Overview
Ashoka Fellows are leading social entrepreneurs recognized for innovative solutions to social problems with potential for large-scale impact.
This directory features 54 Ashoka Fellows in Canada.
Ashoka Fellows Directory
- Agazi Afewerki - Youth Empowering Parents (2018)
Agazi Afewerki has a powerful belief that any young person can teach an adult a new skill and that youth are a core resource for community development and transformation. With this idea, Agazi Afewerk...
- Fabrice Vil - Pour 3 Points (2018)
Fabrice Vil is the architect behind a new professional in the public sports and education sectors that promote positive civic engagement and community leadership at large. He is systematically transfo...
- Lauren McNamara - The Recess Project (2018)
Lauren McNamara, armed with new measures and data she developed, is persuading and heling elementary schools replace harmful recess patterns with new approaches that help children grow socially and em...
- Candice Lys - FOXY (2017)
Candice Lys is cultivating a new generation of young leaders through a novel form of public health education that encourages expression through the arts. In doing so, Candice supports historically mar...
- Ahmad Edilbi - Dubarah (2014)
Ahmad Edilbi is introducing a new way to empower, integrate and build social capital in scattered, immigrant populations that have been affected by a political crisis or natural disaster. Using diaspo...
- Aled Edwards - Structural Genomics Consortium (2014)
Aled Edwards is orchestrating a disruptive shift within the drug discovery process. Beginning with gene research through to human testing, Aled is breaking down the various levels of bureaucratic bloc...
- Christie Young - Farmstart (2014)
Christie Young is introducing an alternative family farming movement which counters the prevailing industrialized agriculture. This enables succession and opens attractive farming opportunities for yo...
- Shaun Loney - BUILD Inc. (2014)
Shaun Loney is using economic solutions based in the creation of local environmentally-friendly economies to bring employment and prosperity to Aboriginal peoples in Canada. He is targeting and engagi...
- Claudia Li - Shark Truth (2013)
Engaging young Chinese-Canadians in environmental conservation habits congruent with traditional values, Claudia Li is bringing together the worlds of cultural heritage and social change. Claudia is c...
- Fiona Sampson - The Equality Effect (2013)
Fiona Sampson is fostering a vibrant international network of volunteer lawyers, academics, journalists, and advocates and connecting them to local communities of activists and social workers to ensur...
- Janet Longmore - Digital Opportunity Trust (2013)
Janet Longmore takes practical steps to address youth unemployment through peer-led training, an interconnected global network and strategic cross-sector partnerships. Through modern technology and ma...
- Lisa Brown - Workman Arts (2013)
Lisa Brown is integrating individuals with mental health issues into society by using art as a means to build a deeper and more empathic understanding of mental health challenges in Canada....
- Michelle Lem - Community Veterinary Outreach (2013)
Leveraging the connections between people and their pets, Michelle Lem is bridging the gap between marginalized populations and critical support services by offering free veterinary care, leading to f...
- Paul Born - Tamarack Institute for Community Engagement (2013)
Paul sees communities themselves as the key agents to transform local poverty by building an interconnected system with context-based and measurable solutions that give ownership to all stakeholders i...
- Frank Escoubès - Imagination for people (2012)
Frank Escoubès harnesses the power of civic creativity to create a new market for citizen experts to contribute to public and private policy change. By channeling citizens’ knowledge in a structured p...
- Jason Potts - Finance Alliance For Sustainable Trade (FAST) (2012)
Jason Potts is creating a global community of financial service providers, sustainable producers and supply chain partners, dedicated to facilitating access to investment in sustainable agricultural p...
- Mike Morrice - Sustainable Waterloo Region (2012)
Mike Morrice is creating local networks of companies, citizen organizations, and governments to significantly co-create ambitious, yet realistic, public commitments to address global environmental cha...
- Scott Gilmore - Building Markets (2012)
Local businesses and entrepreneurs have the potential to stimulate economic growth in conflict-pronecountries, but are quelled by a lack of access to buyers and a lack of financing to increase product...
