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Updates from The 2022 CoLab Program Grant Recipients
This September marks one year since the wrap up of our first annual Press Start CoLab Program. Last year’s program focused on the spread of misinformation, climate grief, and cultural sensitivity in the mental health industry, was a tremendous success. Six teams across Canada were awarded grants for their innovative solutions in one of the three focus areas.
Almost one year later, we get a glimpse of the progress our grant recipients have made with launching their projects into the market. As they reflect on their time in the program, our grant recipients highlight the fundamental aspects of the CoLab Program and the lasting impact it has had on their journey as social entrepreneurs.
“As we interacted and networked with like-minded innovators, each fueled by their desire to make a difference, we developed an unwavering belief in the potential of our ideas to impact society. Overall, the CoLab Program acted as a catalyst, advancing our ideas and enhancing their potential for significant positive impact.” - Amit Sharma, Rohan Birk, Joshan Gill, Ripdaman Malhans
Fostering Collaboration and Innovation
Creating space for meaningful collaboration is one of the core elements of the CoLab Program. What’s unique about our program is its sense of community between social innovators and mentors across Canada. All participants share an incredible passion for creating positive social impact and supporting each other throughout the innovation process. We were highly impressed by each participants’ willingness to offer their own unique strengths and perspectives to help one another in succeeding within and beyond the CoLab Program.
Within the space of collaboration, participants are supported with our Press Start tools and resources to progress through the stages of ideation and develop a final project proposal. These tools and resources, led by mentors, are designed to drive innovation across participants as they share their work and build off of each other’s ideas.
Grant recipients, Sharma, Birk, Gill, and Malhans, speak to their experience in developing PREMIS; a platform for researchers to convey their research and expertise in a simplified format to avoid the typical misinformation that occurs as a result of third parties on social media and media outlets. Their vision is to create a hub of knowledge-translated research to educate users worldwide and prevent the spread of misinformation.
“With the invaluable support and resources offered by the Press Start CoLab Program, we were able to refine and develop our ideas, enabling us to begin development of our platform in an efficient manner. The opportunity to receive advice from experienced mentors allowed us to reflect on and analyze our ideas from different perspectives. Furthermore, their feedback and comments led us to improving our development plan and thinking about the impact our organization can have on society.” - Amit Sharma, Rohan Birk, Joshan Gill, Ripdaman Malhans
One of our other grant recipients, and now 2023 CoLab Program mentor, Cher Peng re-emphasizes the value of collaboration in developing their project, Purple Lotus. “The program provided us with toolkits that helped us refine our solution, taught us design thinking skills, and connected us with knowledgeable mentors.” says Peng. “Throughout our design process, we felt safe to make mistakes and be our most authentic selves.”
Purple Lotus is a community driven mental wellness education course for Asian Canadian youth between the ages of 13-24. The goal is to empower Asian Canadian youth to seek mental health support services, improve their personal mental wellbeing, and have the tools to be there for the people around them.
After the program, Peng and their team did some pivoting. Their solution has since evolved from a course to a more dynamic mental wellness webapp that provides personalized wellness plans for marginalized youth between the ages of 18-24 no matter where they are in their journeys. Purple Lotus now connects youth to culturally sensitive resources, exercises, community events and workshops.
The Impact of Connection
“Thoughtfulness is the silent I believe in you’s packaged in small acts of kindness and is so, so crucial in creating positive, equitable change in the world. This experience has inspired me to be more thoughtful in everything that I do and has positively changed the way my team and I have approached the building of Purple Lotus.” - Cher Peng
As our incredible panel of mentors led participants through the ideation stages of the program, they went beyond their role of leadership and took the time to truly connect with and support each participant in their work. Not only did our mentors offer participants guidance with their expertise, but they created a network of opportunities and connections for our future changemakers. One example comes from our grant recipient, Chloe White.
“Connecting and hearing from individuals who have much more expertise has allowed me to fine tune my project idea in the best and most effective way possible. I received mentorship that helped challenge, change, and grow my own limited ideas into fully fleshed and useful topics. The most valuable part of the CoLab program was the connections I made with mentors. I have been lucky enough to continue several connections with the community, and it has impacted the choices I make in my career.” - Chloe White
White’s One Stop Mental Health Canada is a one stop resource tool to help Canadians find the mental health care that matters most to them. To utilize her grant funding, she has since bought a domain, partnered with The Journal That Talks BackTM, and hired a series of interns to help develop our ideas. Her and her team have since begun accumulating a series of resources and are in the final stages of finalizing their website.
