Quarterly Publication - Ed. 02-May6 - Flipbook - Page 3
CONTENTS
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
4
A few months ago, we sat down to plan our
theme for the second edition of GRIT. We
were just coming out of interviews for this
year’s Next 36 and were surprised at how
many of these young entrepreneurs were
building ventures with social impact at their
core. Where we’d seen explosions in app-based or AI
enabled startups in previous years’ applications, we
were seeing a new trend - purpose was becoming
part of the zeitgeist and driving a new wave of business ideas. It seemed that the world was primed
and ready for more ventures “doing good”, so we
thought we’d dig into our NEXT do-gooders for
May’s theme. And then the world really changed.
BUILT WITH
PURPOSE
HOW 10
NEXT ALUMNI
ARE CHANGING
THE WORLD,
FOR BETTER
Hatchways
Nudnik
Crescendo
Flashfood
AccessNow
Lilia
Biome Renewables
Greenlid
Myelin
SeamlessMD
PLUS
IN THIS ISSUE:
34
NEW WORLD,
NEW RULES OF
ENGAGEMENT
With Jen Couldrey
+ THE CLASS
OF 2020
36
CANADIAN
ENTREPRENEURS
ARE TACKLING
UNCERTAINTY
WITH TECH
With Paula Smith
32
ASK A
FOUNDER
Ft. Chenny Xia,
Morgan Rosenberg,
Emily Bland and more
38
FROM
THE NEXT
COMMUNITY
40
THANK YOU
TO OUR ALUMNI
HEROES
Fighting Back
Against COVID-19
As we, and everyone else, struggled to make
sense of this new, virtual, and oftentimes scary
world, we knew that our Canadian entrepreneurs
would face a lot of adversity and some would need
to batten down the hatches. And, what would
happen to the ones who wanted to “do good”?
Would that fall by the wayside? For some, yes, but
for others, they continued to show great resilience
and found creative solutions to help others even as
their own ventures were being challenged. In total,
more than 50 of our alumni fought back with new
products, resources, education and more.
After we at NEXT pivoted to deliver our programs remotely and took a quick breath, we went
back to this notion of purpose and where it would
fit into our new normal. Well, as evidenced by the
last two months, it turns out that without purpose,
there's no passion and without passion there are no
entrepreneurs. Plus, the world is going to need more
good now than ever before - couldn’t this present
yet another wave of business opportunities for
our creative entrepreneurs? Looking to our alumni
and incoming NEXT Canada entrepreneurs, we are
optimistic the answer is yes.
In the following pages, we talk to ten of our
alumni who are redefining what it means to be a
social impact venture and paving the way for more
purpose-driven entrepreneurs. Alumni like Alyssa
Atkins who is working to solve fertility barriers.
Or Josh Domingues who is re-purposing food surplus and resulting waste from food retailers. Or
Lindsay Lorusso who is turning textile waste into
fashion for kids. And lest we forget who sparked
all of this, we’ll take a look at our class of 2020 not even a pandemic can stop their drive to build
solutions to some pretty hefty global challenges.
As a collective, these entrepreneurs are blowing up
old myths about “do gooders” and solving societal
and environmental challenges, without trading off
profitability.
Coming full circle, a lot has changed in two
months, but the drive to “do good” and live a life
of purpose is alive and well. We still have a long
road ahead as we fight to get small businesses and
startups back on track, but this could be a good time
to press the reset button. To think of new problems
to solve and find new ways to create a positive
impact for Canada. We hope that the following
pages will provide a small dose of inspiration and
will remind you of the talented individuals working
so hard to make a meaningful impact on this world.
JENN PATTERSON
Chief Marketing Officer,
NEXT Canada
GRIT, Edition 02; May 2020 PUBLISHER: NEXT Canada EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jenn
Patterson CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Steph Hancock GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Olivia Tomic
NEXT Canada, 175 Bloor Street East, North Tower Suite 200, Toronto, ON, M4W 3R8
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