Make Change Studio

"World is changing exponentially and the new knowledge is being created every single day, we need a system that understands this. TKS is extremely dynamic. We have a constantly changing system in process where kids can learn about what is happening RIGHT NOW...."

Today we are joined by Navid Nathoo who is the founder of TKS, short for The Knowledge Society. Not so long ago Navid gave this fantastic TED talk on “Are we Making the Most of Human Potential?” Do listen to it when you have some time.

Through TKS, Navid is on a mission to change our educational system by building next generation global leaders. TKS has built a physical environment where students explore topics such as Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Nanotechnology, and Genetic Engineering through collaboration and guidance from world-class mentors.

Without further ado, let’s hear from Navid.

Maryam Mobini is a Behaviour Designer and the Founder and CEO of to:Resonate, which is an evidence-based personalized immersive sound experience designed to reduce anxiety, negative thoughts, and physical pain effortlessly within 5 minutes. She is a graduate from the School of Interactive Arts and Technology and hosts the Vancouver Start-up Show. Maryam is a lifetime advocate for mental health and emotional well being and is a certified coach for Tiny Habits.

“Get comfortable being wrong and making uncomfortable choices, because that is going to happen a lot…follow your intuition”

These are not my words, it’s Craig McIntosh and Carissa Campeotto from Trendi. My name is Naghmi and today I am joined by two fabulous entrepreneurs who are on a mission to rescue food waste. They started Trendi almost at the very start of the Pandemic last year and have been successful in raising 2.25 million funding. Let’s listen to them and know more about their process.

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Trendi develops robotic and product solutions for the food and beverage industry with a focus on rescuing misfit and excess food at the source,  upcycling it into nutritious shelf-stable products and making healthy plant-based foods more accessible.

New semester.... new season... extra fun episodes ;)

My guests today are four fantastic Make Change students, who took some serious time out to talk about their experience and some of the projects they did at Make Change. 

Jesika Kula is a final year SIAT student, who also happens to be the Communication Champion at Charles Chang's Institute. Listen to her conversation about the children's book Jordan and the Magic Cape, which by the way can be downloaded for free from SFU Library. 

Sophia Nguyễn is a third year business student who is also involved in numerous organizations such as Enactus SFU, the Student Marketing Association, and Female Laboratory of Innovative Knowledge. At Make Change, she developed an MVP for Triple S Shop, an all-in-one fashion platform where people can swap clothes, sell and shop, and socialize with other users in one convenient place. To try out Sophia’s beta app click here (only accessible on laptop or computer).

Danakin Seah is going into his final semester as a business student, concentrating in entrepreneurship. He is on a mission to bring healthy beverages (kombucha for now) to underserved communities, or as he likes to describe it: the love triangle between Starbucks Reserve, Kombucha, and a Private Clubhouse. As the pandemic hit, the thought of death didn't terrify him, but the thought of not making the world a better place did - for him, it's creating a healthier world. Instagram: @danakinseah @chambaeco.

Caleigh Smith is a recent graduate of SFU and Make Change Studio! She loved discovering the creativity and design aspects of business through Make Change Studio and is excited to apply this learning to future projects. She is interested in sewing and crafting using natural and recycled materials and experiential education! Her project, Wrongside Studio, brought these interests together into one final project and business idea.

My guest today is David Bland. David is an author, a founder, a researcher and a leader. In 2015, he founded Precoil to help companies find product-market fit using lean startup, design thinking and business model innovation.

David has helped hundreds of teams test new products and businesses at companies such as General Electric, Toyota, Adobe, HP, Behr and more.

My guest today is a couple. Lynn Warburton and Matt Warburton. 

They are the co-founders at Emdoubleyu Communications + Design, a Vancouver-based design consultancy firm.

At Emdoubleyu, Matt works as the principle designer and Lynn is the managing partner.

Alongside Emdoubleyu, Matt manages a design team at UBC that looks after the university branding and marketing. Matt is also a part-time instructor at Emily Carr University and BCIT, where he teaches a course called Design Essentials. He is an active member of GDC - an association of Graphic Designers and chairs the national ethics board along with other responsibilities including managing the newsletter and their social media.

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Lynn Warburton is an expert in engaging stakeholders in values-based conversations. Her clients are municipalities, institutions, businesses and non-profits. She’s an advocate for social innovation through sustainability, diversity and health care. Alongside Matt, Lynn develops brand platforms, campaigns and messaging for City of Surrey and leads signature projects both at SFU and UBC.

My question today is how do designers survive in an industry environment, where there is often very little time to stop and take a breadth? In such a fast paced setting, how do we expect designers to not only just survive but innovate?