The value of these meaningful relationships is echoed by grant recipient, Mesgna Mesgna. Upon reflecting on the most valuable aspect of the CoLab Program, he shares that “It will always come down to the people. I would have to say the relationships I’ve made and will continue to make in the future as I continue to work on the development of the project. The information I’ve learned about my target segment and business model and the continued encouragement and support have meant a lot to me in the time that the project was progressing.”
Mesgna’s project, KnowYourNation, is a web application for middle and high school students aiming to gamify policy education to enhance decision-making and critical thinking skills. With a dynamic public policy simulation, engaging games, and a hub for updates on youth opportunities across Canada, KnowYourNation will attract and empower students to navigate challenges and combat misinformation effectively while being informed on public policy.
Investing in Canadian Communities
“With this funding being specifically for socially innovative ideas, it created the space to allow me to get creative with my approach to mental health education and also allowed me to be able to distribute my resources for free around the world.” - Jessie Brar
Equipped with tools, resources, and a network of like-minded changemakers, participants applied for grant funding to help build and launch their solutions into the Canadian market or communities in the following year.
At Teachers Life and nowly, we value making meaningful investments in our Canadian communities and uplifting social innovators through tangible support. An incredible success story and example of this comes from our grant recipient and now CoLab Program mentor, Jessie Brar, and her project, A Melanated Guide to Mental Health.
A Melanated Guide to Mental Health is a video series which provides knowledge on mental health and wellness topics through a BIPOC lens. The series is created and presented by members of equity-deserving groups and open source so it can be accessed for free around the world.
In the past year, Brar and her team have filmed over 6 videos for A Melanated Guide to Mental Health using the funding from CoLab. In July 2023, during Minority Mental Health Month, they launched their Instagram page, @melanated_guide and released their first video, “What is Mental Health?”. Over the next year, they plan to release a total of 10 videos, covering topics such as Intergenerational Trauma, Immigration and resources for supporting better mental wellness.
Within the same focus area of mental health, grant recipients Tracey Beatrice Gaydosh and Aileen Vu Tran have used their funding to launch their amazing solution, Frontline Baddies. The organization focuses on the mental health of frontline workers and supporting them in not burning out in their jobs due to lack of affordable and understanding mental health support to the complexity of the job. Beatrice and Vu Tran have a goal to make Frontline Baddies a certified non-profit, which required start-up funding for items such as insurance, licensing, and certification.
Frontline Baddies has since officially hosted multiple mental health workshops on Combating Burnout and Boundary Setting in the Workplace. They have helped over 100 frontline workers in these workshops learn new skills so that they can continue their work safely in environments that tend to be unsafe from December to June. Gaydosh and Vu Tran report that they “were able to start up right away due to the grant funding. This meant that we were easily able to update our website, create merchandise, create larger fundraiser campaigns, and start our non-profit officially.”
Follow Their Journeys
It has been an incredible experience for the Press Start team at Teachers Life and nowly to support our Canadian changemakers and watch their innovative ideas grow and succeed across Canada. Press Start CoLab Program would not be what it is without the work of the brilliant, kind, and collaborative participants and mentors. To continue to follow along on the journeys of our 2022 grant recipients, check out their websites and social handles below!
PREMIS
Amit Sharma, Rohan Birk, Joshan Gill, Ripdaman Malhans
Delta, BC
https://www.premis.ca/#more-info
Frontline Baddies
Tracey Beatrice Gaydosh and Aileen Vu Tran
Calgary, AB and Vancouver, BC
www.frontlinebaddies.com
Instagram: @frontlinebaddies
A Melanated Guide to Mental Health
Jessie Brar
St Davids, ON
https://www.youtube.com/@melanated_guide
Instagram: @melanated_guide
Purple Lotus
Cher Peng
Vancouver, BC
https://www.lotus-mh.ca/
Socials: https://purplelotusmh.carrd.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cher-peng
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/priyanshu-mahey/
One Stop Mental Health Canada
Chloe White
Vancouver, BC
Website coming soon!
KnowYourNation
Mesgna Mesgna
Website coming soon!