Brione Wishart is a Toronto based film director, producer and the founder of ARTLEE Creative Agency. His work stems from a love of Cinema, Music, and Storytelling.

Erica Rankin is a young Canadian entrepreneur who took a passion and turned it into a business.

This week, I sat down with Daniel Francavilla to discuss his journey through building a business, founding a nonprofit organization and using his experiences to empower others to do the same. I was intrigued by Daniel's commitment to maximizing social impact in all the ventures that he built.

Daniel's creative agency,  Now Creative Group collaborates with creatives and strategists to provide marketing services to startups, businesses and non-profits. Now’s clients range from startups to TELUS and CIBC. Now has received a Social Good Design Award and a Business Excellence Award. Daniel is also a Partner at King Street Media, a purpose-driven growth agency based in Toronto.  

After travelling to developing countries as a student, he founded a nonprofit to help children in the developing world receive an education and to empower local youth to become leaders. Today, ACCESS focuses on supporting youth who are creating their own projects and organizations for positive social change, and offers micro-grants through The ACCESS Fund, hosting Bright Ideas Pitches. He is the recipient of the 40 Under 40 Award. 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Daniel partnered with fellow entrepreneurs to launch Maskwell, a company that produces reusable locally designed masks for everyday life featuring high-efficiency air filters while supporting frontline healthcare workers with every purchase.  

Daniel has spoken at a variety of events, conferences and workshops within the Toronto startup scene and nonprofit sector. He has also mentored students from high school to postsecondary on starting their own initiatives, businesses and careers. Daniel shares his learnings, tips and experiences on his blog, videos and podcast.

After getting kicked out of school twice, Astawa took his education to the proverbial streets by building DxM Creative– an innovative web design agency.  

Astawa's story exemplifies success against the odds. By traditional standards, he shouldn't have succeeded. Today, Astawa has led DxM Creative to boast a roster of clients including award-winning entrepreneurs, international non-profits, and (ironically) large universities.  

Astawa's unconventional path against the grain taught him many lessons. The most impactful of these lessons being that you don't need permission to start building a business. Astawa shares these lessons regularly with business students and aspiring entrepreneurs through actionable content and personable keynotes.

Shawn Kanungo is a globally recognized innovation strategist. He previously spent 12 years at Deloitte working closely with leaders to better plan for the opportunities associated with disruptive innovation. Shawn is a Partner with Queen & Rook, where he advises leading organizations and executives on disruptive trends, and actively invests in early-stage ventures.

Swish Goswami is a Canadian entrepreneur, author, speaker, and investor. He is the CEO of audience engagement platform Trufan that helps brands generate, segment, and activate first party data. Trufan has raised over $4.1M to date (from several NBA players and venture firms) and has clients like Samsung, Netflix, NBA, NFL, PUMA and thousands of small to medium sized businesses. Trufan has acquired two world class companies: PLAYR.gg and SocialRank.

Aleem Nasser is a High Performance Strategist, Author, International Speaker and University Lecturer. He has helped over 1500 adults multiply their performance levels with less stress, time and frustration. Aleem has implemented his concepts at The Royal Bank of Canada, The Government of Canada, Deloitte, Accenture, The University of Calgary and Mount Royal University.

Over 90% of his clients have reported an improvement in time management, motivation, self confidence as well as a reduction in stress, anxiety, overwhelm and procrastination after applying his "Equation for Success"

Aleem wrote "Simple Strategies to Study Smarter" which has been endorsed by university professors, leading authorities on success, industry experts. This book has been highly recommended for all his university lectures.

Mahfuz Chowdhury is a passionate public speaker and bestselling author. Over the last 10 years, he has spoken to 1000's of individuals to help them accelerate their personal development and adapt with the changing world. His book "Project Reinvention" shares his story of how he bounced back from multiple challenges including dropping out of school, racking up 30 thousand in debt and going through painful heartbreak. Mahfuz is also an award-winning marketer at Candybox Marketing, one of the fastest growing digital marketing agencies across Canada. Mahfuz is also a fellow podcaster, with over 100 episodes of the Ride with me podcast recorded from his driver's seat. This summer Mahfuz Chowdhury has been selected to participate in Season 2 of a new international reality TV series called The Social Movement, airing on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, among others!⁣

Instagram: @mahfuzc

Website: https://projectreinvention.ca/