX University, Ben Herringer’s love for the East coast drew him to Halifax, where he currently lives. He joined VFC because he is intrigued by social entrepreneurship and the role that startups play in building a sustainable future. VFC helped him explore his interest in this area during training camp and later through a volunteer opportunity with Venture Better – an organization that provides resources to help entrepreneurs manage the social and environmental impacts of their businesses. Eventually, Ben found a role as a Marketing Assistant at Spring Loaded Technology, where he works to connect people with mobility restoring knee braces. He is grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to a company that shares his passion for helping others. Ben loves to get outdoors as much as he can to hike, mountain bike, and play soccer outside of work.
Carolina Mclachlan:
After completing a degree in Psychology and French, Calla Mclachlan’s personal experience with mental health issues motivated her to use her knowledge to help others. Through Venture for Canada, she found a role at Inkblot Therapy, a mental health company that offers affordable video counseling to businesses and individuals. As a Bilingual Client Support Specialist, Calla ensures that Inkblot’s clients and therapists have a smooth daily experience while understanding and communicating their needs to inform company decision-making. Calla is passionate about helping people find the support they need and making it easier for therapists to provide high-quality care. Outside of work, she enjoys singing, salsa dancing, and reading.
Hunter Welsh:
When the realization set in (much later than it should have) that Hunter Welsh’s hopes of being the starting center for the Los Angeles Lakers were too far out of reach, he has since dedicated his time to creating the best version of himself in all aspects of his life. He attributes a huge part of his growth, as a person and as a professional, to his current role at DG Volo & Company, a business advisory firm that builds growth strategies for private equity-owned portfolio companies through Venture for Canada. Building on lessons learned from his early days on the basketball court, Hunter has helped to shape DGV’s collaborative, high-performance culture, where teamwork is valued above individual contributions, creating winning situations for all.
Isabelle Choi:
After graduating from McMaster University, Isabelle Choi has always been curious and reflected on bringing a human behavioural perspective to any role. Whether it be from discovering ways to collaborate effectively or making meaningful connections, she has always been passionate about learning from others regardless. Now you can find her at #paid, an influencer marketing platform, as a Customer Experience Operations Coordinator. Here she found herself right in the middle of creators and brands to help brands scale and letting creators do what they love most – create! Through Venture for Canada, this opportunity has allowed her to identify gaps in processes to improve key-value moments for customers.
Ken Wu:
Ken is a pianist turned aspiring entrepreneur passionate about social enterprise, travelling, and the human experience. Being a graduate of the Management and International Business program at the University of Toronto, he was a leader in several student organizations that advocated for experiential learning. Knowing the benefits of diverse experiences, he pursued his passions for music and travel by actively participating in various small ensembles, undertaking semesters abroad studying in the UK, and working in the Netherlands as part of his degree. Understanding that entrepreneurship can improve social and economic well-being, he became a 2020 Venture for Canada Fellow. He is interested in exploring technologies that focus on inclusive finance, democratizing the industry and providing better resources for vulnerable populations.
Kristen Murray:
Kristen Murray is an aspiring social entrepreneur proudly born and raised in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. She has always had a steadfast passion for helping others and is a recognized community leader, volunteer, and social justice activist. Kristen earned her Bachelor of Commerce degree just before Venture for Canada’s Fellowship Training Camp began. Since becoming a Fellow, Kristen has taken the initiative to strengthen her entrepreneurial instincts in many ways. She completed a Specialization in Social Entrepreneurship from Copenhagen Business School and became a Co-Founder of a social-tech startup called Altroo. Since September, Kristen has been working as the Corporate Social Responsibility Lead for SucSeed Social Enterprises as her VFC Partner Startup. Wanting to become more active and aware of the social and environmental issues in her community, she has also joined the Board for the Social Justice Co-operative of NL. She has recently joined a working group with her 2020 Fellow Cohort focused on Social Impact and Sustainability. She will start a Masters of Business Administration in Social Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Lily Akagbosu:
Lily Akagbosu is a community builder, aspiring diplomat, and budding entrepreneur. While studying Psychology and Women & Gender Studies at Carleton University, she served as President of her student union, representing over 27,000 students and leading the million-dollar nonprofit organization. After graduation, she began working as a Programs Coordinator at ventureLAB, a leading technology hub. Lily is currently a Founder in NEXT Canada’s 2021 NEXT36 cohort and a 2020 Venture for Canada Fellow. She is also a program participant in Dylott’s inaugural Black Diplomat Academy. Lily enjoys listening to podcasts, playing the piano, and spending quality time with family & friends.
