Winners of CommunityBuild challenge receive $5,000 each to address social issues

yongestreetmedia.ca
April 2, 2014
By Katia Snukal

Earlier this Month, Yonge Street  wrote about the communityBUILD Mash-up, a then-upcoming workshop/competition hybrid focused on leveraging "social innovation" to take on challenges facing the York Region. 

The Mash-up winners were announced this past Thursday at a celebratory event at the Markham Convergence Centre. 

An ongoing collaboration between VentureLAB (a York Region innovation accelerator), York University, and United Way York Region, CommunityBUILD's stated mission "is to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem addressing important social issues in York Region" in an effort to spur innovative approaches to social issues. 

Here's how the Mash-Up worked. Accepted applicants, so-called "social mission-driven entrepreneurs" from the non-profit and for-profit sector, were invited to participate in an intense two-day start-up workshop to address two major issues facing the York Region: food insecurity and youth unemployment. At the start of the weekend, participants self-divided into ten teams. Each team was built around pre-existing ideas or early-stage projects brought to the mash-up by one of the participants or an existing organization. 

After the workshop's completion, the teams were invited to the Markham Convergence Centre to present their "venture pitch." Each team had five minutes to sell their idea for ameliorating York's youth unemployment or food insecurity to a panel of entrepreneurs, community, and academic leaders.

The panel then selected three winning teams that CommunityBUILD will help support as they bring their idea to fruition.  

As announced on Thursday, this Mash-up winners are:

Cultivating Opportunities, a "project that will connect young people facing mental health barriers to work on organic farms."

entrePATH, an initiative of MENTORNetwork, "which will help graduating students and recent alumni from Seneca College, secure entry level positions with York Region technology firms with less than 20 employees."

upStream "an aquaponics project of York Region Food Network that brings together the techniques of aquaculture and hydroponics to cultivate fresh produce. "

Each winning venture was awarded mentoring, office space, and "other in-kind support."

"By supporting these innovative projects, we are continuing to tackle youth unemployment and food insecurity," said Janice Chu, director of Community Investment with the United Way York Region. "[These] are two prevalent issues that our Region continues to struggle with and combat."