Profound Impact’s CEO, Sherry Shannon-Vanstone, was the guest speaker for an inaugural podcast hosted by Jay Krishnan of Canada’s Accelerator Centre for a great conversation. Sherry shares her personal story and discusses the challenges facing female entrepreneurs in technology, and offers some great advice for meeting those challenges. A mathematician, entrepreneur, innovator, and philanthropist, Sherry defied the odds when it comes to women pursuing STEM careers and has been an advocate for women in STEM, pushing for them to assume a greater role in Canada’s post-pandemic economic recovery. Watch the podcast recording here or listen on Spotify here.
REGION OF WATERLOO CELEBRATES INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2022 WITH THREE DAYS OF FREE VIRTUAL EVENT PROGRAMS
Women in Communications and Technology — Waterloo Region Chapter to host three online events celebrating, educating and empowering women
WATERLOO, ON | FEBRUARY 24, 2022 — In celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8, Women in Communications and Technology — Waterloo Region Chapter (WCT-WR) is partnering with various community organizations to host three virtual events during the month of March featuring some of the Region’s most notable female leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators.
Centered around the 2022 campaign theme #BreakTheBias, participants will share personal stories of overcoming stereotypes and discrimination in the workplace. There will also be live panel discussions on empowering women in healthcare and education, achieving financial independence and assessing overall perceptions of women in society, culture and the workplace.
“Women have made tremendous progress in advancing gender equality and challenging existing gender stereotypes, but there is more work to be done,” said Sherry Shannon-Vanstone, CEO of Profound Impact Corporation and Founder of WCT-WR. “With the pandemic posing serious risks to women’s progress in the workforce, empowering and educating women is more important than ever.”
(TORONTO, ONTARIO — March 8, 2022) A group of Canadian women in technology have launched Phoenix Fire, an angel stage investment fund with a systematic approach to investing in women entrepreneurs across Canada. The fund will invest $100K to $250K in early-stage technology start-ups with high-growth potential and the ability to scale globally. Phoenix Fire is powered by Archangel Network, which launched in 2020 with a first close of $10 million.
The women of Phoenix Fire, also known as “The Firehood™” consists of over a dozen women with diverse backgrounds, mostly in technology. Founding members include Sherry Shannon-Vanstone, Founder and CEO of Profound Impact.
FROM THE RELEASE: To make an even greater impact in gender equity, the founders of Venusverse are collaborating with Profound Impact™ Corporation and CivicAction, to build a community where women are empowered with the knowledge required to advance successfully in the next-generation wealth economy. In true community-building fashion, Chalouhi will join Profound Impact Corporation as an advisor in partnership engagement. Profound Impact is a Toronto-Waterloo innovation corridor-based startup that helps education, research and social impact community organizations leverage data to measure program impact, tell their stories and inform strategies.
“Our collaboration with Venusverse aligns perfectly with our long-term stakeholder engagement strategy,” said Sherry Shannon-Vanstone, founder and CEO of Profound Impact Corporation. “Venusverse will use Profound Impact’s business intelligence and engagement tools to measure the increased involvement of women in NFT, Web3 and crypto. Our shared goal is to measure the global impact of connecting great people to do great work in these growing fields.”
LOCAL TECH STARTUP PROFOUND IMPACT™ PARTNERS WITH GIVING TUESDAY TO KICK-OFF THE 12 DAYS OF IMPACT CAMPAIGN
The 12 Days of Impact Campaign is Profound Impact’s way of inspiring acts of kindness and generosity throughout the community that builds on the Giving Tuesday movement
WATERLOO, ON | NOVEMBER 30, 2021 — Profound Impact™ Corporation, a Waterloo Region-based tech company offering a suite of digital engagement and impact measurement tools, is launching its 12 Days of Impact campaign – encouraging small acts to create big impact. Building on the global #GivingTuesday movement, the 12 Days of Impact campaign is designed to encourage people and organizations to contribute their time, resources and talents to help address local challenges.
