Humber College’s Enactus team is showcasing their innovative ideas at a regional competition with the hope of impressing the judges and moving onto the national finals.
Enactus is a global organization committed to using business as a catalyst for positive social and environmental impact. It utilizes team-based experiential learning and competition to catalyze young people to take positive entrepreneurial action in their communities.
The Enactus Canada Regional Exposition – Central Canada takes place March 7 and March 8 and the Humber team will be presenting in two categories.
The Innovation and Impact Challenge, powered by Enactus Alumni, empowers Enactus teams to identify, create and deliver projects that address real-world problems. The Desjardins Youth Empowerment Challenge is designed to empower Enactus teams with the resources needed to identify, create, and deliver projects that address the needs and opportunities facing youth, as it relates to education, learning skills and lifelong success.
Bharatie Malik, a graduate of the Business Management - Entrepreneurial Enterprise program who’s enrolled in the Project Management program, is part of the group pitching in the Innovation and Impact Challenge. The pitch, called SquareMeal, is a mobile app designed to help reduce restaurant food waste and address food security by partnering with a non-profit organization to distribute food that is fine to eat but would otherwise be thrown away.
Malik’s team includes Imann Abella, Jervis Wilson and Shrishty Babel.
Pooja Mathur, an International Development student, is with the group entered in the Youth Empowerment Challenge. They identified an awareness gap among youth around the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. To address it, their pitch, called the Sustainability Project Collective, includes a knowledge platform for youth to engage with offering a blend of tailored masterclasses, workshops, and audio-visual content from industry leaders. While primarily membership-based, the platform promises a mix of open source and subscription-based resources. There will also be social media outreach.
It aims to cultivate a learning culture, spark innovation, and empower young individuals to integrate sustainability into their respective disciplines and personal lives.
Mathur’s team includes Srishti Ratnu and Sarthak Arora.
“We wanted to raise awareness among youth about how sustainability intersects their lives and future careers and how they too can become change agents,” said Mathur.
Susan Kates, a coordinator and professor with the Business Management - Entrepreneurial Enterprise program, says being a part of Enactus has many benefits for students who participate. It offers important employability skills and a chance to develop soft skills while getting students involved in the community.
Kates along with Harpreet Sandhu are faculty advisors for the Humber team.
The students work on projects that often are used in competitions. One of their projects is Culture Snacks, a burgeoning social enterprise dedicated to empowering small food vendors and women-owned ethnic food businesses.
“There’s this wonderful entrepreneurial spirit that runs through Enactus and it gives students a chance to create small business opportunities along with developing their business skills,” said Kates.
Malik, who’s president of Humber Enactus, called joining the team one of the best decisions of her life. She has learned a tremendous amount in just a few months – from managing a team to applying for funding – and it has allowed her to apply what she learned in the Entrepreneurial program to real-world scenarios.