A few weeks back we told you about the five interns in our office from the Shad Valley Program, who are sharing space with us while they intern for the Impact Entrepreneurship Group. Did you catch all that?

The students are guests of our office mates at Bootup Labs; they're getting to hang in our cool Gastown digs while they work, which has to make working during their summer a little easier, right? Seems like it, if you consider the words of Wendy, one of the five:

"Everyone seems really impressed with our office at Bootuplabs, they tell us we’re going to be spoiled because we’ll never get as good of an office ever again."

But it's not all just free sodas, Rockband and staring out at the view for these youngsters, they're actually putting their noses to the grindstone and getting some work done. Take for instance their first project, the "Microcredit Challenge." 

Here's how it breaks down, in their words from their original blog post: 

In this competition, we give Canadian high school students the chance to be entrepreneurs while raising money for charity. We want to foster creativity, the courage to take risks, and a collective responsibility to help those in need. Students sign up in teams (200 across the country) with one team per school. On October 20th, we give each team one hundred dollars. They then have one week to multiply this initial capital into as much money as possible. Afterwards, we donate the proceeds to charity and microfinance organizations. Outstanding teams will win prizes in six categories: sustainability, profitability, innovation, positive social impact, community engagement, and best overall.

As you can see, we’ve created a win-win situation.  Students benefit, and so do needy people around the world. As interns, we’re excited to be involved with a project that makes a difference, that changes the world and that has an impact (pun intended).

Want to help them out? Consider giving a link to these fledgling bloggers, or get involved directly by sponsoring them: 

We need your help in this endeavour, since we are looking for prizes to award outstanding teams. There are many benefits to becoming one of our sponsors. Besides the fact that to support our initiative (which is completely non-profit and volunteer-run) is to support Canadian youth development and charity, more than 200,000 people will be exposed to our competition. With two hundred teams composed of five participants, hundreds of students will be reached in every participating school, and will generate a significant amount of media coverage. We’d be sure to give our sponsors lots of publicity, especially on our website and in our promotional materials. By partnering with us, your organization stands to gain a more positive image of charity and community involvement.

Any sort of help is welcome. We’re looking for prizes to award to our winners, as we’ve already mentioned, preferably in sets of five so that each team member can get one. However, any prize and publicity that you can give us would be greatly appreciated. If you’re interested, please contact Wendy at wendy.ming@impact.org.

Cheers,

The Impact Interns

 We wish them the best of luck!