Embracing Technology as a Force For Good

Saint Mary’s University Wins 2020 Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Project Accelerator

A group of students from Saint Mary’s University have been crowned the winners of the 2020 Samsung Solve For Tomorrow Project Accelerator, a unique competition that encourages innovative thinking, creative problem-solving and teamwork to discover and nurture social innovation ideas that resolve the community’s most pressing problems.

The team focused its efforts on The Square Roots Token program, which launched in 2017 in an attempt to tackle both food insecurity and food waste. It was created to address the problem that one in six households in Nova Scotia cannot afford healthy, fresh meals and that avoidable food waste costs Canada over $50 billion dollars every year. The program has been offered in Nova Scotian restaurants where $5 physical tokens are sold and can be redeemed for a meal for someone in need; meals that didn’t get sold after being prepared.

While the program had been successful, the students from Saint Mary’s University worked together to develop an app to make it easier for both restauranteurs and customers to manage, access and scale the program. To date, over 2,000 people have been impacted, including over 1,700 people who have new or improved access to information, communication and technology.

“Enactus Saint Mary’s is so grateful for this grant and partnership. It will allow us to scale our project globally and divert much more food waste. We are so passionate about this project and this grant allows us to continue doing what we love helping people and the earth,” said Bethany Ripoll, President, Enactus Saint Mary’s University.

Saint Mary’s University, who beat out 23 other projects in this year-long project, has been awarded $4,000 in a cash grant to put towards their project. The runner-up team from British Columbia Institute of Technology was awarded $3,000 and the second runner-up team from Thompson Rivers University was awarded $2,000. This is in addition to the $45,000 in cash and technology funding from Samsung that the teams from the competition received this school year.

“At Samsung, we believe in empowering future generations to achieve their full potential, enabling them to pioneer positive social change and build a better world. We are inspired by what these students have accomplished and how they have embraced technology as a force for good,” said Jennifer Groh, Director of Corporate Communications and Citizenship, Samsung Canada.

About Solve For Tomorrow

Launched in 2010, Solve for Tomorrow was designed to increase interest and proficiency in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education, and to encourage young people to apply STEM in finding creative solutions to solve challenges and address risks faced in their local communities to build a better tomorrow.