Twenty

With COVID 19 rapidly spreading, a big campaign, a big buzzword at the time was flatten the curve. Right? And and flatten the curve was change the, you know, the exponential rate of to to get flat so it's not growing crazy. And, you know, at the time with so many things going upside down, slingshot sales activities has slowed down to nothing. I mean, we were able to quickly switch some of our existing clients to go virtually because people are closing down their offices.

So our our clients that were on our infrastructure, our secure infrastructure that allowed them to flip over from full office to to fully virtual, you know, that was great. And then we're done. Right? This is 20, a podcast mini about the top five things that I learned in 2020. On this episode, episode number 2, I share the story, the experience, the insight that I gained joining a global initiative.

A global tech startup with one sole mission to help flatten the curve. Going through the emotions of fear, you know, anxiety, pandemic, like, you know, the scarcity, and wondering what can we do to help to help this pandemic, which interestingly enough happened as I was on social media. I saw a call out from a very good friend of mine, Victoria Lennox. She's the, she's one of the cofounders of Startup Canada, successful entrepreneur who's, you know, launched and scaled multiple organizations throughout her career, and, you know, working on her PhD, her doctorate in AI governance, I believe, in Oxford. But she had came home to Canada when the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau basically said, hey.

Every if you're a Canadian, come home now. So she was basically sitting at home wondering what she should do, and he put out a message. And says, hey. Who wants to help me build a business or help me flatten the curve. Who wants looking for some cofounders to do this.

And if it wasn't her, there's a couple of few there's a couple of people that could do a post like that, and I would respond to it. But so she's one of them. You know, I really respect and think, you know, think really highly of her in terms of the capacity and the impact that she can create. So I replied back. I'm like, yeah.

I'm in. You know? Let me know how I could help. And from that call, we ended up going jumping on a group call on that weekend that followed that, and this was early April. And ended up being on a call with, like, 2 dozen people from around the world.

Amazing entrepreneurs, like, people who's been there, done that, whether they're tech entrepreneurs, consultants, public servants, public policy people, scientists, everyone came together. And we started all brainstorming. What can we do as a group? Know? What can we cocreate as a group to help flatten the curve?

So we were thinking around the room using the canvas model, the business canvas model, start up methodology, in terms of the problem. The problem is the curb, COVID, you know, what can we do, who are the use cases, and, you know, everything from vaccines to smart cities to contact tracing and to density programs. And one of the projects that I, gravitated to was something what we we what we ended up coining safe spot. So the idea was, like, a visual map of a city or a place, like, take Google for example. And at that time, you know, their social distancing is a huge thing.

So for me, I'd be like, hey. If I'm gonna go to the grocery store, I wanna know, is it safe? And for me, the definition of safe was how busy is it, how many lines are there, do they have deep clean processes in there. And I wanted, like, a check mark. You know, if I go in Google with a ding, Starbucks in the corner of Queen and John in Toronto is safe.

So that was our idea. You know? Given my years advising startups, working, and volunteering for startup weekends, we ended up put doing our problem set, and I delivered the pitch. And, you know, one out of, I think, 9 pitches that ended up happening, and there was everything from startups. I mean, smart cities, how to engage these dashboards, to how do we engage contact tracing.

And I I actually won the pitch. It was really satisfying for me. I was, like, that was amazing. Amazing to do, amazing experience. And, it was it was so good.

I felt alive. Right? I felt alive at a time where where things were going upside down, where I was challenged of self worth and who I am, and current projects and initiatives are stalling. So this breathed new life into me, and it was a whirlwind. We it just started to accelerate.

And we started you know, we had branding folks around. We had relationships with the universities and getting into these national initiatives as a start up. You know, I was able to secure some collaborations with, like, 9 universities or something like that. It was it was fun. I was alive.

It was busy, but as fast as we grew and the amount of people that were around the room, it just blew up just as fast. And that's one of the my biggest learnings was was was this company, this opportunity that I was able to see how I showed up in different opportunities outside of my own bubble. Right? Outside about my own projects, self projects, and really put to the things and to test the integrity who I am and how I could communicate with everyone. And, yeah, biggest learning is is staying open to opportunities, but ensuring that, you know, these calls for companies, you know, whether you have something else going or not is you know, sometimes you just gotta answer that call and walk through these doors of opportunities.

Whether it's for the gusto or for an experience or for impact, you need to just answer the calls as it comes in. On the next episode of 20, I talk about the value of collaborations. Throughout the year and for the most part of my entrepreneurship career, I found myself more often than not discussing new ideas, new partnerships, and new collaborations. And it really got me into many different situations just like 19 to see how I showed up and the value that I bring to the table.