UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
Solutions Lab invites UCalgary students to step up and propose solutions for Buy Canadian initiative

Experience Ventures Solutions Lab is back this fall with a high-impact challenge topic for UCalgary students: supporting the Buy Canadian movement. 

The lab, established in 2021 at the Hunter Hub for Entrepreneurial Thinking, provides a unique opportunity for students to learn about and champion social innovation. The lab teaches students to leverage entrepreneurial thinking as they tackle real-world issues and design creative solutions with local impact.

Working in teams, this year's Solutions Lab participants will dive deep, developing ideas and tools for the Buy Canadian movement. The aim is to create solutions that reduce our national reliance on foreign goods and services while supporting the Canadian economy. 

Sasha Ivanov, founder of the Maple Scan app, and community partner for Solutions Lab, is excited to be a part of the challenge. Ivanov previously participated in Hunter Hub programs, so his involvement in the program marks a full-circle return. 

"Buying Canadian hasn't always been easy," Ivanov says. For many consumers, buying Canadian feels like a luxury. Imported goods often come at a lower price, making the best choice less obvious. Further, maple washing  a practice where companies use Canadian branding on imported goods  is on the rise. "The question is: How do we make it the easy choice to buy Canadian?" Ivanov asks.

That's where Solutions Lab comes in. 

Building entrepreneurial thinking skills at Solutions Lab

Experience Ventures Solutions Lab is funded in part by the Government of Canada's Innovative Work-Integrated Learning Initiative. The program gives college and university students learning opportunities related to their studies, readying them to enter the workforce. 

"We need to support our local communities. It's about doing our part to help build a resilient economy," Ivanov says. "By the end of this challenge, it would be awesome to see solutions that are ready to be shipped." Along the way, students gain the entrepreneurial thinking skills they need to thrive in the future. "I think of it more as entrepreneurial-doing," Ivanov says with a laugh. 

Ivanov was faced with a similar opportunity earlier this year. Responding to the need to make it easier for consumers to buy Canadian, Ivanov was inspired to create the Maple Scan app.  

Through the app, users only need to take a photo of a product to learn about its Canadian ties.

Ivanov initially created Maple Scan in response to the looming tariffs back in February. The tariffs made Ivanov and many Canadians more curious about the products in his pantry. 

Aiming to create something that made it easy to identify whether a product is Canadian, Ivanov launched Maple Scan in the span of a week. "I wanted to do something to help Canadians during this time," he says.

Now, he's passing the baton to students. 

Students bring fresh perspective to big issues

"Young innovators and students have this ability to find new problems that other people might not be thinking about," he says. "Students have fresh perspective; they have an opportunity to create new solutions that people aren't thinking about."

And Solutions Lab is the perfect playground for students to experiment and explore. 

Ivanov says he's excited to see the solutions that come from the challenge. 

"I really want students to take risks and think about what this experience looks like 10 years from now," he says. "Students have the chance to identify real problems and solve them in a way we couldn't in the past. Which is why this program is so great; it encourages students to be forward-thinking."

Ivanov hopes to keep the movement going strong, no matter what's going on in the world. "What's most exciting to me about the Buy Canadian movement is the fact that people are open to switching right now. How often do you switch your ketchup brand? This is the perfect time to introduce new ideas and solutions." 

Students learn to expand their reach beyond the classroom

For Sarah Topps, senior manager, partnerships and engagement at the Hunter Hub, Solutions Lab is the perfect place for students to expand their reach beyond the classroom. Topps will be leading the delivery of Solutions Lab at UCalgary.

"I love working with students because they are so enthusiastic about applying what they've learned in the classroom to real-world challenges," she says. 

"The more complex the problem, the more energized they are to tackle it. That's why, at Experience Ventures Solutions Lab, we invite students to dive deep into wicked' problems, challenging them to flex their entrepreneurial thinking skills and develop innovative, actionable solutions."

Open to students from any faculty

This fall, a total of 65 UCalgary undergraduate students (full- or part-time) will be invited to participate in the challenge. Students from any faculty are welcome to apply. All participants will receive a $525 honorarium upon completion of the program.

Over the course of nine weeks (starting Oct. 8 and ending Dec. 2) participants will be placed in teams as they work with UCalgary collaborators and community members like Ivanov to develop a solution to this year's challenge. Participants will attend five weekly workshops designed to build the skills they need to tackle the challenge question effectively.

Towards the end of the program, each team will submit a five-minute video pitch for a panel of judges to assess. The challenge will conclude with an in-person finale event, where the top teams will pitch live to a panel of judges who will select the winners. 

Ready to take on some of the challenges behind the Buy Canadian movement? Applications for Solutions Lab are open until Sept. 21. Students interested in participating in the program can apply here.