Melinda Jacobs
Melinda is an entrepreneur and social innovator based in Taipei, Taiwan. Melinda has lived and worked in Denmark and Bangladesh – two global hot spots for social innovation – and has worked for Toronto-based social enterprise Social Capital Partners. Active in youth entrepreneurship, she has been on the founding team of three social organizations, and and has produced a documentary on Taiwanese political identity. Melinda recently graduated from The Next 36: Canada’s Entrepreneurial Institute, and the University of Toronto, Trinity College, where she studied International Relations.
Remi Kanji
Remi will graduate from the University of Toronto, where she founded and organized the INDePth Conference on Sustainable Development and Just Rights Radio, two organizations pushing students to discuss causes of and solutions to socio-economic inequality. Over the course of her undergraduate degree, she completed ethnographic field research abroad in Indonesia, and has visited Taiwan as both a documentary filmmaker and researcher on the impact of popular film on nationalist sentiment. Check out her thesis project at http://www.propoormappingproject.wordpress.com.
Alumni
Wendy Pan
Wendy is one of the first U of T student delegates to visit Taiwan in 2009. She was selected as a finalist to present a business plan to venture capitalist in Hong Kong Poly U Entrepreneurship Challenge. After graduation, Wendy worked as a business analyst for a large company, and later for a private-equity funded star-up in the U.S.. She volunteers for SCORE- “advisor for America’s small business” and is one of the youngest financial instructors for underprivileged women in Houston.
Reza Mirza
Reza is a strategist who has presented a policy paper to Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a digital strategy to Toys ‘R’ Us; a project manager who coordinated development projects backed by the Kenyan government and a neuroscience researcher whose work has been funded by the National Science and Engineering Research Council. His interests lie technology, international development and intelligence work. He hopes to unite his interests identify and leverage technology to generate scalable social impact.