To answer this question, my guest today is John Bondoc. John has a double bachelors, one in Psychology from UBC and the other in Product Design from an arts school in California. He finished his masters in Digital Media from CDM, which is run in collaboration between UBC, SFU and Emily Carr University.

John is a design professional, an educator and an entrepreneur. During his career, John has been involved with many companies in various roles, including being a creative director, head of the design department and currently, he works as a UX designer with Teck Resources. During his career, John has co-founded two ventures, one with the name of ASIF, that is As seen in Future, which is an LA based streetwear brand. And the second venture is called Saturna Outdoor Research that helps create commercial consumer products that are socially responsible and environmentally friendly.

John has been involved in educating next generation of designer and currently teaches issues in contemporary design at Emily Carr. John also mentors Make Change Students at SFU.

My question today is how do we know exactly what our passion is? How to detach ourselves from an idea in pursuit to discover our vision? How do we know its time to pivot? Is your passion more important or your idea? Are they the same thing?

To answer these and many more questions, my guest today is Asad Aftab. Asad is a graduate from the University of Warwick, who started his entrepreneurial journey at the age of 18, long before he even knew his passion was to study the business sides of things. Mistaken to believe he was born to learn English literature and write poetry, somewhere along the way, he found out he was actually good at exploring his entrepreneurial mind. Till date, Asad has co-founded 10 companies around sports, textiles and digital marketing. Recently when the Pandemic hit, Asad’s years of experience and wisdom, helped him to quickly pivot and launch a made-to-wear sports garment under the existing umbrella of his current company called Rage Customs. Without further due, let’s hear more on Asad’s journey of entrepreneurial experiments to know more on what has he learned so far.

My question today is how do we start small and slow. How can we be consistent in our efforts to improve our products, services or whatever that we offer through our venture, to achieve the desired results. I always wanted to have a conversation with a person, who knowing that we are in a pandemic situation worldwide, steps into the unknown realms of starting a venture and making it a success.

To explore our question further our guest today is Iman Shoaib, who is a research scientist by education with a background in Biotechnology. During her education, she worked briefly with a state-of-the-art molecular laboratory ‘Sime Darby’ in Malaysia, before she moved to Pakistan, where she worked as a Research Scientist at an Armed Forces Institute of Pathology Rawalpindi under the Department of Forensic Medical Science. There she got an opportunity to be involved in several molecular diagnostic procedures including Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), library preparation and identifying common regions of cancer genes persisting among Pakistani population.

She was honoured to be selected by the National Academy of Sciences Engineering and Medicine in Washington DC) for a training program that is run in collaboration with National Institute of Health Sciences (NIH Pakistan) and Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI, Kenya).

During all of this, there has always been this innate desire to investigate the skincare products that lead to the countless hours she spent on formulating and integrating skincare regimes which she now proudly shares with others.

As a scientist, having more than 8 years of hands-on experience in the field of research enabled Iman to understand and appreciate the amazing properties of organic plant based essential oils. Iman’s passion about skincare and balanced nutritional lifestyle lead her to start working on products made from pure ingredients that she would personally use herself and would share with people closed to her. This initial exploratory venture later evolved into ‘IORA soaps and balms’.

IORA aims to help individuals address long-term skin conditions like acne, eczema, psoriasis and dermatitis as well as hair loss issues. Her products aim to provide aromatherapy along with topical solutions to help invigorate the mind, body and soul. IORA is proud to offer eco-friendly packaged products, 100% organic, vegan and free of preservatives.

We have two guests today, Samarth Singhal and Yasamin Hashmet. Both of them are the graduates from SIAT, SFU.

Samarth is currently a senior design researcher at Unity, which is a real time development platform for 2D, 3D, and virtual environments, such as AR and VR. Having a Masters in human-computer interaction from SIAT, Samarth got a chance to work with big tech names such as North, which is acquired by Google, Microsoft Research, Samsung, and Curatio. Samarth’s research interests lie at the intersection of human-computer interaction, ubiquitous and wearable computing, and 3D systems. In his current role, he is part of the Unity Create Solutions exploring the potential and possibilities of real-time 3D technologies to transform non-gaming industries.

Yasamin is currently a UX researcher at Electronic Arts here in Vancouver. She received her PhD. From the school of Interactive Arts & Technology in Simon Fraser University where she explored domestic technologies such as friends geocaching with telepresence robots, telemedicine, and family communication over different time zones. During her PhD, she designed and created three different computational artifacts for family storytelling over different time zones. During her master's, she also developed machine learning algorithms to improve recommender systems based on Yelp Dataset. Her work at EA includes designing new prototypes for games, running usability studies, answering different research questions for creating a game from early stages to full release including evaluating features, highlighting the needs of players, and so on.