10 Carden is thrilled to welcome Allyson Hewitt, Director of Social Entrepreneurship at MaRS Discovery District to Guelph.
Allyson is the driving force behind Social Innovation Generation @ MaRS (SiG@MaRS), which she describes this way:
“We work with different sectors to try to think differently about encouraging innovation. I spent 25 years in the nonprofit sector in a staff position, longer than that as a volunteer, but never had the ability to work with people from academia, government, business, science, technology etc. in the way that I have here. It has blown my mind. We do three things. We advise, convene and accelerate. We advise through engagement with business stakeholders, we convene lots of events, bring really astounding global leaders here and we pull together clusters of people and then we try to accelerate social innovation through some really exciting initiatives. One is the Social Venture Exchange, which is creating a platform to allow those with money to meet up with those who need money. It’s more than philanthropy. I think it’s critical cause it’s talking about impact investing.”
Allyson will share her insights and discoveries from her years at the helm of SIG@MaRS and lead us in a dialogue about the broad social/economic and environmental impacts stemming from the rapidly expanding social innovation and social entrepreneurship sectors in Guelph and across Canada.
We welcome everyone to carry on this exciting conversation and meet one another at our wine and cheese reception directly following Allyson’s presentation. This is a free event, but to reserve your space, registration is required.