“The team at Profound Impact believes that encouraging small acts of generosity can have big impacts on those who experience undue hardship,” said Sherry Shannon-Vanstone, Founder and CEO of Profound Impact Corporation. “We hope that by engaging our team in a calendar of ‘good deeds’, we can inspire the collective power of individuals and businesses to do the same, amplifying the resulting impacts.”
The small team with big hearts at Profound Impact makes a start internally by matching their team’s contributions to charitable organizations and sharing fun challenges to engage everyone in giving. Externally, Profound Impact organized a social media contest aimed at providing underrepresented youth opportunities to engage in STEM programming, something Sherry Shannon-Vanstone and her team are passionate about.
As a next step, Profound Impact challenges others to take part in the 12 Days of Impact campaign, sharing your acts of generosity and kindness through #12DaysOfImpact. These acts include donating food or funding to a local food bank, buying a toy for a community toy drive, helping a neighbour in need, cooking a meal for someone in need, donating warm clothing and paying it forward to a stranger. No action is too big or too small and collectively, we can make meaningful contributions to the betterment of our community.
“The holidays can be a particularly difficult time for vulnerable members of our community,” said Shannon-Vanstone. “We hope that through these small acts of generosity, we can inspire others to give back (in whatever way they can) making a positive impact during the holiday season.”
Profound Impact connects great people to do great things by providing a unique and transformational digital community to measure the worldwide impact of an organization and by facilitating and accelerating connectivity to inspire collaborative solutions to difficult global problems. Profound Impact offers a next-generation digital community and interaction platform, helping universities and colleges, research institutions and social impact organizations accelerate connectivity, inspire collaboration and measure their impact. In September of this year, the Profound Impact team debuted their new career trajectory solution, designed to help institutions and enterprises find and tell their impact stories through alumni career trajectory data.
WATERLOO, ON | NOVEMBER 1, 2021 —Profound Impact™ Corporation, a Waterloo Region-based startup, is pleased to announce that its President and CEO, Sherry Shannon-Vanstone has been elected to CANARIE’s Board of Directors.
Established in 1993, CANARIE is a non-profit corporation that supports the evolution of Canada’s digital infrastructure. Together with its thirteen provincial and territorial partners, CANARIE forms the National Research and Education Network, enabling researchers, educators and innovators to leverage a range of advanced technologies to support a growing digital economy and catalyze innovation.
October 27, 2021 Q&A: Serial STEM entrepreneur Sherry Shannon-Vanstone on launching and scaling a social network. Here’s how she managed her business through the pandemic. Read the article online.
The prestigious tech industry awards program, created by Tech in Motion, announces top regional tech leaders for 2021
WATERLOO, ON | OCTOBER 19, 2021 —Profound Impact™ Corporation, a Waterloo Region-based startup, is proud to announce that Sohail Ramzan, Technical Program Manager at Profound Impact, has been selected as the Toronto Region’s Best Tech Manager for the 7th annual Timmy Awards. He will now have the opportunity to receive even more recognition by competing to take home the North American Award, to be chosen by an expert panel of judges: Dr. Anita Jindal, Senior Director of Engineering at VMware, Akshaya Aradhya, Director of Engineering at Netflix, and Nirmal Srinivasan, Software Engineering Director at PayPal.
“We are extremely proud to recognize leading managers in the tech industry, locally and across North America,” says Mandy Walker, Executive Director of Marketing at Motion Recruitment, Tech in Motion’s creator. “These tech leaders’ steadfast dedication to empowering their teams through all circumstances and adapting to changing circumstances, while still inspiring those around them, deserve recognition.”
Sohail has worked with Profound Impact for nearly two years, leading a cohesive development team that has built and continues to enhance the next-generation social engagement and interaction platform to measure the worldwide impact of an organization and its programming. Guided by Sohail’s leadership and technological expertise, Profound Impact has created an innovative digital community of stakeholders including alumni, academics, researchers, innovators and professionals working together to find actionable solutions to global challenges.
