Anamika plans to create an online community for the international students to share experiences and learn about the university and university life through an online platform that has multiple modes of interaction. The platform will have the capacity to post short videos, podcasts, and blogs created by current students to inspire and motivate other students. The platform will also encourage mentorship between students and between students and professors via a social platform where students can ask questions about the university and have their questions answered by others who have more experience. Most importantly the platform will supplement, in an innovative way, the university’s effort to reach out and communicate with newly arrived students, and offer the potential to address the needs and questions students have.

“Students are able to learn and explore new ideas through other students’ experiences,” Anamika says. “If the platform is successful it will lead to higher international students retention rates for the universities.”

As an inclusion activist, Kerilyn is looking to consult with organizations, businesses, and municipalities in a consultant roll to improve accessibility. Kerilyn’s pilot project will focus on St. Francis Xavier University (StFX) campus. Accessibility on StFX campus is an ongoing problem, as it can be a challenge for people with and without physical disabilities to get around. Kerilyn wants to create solutions to these barriers people face on the campus as a result of being differently abled. In April 2017, the government created the Nova Scotia’s Accessibility Act, also known as Bill 59. This legislation aims to make Nova Scotia more inclusive and barrier free by 2030. In particular, the legislation states that all education centers must become fully accessible to all by 2030. This means that StFX has 10 years to make these improvements.

Through research in the field of health, leadership, and policy, Patti-Anne and Amy aim to create a sexual violence prevention and awareness package for sports organizations across Canada to be included as part of mandatory training for athletes and all members in leadership positions. This innovation could lead to critical sexual violence policy changes among sport associations across Canada, as well as provide a foundation of educational awareness to create safer environments for athletes.

“We intend for the results from this research to build on previous research in this area and will contribute to developing an approach for evaluating sport organizations in terms of their awareness and protection of the well-being of Nova Scotians and Canadians who are impacted by sexual violence in sport,” Patti-Anne and Amy say.

Emily Chisholm’s new venture “Fresh Fruit Forever” developed out of her desire for fresh fruits and vegetables and her love of exploring food. As a first-year student in the Bachelor of Science in Human Nutrition program at StFX, Emily wants to develop a product for consumers that will maximize the preservation of fresh fruits and vegetables without altering the taste. The Wallace Internship will help her develop the product and get it to the market.

Emma Logan’s new venture “Hearing for All” is a not-for-profit hearing-aid recycling foundation. The StFX third-year Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance student wants to develop the research and planning needed to create a foundation that will collect and refurbish donated hearing aids. Once she has created a network of contacts and volunteers and the necessary funding, Emma will arrange to have the hearing aids distributed to children with hearing loss in developing countries, with the help of volunteer audiologists and audiology students.

Cameron Sehl and Kirsten Gallant are both in the StFX Bachelor of Arts Honours in Economics program. Their new venture “Symbi Medical”, based on a pilot program at a hospital in India, is a digital therapeutics company that uses accessible technology to improve health outcomes. Cameron and Kirsten plan to focus and refine their business strategy, identify gaps in current health care services, and complete the technical development of the digital platform which aims to use available technology, such as text and voice messages with cell phones, to change the current disconnect between doctors and patients, and between treatments and outcomes.

Raphaele and Phillip are a pair of enterprising nutrition students who have developed amazing products using pulses – legumes and beans. The recent graduates of St. FX with interests in dietetics, naturopathy, and product development competed along with a group of fellow students in the Mission: ImPULSEible competition. This competition asks undergraduate students to create food products using pulses as their main ingredients.

While Raphaele and Phillip initially envisioned a frozen dessert, support from the Innovation and Enterprise Centre allowed them to pivot and shift into a line of prepared food mixes.

Although Joie des Pulse is still working with pulses, creating a dry packaged baking mix requires a different approach than a frozen pulse-based dessert. Certain nutritional and compositional testing is different; rather than measuring fat content and percentage overrun, the company will be measuring protein content, fibre and moisture content. Additionally, shelf-life studies indicate fewer challenges than working with a frozen product which is much more sensitive to temperature changes and the type of packaging used.

Adam Morin, originally from Cornwall, ON is a current History student at St. FX. His two consuming research passions are Byzantine Empire studies and classical Greek language (Byzantium was a Greek-speaking realm) and are key to his innovative success.

Purple Boots Gaming has developed and markets a turn-based board game tentatively called Byzantium: The Game. A distinguishing feature of the middle Byzantine Empire period era in which Byzantium is based (c. 640-1081 CE) is the rich variety of backgrounds from which their emperors, male and female, arose. Shepherds, peasants, farmers, orphans, and dockworkers (to name a few) each rose from completely obscure beginnings and acquired the throne in this period, often with successful reigns, showing a remarkable level of social mobility given the wider European context of the era. Getting to the top was tough but doable, and the board game attempts to recreate this quintessentially Byzantine experience by combining rigorous, academic historical detail with entertaining and engaging gameplay. Ultimately the aim of this venture is to spread Adam’s passion for Byzantine studies to the wider public in a format which is creative, accessible, and richly detailed.