Manav Kainth:
Manav Kainth is a 2020 VFC Fellow currently working as a Business Analyst at Lucky VR, a small game dev studio based in Toronto. He recently graduated from the University of Waterloo, studying a mix of Science and Business, and is oh so grateful to be part of the VFC community. Manav enjoys challenging the status quo and wants to use innovation to help drive society forward. Outside of the world of startups, he is also a big basketball fan and an emerging artist.
Mary Spear:
Mary Spear is a Customer Enablement Specialist working at the Health-tech startup Opencare. She’s passionate about corporate social responsibility and sustainability and sees startups as a critical driver of change and innovation. Mary first got exposure to the entrepreneurship/startup world during an internship in Malawi, where she worked on an entrepreneurship incubator project that targeted youth to impact their communities. Since then, Mary has sought out opportunities to impact her community by working with socially conscious startups. At Opencare, Mary is excited to be part of preventative healthcare and helping dentists focus on what matters most: bringing quality care to their patients. She finds inspiration in Opencare’s supportive, welcoming, and people-focused environment and is thrilled to make such a significant impact early on in her career. In her free time, Mary is an avid writer, Dungeons and Dragons player, and is learning the ins and outs of balcony gardening!
Raghav Aggarwal:
Raghav Aggarwal partly attributes his fascination with the world of startups to his favourite childhood computer game — Roller Coaster Tycoon 2. He loved (and still does) the process of building things from scratch and scaling them to deliver value to his “users.” Through his lived experiences in different cities across continents and coursework in Economics and Urban Planning at the University of British Columbia, the disparity between the seemingly complex challenges he encountered on his computer screen and the realities confronted by resource-deprived communities around the globe became increasingly apparent to him. Through his entrepreneurial adventures, Raghav has come to believe that the answers to our complex global challenges lie in empathy-driven interventions developed by young people who unapologetically pursue their ideas. Raghav applied to the VFC Fellowship to surround himself with oppositely skilled but like-minded individuals who actively help him stay accountable to his core values of courage, relationship and freedom.
Talia Rampelt:
Talia Rampelt is a Global and International Studies graduate from Carleton University with a specialization in Global Politics. After graduation, her entrepreneurial spirit and her passion for social change drew her to Venture for Canada. Following Venture for Canada’s training camp, she began her current role as a Customer Champion with Thinkific, supporting entrepreneurs in building their online education businesses.
Tanisha Amarakoon:
After earning a B.A.H in Political Studies from Queen’s University and completing an eight-month undergraduate thesis, Tanisha Amarakoon dove headfirst into the Canadian startup ecosystem focused on using her research and written communication skills to improve customer experiences with digital products. Through Venture for Canada’s fellowship, she landed her job as a Customer Champion at Thinkific, a SaaS company headquartered in Vancouver, BC, that has helped over 50,000-course creators launch online course offerings. As a part of the Support Team, Tanisha focuses on providing product and app integration support, identifying usability improvements, and helping lead the team through challenging inquiries as a “Ninja Captain.” Her day-to-day mission is to empower course creators by ensuring they are well equipped to succeed on the platform and removing blockers to their growth as entrepreneurs. Tanisha is also an avid learner, having built a foundation in Python and SQL over the past eight months.
Yunikko Muto:
Yunikko Muto graduated from Douglas College with an Associate Degree in Psychology. After completing VFC’s Virtual Training camp, he relocated to Victoria, BC, to join the young and ambitious team at VINN Automotive Technologies, an automotive e-commerce platform specializing in saving Canadians time, stress, and money when buying a car. As part of the Sales/Customer Success team, most of his days are spent guiding Canadians from across the country through the car-shopping process, connecting them to the most optimal dealership for what they’re searching for. Outside of work, he takes pride in finding ways to grow and constantly learn new things. This summer, he’s finally learning how to ride a bike.
