365 Days of RED Academy Toronto — Part 4 of 5
The fourth of a five-part story about 25+ students, 40+ real world projects, and 1 Global Pandemic over 365 days.
If you are just tuning in and want to start from the beginning, click this. or If you want to read part two click this, or part three click this. It will provide much more context as to why I’m telling this story. If you want to skip ahead, feel free to keep reading — you can always catch up later.
Fall Q4
Summer was over pretty quickly, but some of the UX Design students moved on with me into the Fall cohort. It was nice to have some familiar faces this time around. I met quite a few more students. My largest class at RED consisted of Kim, Sara, Chiara, Leo, Michael, Kathy and Cara. Click their names to check them out. A big eclectic bunch with some very diverse backgrounds. We were an interesting room full of breakdancers, marketers, chefs, cake decorators, and more. This cohort we worked on some of the most interesting projects yet. We partnered with some more inspiring people, friends and local businesses. We had the opportunity to work again with the Entreprenorth program thanks to RJ Mojica (the first RED Academy Toronto hire) and we were able to continue working remotely with an Indigenous business in the Iqaluit region.
This cohort we had the pleasure to work with some more outstanding individuals like Don Mckenzie and Heart of a Man (HOAM), an advocacy group for men who are struggling with mental health challenges. We were able to bring a new construction-tech application to market with a new landing page for Level, an iOS and Android application for communications and project documentation. We brought ideas to life with several small businesses like Harp & Hawthorne, a Toronto-based mixology experience company that focuses on private and group lessons to craft classic cocktails led by Peter Kowalewski and some very fun endeavours like working with Be Awesome Shoppe, an interactive button-making experience for parties, schools, meetings and team building activities. We even got to get our hands a little dirty working with CleanThat, an independent reliable and honest cleaning service focusing on residential and industrial needs.
As usual we continuously turned simple sketches and ideas into high fidelity prototypes with Figma and Adobe XD. We created exceptional concepts and new features for apps like Doppelgänger, an E-commerce platform to encourage sustainability by purchasing second-hand clothes and RamenPay, an on-demand wage financial wellness benefit product offered to employees through employers to meet the ever-changing financial needs of employees. We continued to outdo ourselves with detailed concepts for applications like Calimo, a photography startup founded by Co-Founders Maria Wells and Zach Huisman. This cohort we even worked on our first-ever mobile game for Hungry Minds, an initiative led by Kevin Munn, who has spent several years not only as an overseas educator, but also as a social worker for young children in Toronto. We were also able to work with existing businesses and design new features for applications like Quickstaff, a business to business staffing application for caterers and events.
We continued to work with progressive initiatives like Toronto Women in Tech (TOWIT) to create a seamless, and easy to navigate system for young professionals to connect with a mentor in the STEM industry. We were also able to work remotely again to create an all new web presence for two Indigenous businesses — the first was Polar Outfitting, owned and operated by Alexander Flaherty, a lifetime Nunavummiut and resident of the capital, Iqaluit and the second, Sahtú Adventures, another 100% Indigenous owned business offering eco-cultural tourism based out of Norman Wells, NT, Canada in the Sahtú Region.
Check-in next week to read the final instalment, part five of five of this story, which will be linked here shortly. If you want to go back and catch up, check out part three of five with this link here.
