The Fulbright Canada post-COVID Challenge is the signature program of Fulbright Canada's 30th Anniversary. It reflects our commitment to encourage, celebrate, and support the ideas of bright young leaders. Our goal is to tap into the next generation's creativity and imagination, with particular attention to underrepresented youth, and provide them with an opportunity to present their solutions to the current crisis.
Fulbright Canada issued an open call for youth from across Canada and the United States to provide creative ideas that aim to address critical social, economic, technological, and public health challenges as we move forward. We encouraged applications from a diverse cross-section of youth who might bring a novel perspective to how we might collectively imagine a post-COVID world.
We received some 500 exceptional applications. After careful and thorough screening, some 27 teams were selected to move on to the quarter-finals. Ten groups will compete in the finals in Ottawa, Canada on June 24, 2022.
The Fulbright Canada post-COVID Challenge Fellows are exceptional professionals and academics from Canada and the United States who have worked with teams to help them advance their projects and make the world a better, more livable place.
Kelly Burton is Blue Apron’s Head of Sustainability and Social Impact. Her extensive experience in sustainability includes how brands can increase value, mitigate risk and engage consumers and employees around purpose. She graduated with a BA from the University of Toronto and holds a Masters in Sustainability & Environmental Management from Harvard. She received a 2021 Emerging Leader Award from the Harvard Extension Alumni Association.
Dr. Victoria Herrmann, a Fulbright Canada alumna, is the Managing Director of The Arctic Institute and an Assistant Research Professor at Georgetown University, where her research and writing focus on climate change, community adaptation, and migration. She has testified before the U.S. Senate, served as the Alaska Review Editor for the Fourth National Climate Assessment, is a contributor to The Guardian and Scientific American on climate policy, and was named one of the most 100 influential people in climate policy worldwide in 2019 by Apolitical.
Dr. Trung Nguyen is currently a Mitacs Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto, collaborating with Ericsson to develop industrial explainable AI applications for 5G Wireless networks. He has led multiple R&D projects that enhance autonomous systems. He has a research passion for AI, intelligent systems, and robotics, with a particular interest in the applications of these technologies to the O&G industry. In his Ph.D. study, he received the RDC Ocean Industries Student Research Award to further his research into robotic applications in offshore O&G operations.
Sydney Piggott is a highy regarded civil society leader and advocate for equity and inclusion. She is the Director of Community Engagement at Elevate, an organization connecting thought leaders, innovators and policymakers to solve complex social problems and realize the SDGs. She holds a Master's degree in Global Affairs from the University of Toronto, where she co-founded the Intersectional Feminist Collective, was a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee scholar, and was fully engaged as a researcher with the Reach Alliance.
Dr. Dunsi Strohschein has a Ph.D. in Public Health from the University of Alberta and is currently an Adjunct Professor in the School of Public Health and a former Manager of People Analytics and Performance at Alberta Health Services. Originally from Nigeria, she relocated to Canada 20 years ago. She has over 20 years of experience working in diverse corporate and academic environments. Her passion for research has earned her academic awards and invitations to present her work on the global stage in public health. She is the founder of HourAfrica.com, a social enterprise highlighting the experiences and accomplishments of Africans living abroad.
Dannika Thompson works in product development at Facebook, supporting Novi, a blockchain-based digital wallet designed to provide individuals and businesses with easy access to fair and secure financial services. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with Distinction from Stanford University in 2020 with a B.S. in Symbolic Systems focusing on linguistics and human-computer interaction. She aims to engineer digital solutions that increase access to opportunity for the widest variety of people.
The Asian Voices Project is dedicated to sharing the histories and experiences of Asian-Canadian communities through immersive digital storytelling experiences. The Project aims to help claim space for Asian Canadians’ histories within the national narrative, creating opportunities for mutual understanding, respect, and inclusivity.
The first of the AVP experiences will retell the story of white supremacists’ attacks on Vancouver’s Chinatown and Japantown - and residents' ensuing strikes that forced the government to help locals rebuild their neighborhoods.
BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) youth disproportionately have been impacted by COVID-19. BIPOC youth face the largest financial setbacks from COVID-19, experience poorer mental health and have been impacted by the loss of numerous programs and opportunities. To combat these inequities experienced as a result of COVID-19 I have created a platform where BIPOC youth are able to receive support, access and be connected to various services, as well as come together and come up with youth-led solutions to address the issues we experience and work together to implement these ideas.
Breaktime’s Double Impact Initiative is a one-year supported transitional employment program that utilizes supported partnerships to empower young adults experiencing homelessness. Our program is uniquely designed to support access to high-quality job opportunities while providing them with the skills, financial knowledge, and support necessary for them to break the cycle of homelessness.
Hos-fit-all is a self powered, configurable hospital unit that is built using prefabrication and modular integration methods with the negative pressure technology built into it to ensure a healthy interior environment and serves as a timely response to the challenges of healthcare infrastructure, effectively solving the problem of hospitals running out of beds for infectious disease patients.
Started as a virtual reality platform to commemorate an erased African Canadian neighbourhood (Hogan's Alley) in Vancouver, the Immersive Healer project has become an inviting virtual cultural centre and a digital community where the BIPOC community would join to collaborate, hold conferences, exchange ideas, and set up art shows and product demos. Today, the Immersive Healer team is connecting its global partners to become a central hub designed by the youth of Canada to address critical social, economic, technological, and public health challenges as we move forward to the post-COVID world.
The Initiative on Artificial Intelligence (IAI) seeks to develop the forum infrastructure and facilitate the networking of AI experts, domain experts who apply AI in various (unrelated) disciplines, policymakers, and business leaders. By providing curated publicly-accessible interdisciplinary channels of communications, the IAI forum will further serve as a source of credible expert opinion and a repository of high-quality research for journalists, engaged citizens, and policymakers to make informed decisions regarding AI regulation, policies, and evaluation standards.
Our project aims to find meaningful solutions to adolescents' (11-14 years) mental health challenges that have been further exacerbated by the pandemic. We are developing a mobile game that will teach a holistic view of mental health as everyday health, empower youth to manage their own health, and highlight the importance of community well-being. By combining frameworks of Social Emotional Learning, Mental Health Literacy, Social Connectedness, and positive psychology, we aim to guide youth in developing practices such as gratitude, along with fostering social connectedness within the game.
PillDrop, a medication waste kiosk, redefines how unused, unwanted, or expired medications and other health products are disposed of. Our vision is to protect communities from drug diversion and accidental or intentional consumption and overdose and reduce the harmful effects of pharmaceuticals on the environment by providing a safe, anonymous, and accessible solution for consumers. Alongside critical stakeholders in medication safety, policy, and pharmacy, this innovation offers a simple yet not widely available solution to a serious and widespread problem in Canada.
In Jan. 2021, a new rule by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services went into effect mandating that every hospital in the United States make their payer negotiated rates available online, but prices remain so hidden that consumer driven price comparison efforts are nearly impossible. We have compiled a database of charges for all of the procedures offered at each of more than 10,000 and counting hospitals and outpatient medical facilities across the United States. Using PriceMedic’s search tool, consumers can compare the costs of more than 20,000 procedures from lab tests to surgery.
Wiisinin means “to eat” in Anishinaabemowin. We promote food sovereignty by helping Indigenous families and youth reconnect with traditional foods. Every week, we send out a traditional recipe, a video tutorial filmed by us, and a $50 grocery gift card to each participant. Post-covid, we will host more workshops in person. Wiisinin is BIPOC oriented, accessible, and centred on reconciliation. Miigwech!
We welcome additional partners as we move forward with this initiative.
We encourage you to engage with the hashtags #FulbrightCanada, #PostCOVIDChallenge or #PostCOVIDChallenge
For more information about the post-COVID Challenge program, please contact: postcovidchallenge@fulbright.ca
