St. Francis Xavier University held its first-ever Impact X Summit on Entrepreneurship & Social Change this past weekend bringing university and high school students together from across the Maritimes and Ontario to share their ideas and vision for social change through entrepreneurship.
“There is no better place to host a summit on social entrepreneurship than at StFX, given our history and commitment to social justice,” said one of the co-founders Alexis MacDonald, StFX Senior Development Executive. “In total, we had 75 students from 15 different schools participate – nine Maritime universities and six high schools, including two from Ontario. Students pitched 40 different social enterprise ventures to help solve real societal challenges. The judges were impressed by the students’ creativity, energy, and commitment to change in the pitch competition.”
The top four prizes for the late-seed stream went to students with the most compelling 7-min pitches: 1st place (valued at $4,500) went to Ben Collings MacKay from St. Francis Xavier University for CM Marine, his life-saving gear for fishermen; 2nd place ($2,000) went to Gray Pauli from St. Francis Xavier University for Polar Pantry, his freeze-dried food business. Third place ($1,000) went to Rory Fox from Lockview High School for his Swole Bears (protein gummies), a noteworthy win as he was the only high school student in the late-seed stream. Fourth place ($500) went to Abigail Austin from Mount Allison University for her Energize Communities platform.
Two grade 11 students from Dr. John Hugh Gillis Regional High School, Mica Gomes and Wafeeqa Ahmed, won the top high school prize for their 1 min pitch, worth $1,000, for their idea to develop a clothing line for Muslim girls playing sports. Students from Pickering College high school in Ontario won 2nd and 3rd place. Yasmin Hiranandani took home 2nd ($600) for an illustrative children’s book to raise funds for children’s charities in India. Carson He, Max Wang, and Neil Sadarangani won 3rd ($400) for their ‘GreenTech’ idea to recycle old electronics and use the materials for high school STEM programs.
The university 1-min pitch stream was very competitive. Two teams from St. Thomas University won 1st and 3rd place and StFX took home 2nd: First place ($1,000) went to “Visible,” presented by Olivia LeBlanc and Sofia Moreno from STU; 2nd place ($600) went to ‘Pickleball’ by Jona White from StFX; and 3rd place ($400) went to ‘Food is Love’ presented by Emily Lynch, Sidnel Longuma, Summer Keigan, Harsimran Kaur and Gursharanpreet Kaur from STU.
Judges in the pitch competition were seasoned entrepreneurs, including Myrna Gillis, Founder of Aqualitas & FinLeaf Technologies, and Dawn Umlah, CEO of Sunshine Renewable Energy.
The summit also included a mixture of inspiring workshops and keynote speeches. “Many pitch competitions are only that, pitch competitions,” said Ms. MacDonald. “In designing Impact X, both the students and faculty alike wanted to add in educational offerings to encourage more networking and learning amongst the participants. We succeeded on this front.”
Kicking off the Summit was Tareq Hadhad, CEO of Peace by Chocolate, who received a standing ovation for sharing his entrepreneurial journey. His sister, Taghred Hadhad, introduced him with great emotion. She remembers arriving in Antigonish, Nova Scotia with her family from Syria, speaking no English. Now she is a first-year student at StFX, studying to become a dentist.
One of the participants’ favorite components of the weekend was a Founders’ Panel sponsored by the StFX Alumni Association that featured real-life advice from three StFX alumni entrepreneurs: Connor Curran, founder of Local Laundry in Alberta; Sarah Murphy, founder of a construction-tech startup, Sentinel Alert; and Kolade Boboye, who had appeared on CBC’s Dragon Den for his initiative Hope Blooms out of Halifax.
The Summit capped off with a powerful keynote by Coady graduate Mallory Yanghwe, who was recently named Indigenous Entrepreneur of the Year for Indigenous Box Inc., which she started in 2021 and is now worth over $1 million dollars.
With a strong interest from students and educators to learn more about social entrepreneurship, another event will be scheduled for next year. Sponsors include Government of Nova Scotia (Advanced Education), StFX Gerald Schwartz School of Business, StFX Discover Box, the StFX Faculty of Education, the StFX Alumni Association, the Coady Institute, Sodexo, and Careerfully.
