CONESTOGA COLLEGE
Conestoga entrepreneurs receive Community Venture Awards

Two Conestoga entrepreneurs have been named recipients of the Equitable Life of Canada Community Venture Award. This year's honourees are Conestoga business graduate Anshita Pandey, founder of Helprr, and current Conestoga student Dylan Glass, founder of an open-source venture advancing farming technology. 

The awards, valued at $1,500 each, were launched by Equitable Life of Canada in 2021 to recognize entrepreneurs participating in Conestoga's Venture Lab programs. Recipients are chosen for their commitment, passion and perseverance as they work to launch businesses that provide valuable contributions to the community and improve quality of life in Waterloo Region. 

Pandey is a Conestoga and Venture Lab for Tech alumna and founder of Helprr, a preventative mental wellness platform that provides accessible, low-barrier support resources and community support. The platform is designed for people who are "functioning but struggling," including students and early-career professionals dealing with stress, burnout, loneliness or emotional overwhelm. 

"We try to help people before they reach a breaking point. We focus on prevention and early support by giving them the tools that allow them to build emotional resilience as part of everyday life," Pandey said. 

Helprr includes guided check-ins, emotional skill building and curated resources. Pandey said the platform is not meant to replace therapy or emergency mental health care, but instead aims to reduce the friction and stigma that can prevent people from accessing support. 

"Venture Lab for Tech helped me get more disciplined about articulating value. Not just why Helprr matters, but how it creates impact and how it could sustainably exist. That shift was huge for me as a first-time founder," she said. 

Glass is a Conestoga Bachelor of Computer Science student and Venture Lab for Tech founder working to make advanced farming technology more accessible for local agriculture through open-source systems. 

After graduating with a degree in botany from the University of Guelph, Glass worked as a farm manager at Nith Valley Organics in Bright, Ontario, where he saw how expensive farming equipment and technology can be for local producers. 

"One of the main things I learned was that farming is so capital intensive. Everything they use is expensive, from seeds to the physical equipment. They have to make so many trade-offs to make ends meet," he said. 

Glass is developing a semi-autonomous auto-steering system for heavy farm equipment. Existing systems often require costly subscriptions, and Glass said his solution can provide similar functionality at a much lower price point. 

"When you're working on your own idea, you think it's the greatest solution ever. Going through the Venture Lab for Tech program helped me take the idea that I thought was great and turn it into something that my customers actually want and would use," Glass said. 

Open to Conestoga students and alumni, Venture Lab programs support the growth of early-stage startups. Participants receive one-on-one coaching, mentorship from industry experts and subject matter experts (SMEs), and access to the broader technology and entrepreneurship ecosystem, connecting them with the networks, resources, and expertise needed to accelerate venture growth. 

The Conestoga Entrepreneurship Collective empowers and inspires students and alumni to successfully participate in the Waterloo Region entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem by providing multiple pathways for engagement, including developing a new venture, launching a freelance business and creating impact as a revenue generator. In addition to Venture Lab and Venture Lab for Tech the collective also offers programming through the Sales Lab and Gig Lab.