Canadian Social Entrepreneur Creates an Online Platform for Social Innovators

A 25-year old Ottawa social entrepreneur, Kanika Gupta, has launched an online platform called Social Journal for young social innovators around the world. The platform is currently in a public beta form. In its final avatar it will play the role of a middleman for 100,000 new and aspiring social innovators and entrepreneurs in their mid-teens to mid-thirties keen to launch socially enterprising ventures globally.

At the young age of 25, Kanika has already traveled to 35 countries, been a part of an official state entourage to Rwanda, Congo, Cape Verde and Senegal in 2010, and talked about social innovation at Yale University. She says, "I want to help young people focus their energy where it belongs - on the passion and outcome, not on the mechanics of helping others."

Kanika's is a living example of how the old concept of philanthropy is transforming from a purely non-profit model to a one that pursues profit, while making a strong social impact. Kanika looks at the new model as one that identifies a pressing social need, brings together like-minded partners, creates a feasible business plan, raises finance, delivers critical social value, and secures a profit in the end.
 
Kanika formally got involved with social entrepreneurship at the age of 21, when she developed a program called "Education 4 All" in Togo, West Africa, which helped send girls to primary school. She raised contributions from her own circle of family and friends to promote this program. Today 600 girls go to primary school in Togo. While Kanika continues to work with this program, one of the new ventures she is now assisting is InsideOUT. This is an education and support program for teenagers who have a parent with mental illness.

Kanika's ambitious venture Social Journal or SoJo for short, is an open-source online platform aimed at bringing together a wealth of resources for people who have a promising idea and a serious motivation to make an impact at the social level, but do not know how to get the idea off the ground. SoJo helps such young people concretize their ideas, build feasible projects and plans, and link them with appropriate networks where they can find the necessary support and resources to bring their plans to fruition.

Photo Credit: sachyn