- Steve Leafloor - BluePrintForLife (2012)
Steve Leafloor is creating young leaders among First Nations and Inuit communities where sexual abuse, family violence, and school desertion are common. Using a blend of hip-hop dance and music and tr...
- Gabriel Bran Lopez - Youth Fusion (2011)
Gaps in the education system, such as shortages of teachers and resources, exacerbate already high rates of school absenteeism and dropping out. This is especially true in many First Nations and urban...
- George Roter - Engineers without Borders Canada (2011)
George Roter has turned young engineers and the general public into the driving force behind a citizen movement that is educating the Canadian population and transforming their country’s approach to g...
- Judith Marcuse - International Centre of Art for Social Change (ICASC) (2011)
Judith Marcuse, a choreographer, producer, teacher, and social entrepreneur, is increasing the effectiveness with which disparate communities use the arts as tools for promoting social change. Through...
- Lis Suarez-Visbal - FEM International (2011)
By strengthening women’s economic independence, Lis Suarez-Visbal is decreasing poverty rates among immigrant women in Canada while increasing their awareness of social and ecological practices....
- Nadia Duguay - Exeko (2011)
Nadia Duguay is giving prisoners the reflective tools to be active participants of society, contribute to decision-making and improve their lives and communities. Through her courses taught at prisons...
- Tatiana Fraser - Girls Action (2011)
Tatiana Fraser is creating change by transforming the way citizen organizations work with girls and young women to be more effective and impactful. Tatiana empowers young women to face the challenges ...
- Anil Patel - The Framework Foundation (2010)
Anil Patel is shifting citizens’ approaches to volunteerism from a traditionally periodic commitment to an integrated and long-term engagement plan that enables volunteers to increase their “civic foo...
- Brent Kopperson - Windfall Ecology Centre (2010)
Brent Kopperson is transforming Canada’s electricity generation and distribution systems from highly centralized ones, dominated by non-renewable resources, to more decentralized, green and locally-ow...
- Cindy Blackstock - First Nations Child and Family Caring Society (2010)
Cindy Blackstock, a member of the Gitksan First Nation of British Columbia, is changing the discriminatory policies and actions toward First Nations children in Canada through a vibrant social movemen...
- Claudine Labelle - FitSpirit (2010)
Claudine Labelle is creating strong community networks to put sports back into the lives of teenage girls. She is increasing their self-esteem, and thereby improving their health, nutrition, and welln...
- Eva Marszewski - Peacebuilders International (2010)
Through Peacebuilding Circles and mediation, and conflict management training, Eva Marszewski is equipping high-risk communities to preventing violence and other anti-social behaviors from being first...
- Sandrine Faust - Allô Prof (2010)
Sandrine Faust, who comes from a family of educators, is democratizing education and changing power dynamics between students, teachers, and parents through platforms that enable peer-to-peer tutoring...
- Usha Tamba Dhar - Sage Youth and Excellence in Literacy Foundation (2010)
Usha Tamba Dhar is introducing new perspectives to the field of literacy education in Canada by providing local organizations with effective tools, trainings, and microfinancing to engage youth in the...
- Arnold Noyek - CISEPO (2009)
For the past 30 years Dr. Arnold Noyek has identified health issues common to Israelis, Jordanians, and Palestinians, and fostered cross-border cooperation to build lasting solutions to high-priority ...
- Daphne Nederhorst - Sawa World (2009)
Daphne Nederhorst is combating extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries by supporting local champions (Sawa Heroes) who have their own solutions to extreme poverty. She does this by giving the...
- Ilona Dougherty - Apathy is Boring (2009)
Ilona Dougherty is fostering civic participation among apathetic youth by enhancing their democratic literacy. To do so she has created a multi-layered strategy using popular music concerts, workshops...
- Jean-Francois Archambault - La Tablee des Chefs (2009)
Jean-François is combating hunger and introducing healthy eating by substantially modifying the food consumption chain. He is identifying and empowering the most critical key players, chefs, to become...
- Johann Olav Koss - Right to Play (2009)
Through "Right To Play," an athlete-driven international organization, Johann Olav Koss is working with children, youth and adult coaches in some of the most difficult circumstances in the world, such...