“Sohail’s contributions to Profound Impact have been immeasurable and we are thrilled that his talent and leadership are being recognized,” said Sherry Shannon-Vanstone, founder and CEO of Profound Impact “Sohail and his team have brought our product vision to life, ensuring that our digital community and other services provide the tools and analysis needed to measure impact and tackle complex global issues.”
After the success of last year’s virtual event, the 2021 Timmy Awards ceremony on Oct. 28 will once again be an entirely digital experience on YouTube Premiere. North American winners will be announced live in front of Finalists, Regional Winners and members of the tech community from across North America. The public can RSVP here to attend and see who will be declared as the 2021 North American Winner. Further information on all judges and finalists can be found on the Timmy Awards’ website.
Tech in Motion is a North American events series that brings local tech community professionals together to connect, learn and innovate. What started as a passion project in 2011, by IT staffing and recruiting firm Motion Recruitment, grew into an organization of over 250,000 members across 14 chapters in North America including Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, LA, New York, Orange County, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Toronto, and Washington, D.C. Please visit www.techinmotionevents.com for more information about our notable speakers, sponsors and events.
ABOUT PROFOUND IMPACT CORPORATION
Profound Impact connects great people to do great things by providing a unique and transformational digital community to measure the worldwide impact of an organization and by facilitating and accelerating connectivity to inspire collaborative solutions to difficult global problems.
Waterloo Region’s very own Dr. Feridun Hamdullahpur announced as inaugural recipient of the Award
WATERLOO, ON | SEPTEMBER 14, 2021 — Profound Impact™ Corporation, a Waterloo Region-based startup providing a next-generation social engagement and interaction platform, today celebrates the second annual Profound Impact Day by announcing the launch of the Impactful Actions Award program. Presented at the virtual Profound Impact Day event, Profound Impact™ is pleased to award Dr. Feridun Hamdullahpur, former President & Vice Chancellor (2010-2021) and Professor of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo as the 2021 recipient.
The Impactful Actions Award is an annual awards program recognizing leaders from around the world who are making a profound impact on the global community by inspiring collaborative solutions to difficult problems. A monetary contribution will be made in honour of Award recipients to an initiative or cause that aligns with their work and impact.
In Dr. Hamdullahpur’s honour as recipient of the 2021 Impactful Actions Award, Profound Impact™ has chosen to donate to the University of Waterloo Student Wellness fund. This fund supports student success by ensuring students have access to resources that promote their physical and mental wellbeing.
“The Impactful Actions Award program brings together two of our core values at Profound Impact™: collaboration and making a positive impact,” said Sherry Shannon-Vanstone,Founder and CEO, Profound Impact Corporation. “It’s always exciting to see the ways our platform is being used to connect people and facilitate future impactful endeavours. It is an honour to recognize Dr. Feridun Hamdullahpur this Profound Impact Day for the impact he has made on university education, research and scholarship in our broader society through constant reform and innovation in the higher education sector, in addition to his involvement in the United Nations’ HeForShe initiative to take action on gender inequality.”
Celebrated annually on September 14, Profound Impact Day is a celebration of the world’s diverse leaders and changemakers who are leaving their mark on the global community through their initiatives, influence and impact.
This year, Profound Impact™ hosted a series of events engaging innovators, thinkers and doers from across Waterloo Region and the world as part of the Profound Impact Day celebration.
Beginning with a virtual event featuring a fireside chat with Dr. Feridun Hamdullahpur, discussing his previous work with the United Nations’ HeForShe Alliance as a 10x10x10 Impact Champion, the Impactful Actions Award was debuted in its inaugural year.
Further, Profound Impact™ is thrilled to be supporting Hack the North, Canada’s largest hackathon. Announced yesterday, the organization is hosting a pre-hack challenge for hackers to warm up for the 36-hour Hack the North event. Profound Impact™’s Chief Strategic Advisor, Brian Romansky, will present a Tech Talk titled “AI Technology for Data Aggregation and Normalization – Shifting the Value Proposition of Distributed Data”, taking place from 7:00-7:45pm on Saturday, September 18th.
