New Year, NU Awards: Applications Now Open!

Happy New Year and Holidays from the NU Community Board!

After a much-needed break, we are back and hitting the ground running. Last year, we launched the first ever NU Student Award series honouring student social entrepreneurs in Alberta and Canada. We want to again congratulate the 2021 winners for both the NU Alberta and NU National Student Awards.

We learned a lot from both processes and are excited to share that applications are now open for the NU Alberta Student Social Entrepreneur Awards, celebrating excellence and best practices in student-led social entrepreneurship. As a Board, we are most excited about models that address the power dynamics that marginalize communities, thereby removing gaps in society (instances of social and/or economic deprivation).

Here is what you can expect to see from us in 2022:

Three (3) Alberta Student Social Entrepreneur Awards Totalling $30,000.00

Two $10,000 awards selected by the NU Board Jury
An additional $10,000 award chosen by the audience at our awards presentation event in April*

Two (2) National Student Social Entrepreneur Awards Totalling $50,000.00

One $25,000 award selected by the NU Board Jury
An additional $25,000 award chosen by the audience at our awards presentation event*

If you are or know of any student social entrepreneurs on a social enterprise, please share this with your networks. To be respectful of students’ time, the award application process is in two steps: 1) a short application that confirms eligibility and 2) a formal application for those who are eligible. Due to volume, we will only notify those moving on to stage two. Fill out the short eligibility form below. Applications due February 11th, 2022!

The NU Board is Chaired by Patrick Chiu, the General Manager of Trico Communities, who is driven by the TRICO principle of doing well by doing good. Established by the Trico Charitable Foundation in 2019, the NU Community Board and program focuses on supporting and celebrating the best and brightest student social entrepreneurs in Alberta and Canada by working closely with post-secondary institutions. In addition to awards and funding various social enterprises, NU Community Board is driven by the guiding idea: “Imagine if we fully harnessed the power of business models to close gaps in society.”