- Lucie Chagnon - Median Solutions (2009)
Lucie Chagnon is harmonizing employee-employer relationships through the first online open market for the provision of life-work balance services. This system of services that she has created helps em...
- Manon Barbeau - Wapikoni Mobile (2009)
Manon Barbeau is restoring the Canadian aboriginal communities’ deeply damaged natural social structures by empowering young people and indigenous groups to connect with their communities through a pr...
- Tonya Surman - Centre for Social Innovation (2009)
Tonya is empowering the citizen sector by uniting previously dispersed citizen-led initiatives from across the sector. She is building a network of local and global shared spaces for social innovators...
- Jayne Stoyles - Canadian Centre for International Justice (2007)
Some 1,500 suspected war criminals may be living in Canada. With many refugees and immigrants in Canada having experienced torture, rape, and other atrocities, it is common for survivors to come face-...
- Jessica Clogg - West Coast Environmental Law (2007)
Jessica Clogg is introducing a new approach to land preservation that incorporates both the practical and spiritual knowledge of First Nations people and Western legal codes. Through an attentive proc...
- Stanley Zlotkin - Hospital for Sick Children (2007)
Two-thirds of children in developing countries suffer from vitamin and mineral deficiencies—so-called “hidden hunger.” Through grassroots mothers’ groups that provide essential health education, Stan ...
- Gilles Julien - Social Pediatrics, Fondation pour la Promotion de la Pediatrie Sociale (2006)
Dr. Gilles Julien has redesigned the profession of the pediatrician to fundamentally transform today’s “sickness and disease” system into a health system that is truly preventive and community driven....
- Sidney Ribaux - Équiterre (2006)
Climate is changing rapidly, the exploitation of natural resources is growing, social inequalities are deepening, pollution and over consumption is increasing in the North as well as in the South. Fac...
- Geoff Cape - Evergreen (2005)
Geoff Cape is leading a movement to redesign urban spaces in a way that incorporates the natural environment more fully into public spaces and children’s learning environments....
- John Richardson - Pivot Legal Society (2005)
As founding director of the Pivot Legal Society, John Richardson combines strategic litigation, media outreach, and public education to address the structural and systemic legal challenges faced by ma...
- Marc Kielburger - Free the Children (2005)
Marc Kielburger is building leadership development and social engagement into the education system so that young people have opportunities to contribute in practical ways to building an improved globa...
- Aaron Pereira - Vartana, Community Bank Initiative (2004)
Aaron Pereira is creating Canada’s first bank directly servicing citizen sector organizations (CSOs). His Community Bank Initiative will harness and redirect CSO strengths and assets, while investing ...
- Donna Morton - Integral Economics (2003)
Donna Morton is using tax shifting as one of many techniques that aim to align social and environmental needs with the market drivers and a range of economic incentives....
- John Mighton - JUMP (Junior Undiscovered Mathematical Prodigies) (2003)
John Mighton invented a method of teaching mathematics that inspires measurable higher performance across the board, along with major improvements in students’ self-esteem and attitude towards learnin...
- Nicole Rycroft - Canopy (2003)
Nicole Rycroft is safeguarding the biodiversity and the long-term survival of ancient forests by shifting heavy paper consuming sectors away from products that originate in the ancient rainforests of ...
- Al Etmanski - Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network (2002)
In order to enhance the quality of life and the security of disabled persons, Al Etmanski, who is based in Vancouver, B.C., is weaving a safety net that can withstand both the death of their care-givi...
- Mary Gordon - Roots of Empathy (2002)
Mary Gordon's program, Roots of Empathy (ROE), works to reduce childhood aggression by teaching students emotional literacy and fostering the development of empathy. Her program, which consists of chi...
About Ashoka
Ashoka identifies and invests in leading social entrepreneurs. Fellows receive:
- Lifetime membership in the Ashoka network
- Stipend support for full-time focus on their idea
- Global connections with other Fellows worldwide
Learn more at ashoka.org