PC Impact Incubator In the 10 years since the Global Leadership Program began, the program has continued to grow and evolve. With an eye toward the future, the school has launched an exciting new program to accelerate innovation for students with an entrepreneurial spirit who thrive on design thinking. “We often have parents and alumni who talk about the great experiences they’ve had in things like accelerators and incubators, and who have recommended that we start something like this with our students,” explains Julia Hunt, Assistant Head of School, Strategic Initiatives. “We have students with amazing Capstone Projects that are really coming to life in their last couple of months of Grade 12, just as they’re about to go off to university. So, we wanted to support students who have a really viable idea to accelerate it earlier in the year, while they’re still at Pickering College, so we can help them to launch their project for real, out into the world.” Enter the newly launched Pickering College Impact Incubator. The Strategic Partnerships Committee, a subcommittee of the Board of Directors chaired by current parent Dr. Olga Morawczynski, wanted to do something to support our students to drive new partnerships that will help to push the school’s innovation programming forward.
Students accepted into the incubator program participate in eight workshop days throughout the year, to help them launch innovative products to solve local and global issues. The first cohort of five Grade 12 students began participating in September. Among them is Morgan Podd, whose project focuses on period poverty and accessibility to menstrual products. The idea she is developing over the course of this year is the creation of an app that connects people with locations offering free sanitary products. “In this program I hope to bring a spotlight to the effects of period poverty and reduce the stigma associated with it,” says Podd. “I want our community to come together and offer a sense of inclusion to all people who are part of the menstruating community, with the resources PC is offering.” Brooke Overington, Senior School faculty member who specializes in business and entrepreneurship, is excited to mentor students as they work through their projects. “My hope for the PC Impact Incubator is that it will encourage students’ hunger for knowledge and curiosity to fuel their Capstone Project,” says Overington, who serves as faculty advisor to the Impact Incubator participants. “I want them to feel inspired to think outside the box and question the status quo through the exploration of positive, innovative solutions to real-world problems.”
Pickering College is continuing to source grants to support the impact incubator. One of the key areas where community support is needed is in identifying grants that Canadian students are eligible to apply for, to help students “This seemed like a great fit for that committee, so they have launch their projects beyond Pickering College. worked together through the application process, the name of the impact incubator—it’s called the Pickering College “If we support these students, and all five of them get to the Impact Incubator—they vetted the applicants and will help point where they have the choice to continue on after they us through this first year as we develop the pilot program,” graduate, for us, that will feel like success,” says Hunt. says Hunt. “We are so fortunate to have their support and expertise to help deliver something with a lot of impact for our students.” In Grade 11, the Global Leadership Program requires all students to complete a design sprint to help shape their “how might we” question and their interdisciplinary research paper. Last spring, students were offered the opportunity to apply for the new impact incubator, which would take the Capstone Project a step further much earlier in the year.
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