Lori Farley Hosts Rachneet Randhawa on the LIBI Podcast

Thank you for listening to the Leaders, Innovators and Big Ideas podcast, supported by Rainforest Alberta. The podcast that highlights those people who are contributing to and/or supporting the innovation ecosystem in Alberta.

Lori Farley Lori’s business and voluntary commitments curate and facilitate: connections, relationships, and opportunities for social change through entrepreneurship, partnerships, and alliances between various sectors around the globe including Community development, Arts, Disability, Education, and Technology. Lori is involved in numerous ventures related to social innovation and socio-economic development including Intonovus Canada and Impact Calgary.

Lori is involved in supporting cross-sector social and economic development with a mission of sharing and mobilizing time, money, resources, energy, talents, and best practices that align to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), B Corp standards (B Corp) and IRIS metrics (IRIS), all designed to measure the social, environmental and financial performance of companies and investments.

INTONOVUS Canada is a not for profit designed to partner with those advancing social impact, social enterprise, and impact investing:

IMPACT CALGARY is a social business venture launching coworking, ‘impact first’ business development, and access to funding for social entrepreneurs and benefit businesses. These ventures include foci on social impact technologies (such as Virtual & Augmented Reality (VR/AR), Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)), parentpreneurship (child and family-friendly professional work spaces), and crowdfunding.

As part of her passion for rural-urban economic corridor development, she is working to replicate economic diversity in Alberta through rural tech hubs.

She is also a partner in business that supports producers, processors, and manufacturers of Alberta agri-food s to access markets in China and Southeast Asia.

Rachneet Randhawa. I'm Rachneet and my hometown has always been Calgary. I have noticed that we are often not taught to find "our voice" before "we speak." Schooling doesn't teach us that – not entirely. I've also always been a wanderer and have wanted to be a travel bug. It was a couple of trips to India to see the family growing up that I was shocked to see a country ridden with both a) poverty and b) pollution and also culture shock towards my South Asian heritage and roots. I always reflected on: what more can I do for my community? Having this unique point of view of being Canadian and coming from a different culture, I realized that there was so much more I need to see, learn and experience from other countries, states and cities across the globe.

I have attended and represented Initiatives of Change (Canada), a peacebuilding forum and the completed the Caux Scholars Program (CSP) of Initiatives of Change, USA. I also had the chance to network with an alumnus of CSP of over 1000 people from 109 countries. It was an exhilarating experience I was grateful for. Because of it, I am now able to assess the adversity in old and destructive narratives and have a proactive approach to becoming a problem solver. For instance, our epidemic of domestic violence in Calgary is regardless of culture, creed, tradition, or socio-economic status and overlooks the malevolence of gender disparity of power and control within intimate partner violence. My internship with Impact Calgary and Intonovus Canada was an eye-opening experience because for once I began to see what I can offer my community rather than what it can offer me. And most extraordinarily of all - we as youth can be the change we wish to see in the world through social impact and social entrepreneurship. What is the most fascinating is the social impact not only addresses the triple bottom line of People, Profit and Planet but has the grit and ingenuity to change people's values, attitudes and behaviours - the most powerful transformation of all. As a generation of millennials, we are falsely associated with a sense of entitlement and status oriented. This is because we are not taught how to use our potential capability in a dignified and humbling way and become changemakers.

So what is my story? Well, I am for a career in law/journalism and social enterprise. What does that exactly mean? I want to combine my interests in writing and mediography to pursue solutions of innovation for sustainability, women's rights and security and the way we can use social media to realize the everlasting benefits of the "giver's gain."

One everlasting piece of advice I would tell youth graduating from university/college nowadays is to be open to the possibilities and to make decisions out of love and not fear.

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Show Summary:

How this millennial, has been learning to use her potential capability to become a changemaker through entrepreneurship.

Show Quote:

"I think things aren't going to change until people my age, they've realized that, it's really, the resources are inside of them. It's not really somewhere out there. There's a lot of potential in your own city, they don’t have to look halfway across the country."

Credits...

This Episode Sponsored By: Community Now! Magazine

Episode Audio Editing: Kate Day - KD Sound Design

Episode Music: Tony Del Degan

Creator & Producer: Al Del Degan