To conclude the Profound Impact Day 2021 series of events, Profound Impact™ is pleased to announce the launch of their new career trajectory product, designed to help universities and colleges, research institutions and social impact organizations gain important alumni insights, develop new strategy and programming, and identify career progression success stories.
Even with the development of new and innovative products, Profound Impact™ remains dedicated to expanding the possibilities of its digital communities, recognizing them as one of the most important tools to help organizations continue to innovate, scale and strengthen — especially as the world emerges from the ongoing pandemic.
“Discovering new relationships, no matter where you are in the world, empowers collaboration. Now more than ever, a thriving digital community can help both individuals and organizations amplify the impact of the work they are doing,” said Sherry Shannon-Vanstone.
Profound Impact connects great people to do great things by providing a unique and transformational digital community to measure the worldwide impact of an organization and by facilitating and accelerating connectivity to inspire collaborative solutions to difficult global problems.
The prestigious tech industry awards program, created by Tech in Motion, announces top regional tech leaders for 2021
WATERLOO, ON | SEPTEMBER 23, 2021 — Profound Impact™ Corporation, a Waterloo Region-based startup, is proud to announce that Sohail Ramzan, Technical Program Manager at Profound Impact™, has been selected as a Best Tech Manager Finalist for the 7th annual Timmy Awards, which recognizes the top workplaces and people inside the North American tech industry. Ramzan has been named one of three regional finalists in the Toronto area.
Demonstrating great leadership and positive influence, managers such as Sohail Ramzan lead their teams through unexpected territories and inspire performance and growth. The Waterloo Region’s tech community can vote here until September 27 to decide the Regional Winners, who will be judged in the national round by experts from companies like Paypal, Netflix and Oracle.
“In an ever-changing world, we value the unwavering commitment and agility from tech leaders like these, who help strengthen and motivate those around them professionally,” says Mandy Walker, Executive Director of Marketing at Tech in Motion’s creator, Motion Recruitment. “Through the Timmys, we are glad for the opportunity to recognize leaders in tech workplaces dedicated to empowering their teams.”
The selection criteria for the Best Tech Manager is based on the following:
Promotes career growth and inspires innovation
Goes above and beyond to ensure a motivating, inclusive team culture
Employs a clear and communicated vision to produce an innovative product
“We are thrilled that Sohail’s talent and leadership is being recognized as a finalist for this prestigious award,” said Sherry Shannon-Vanstone, founder and CEO of Profound Impact™ Corporation. “At Profound Impact™, our work is rooted in inspiring collaborative solutions to difficult global problems — and Sohail continues to push our mission forward as a visionary manager who remains committed to empowering our team.”
Profound Impact™ offers a next-generation digital community and interaction platform, helping universities and colleges, research institutions and social impact organizations accelerate connectivity, inspire collaboration and measure their impact. Earlier this month, the Profound Impact™ team debuted their new career trajectory solution, designed to help institutions and enterprises find and tell their impact stories through alumni career trajectory data. The company looks forward to releasing additional solutions, including a research/researcher matching solution, to be announced soon.
After the success of last year’s virtual ceremony, the 2021 Timmy Awards ceremony on Thursday, October 28 will once again be a completely digital experience. To vote, RSVP or learn more, visit the Timmys website.
Tech in Motion is a North American events series that brings local tech community professionals together to connect, learn and innovate. What started as a passion project in 2011, by IT staffing and recruiting firm Motion Recruitment, grew into an organization of over 250,000 members across 14 chapters in North America including Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, LA, New York, Orange County, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Toronto, and Washington, D.C. Please visit www.techinmotionevents.com for more information about our notable speakers, sponsors and events.
ABOUT PROFOUND IMPACT CORPORATION
Profound Impact connects great people to do great things by providing a unique and transformational digital community to measure the worldwide impact of an organization and by facilitating and accelerating connectivity to inspire collaborative solutions to difficult global problems.
