Tech Girls Canada founder keynotes at HeForShe

On Tuesday evening, the Gordon S. Lang School of Business, School of Engineering and Gryphon Football hosted the 7th annual HeForShe gender equality event.

Saadia Muzaffar, founder of Tech Girls Canada and co-founder of Tech Reset Canada was the keynote speaker. Saadia is also an author and passionate advocate of responsible innovation, decent work for everyone, and the prosperity of immigrant talent in STEM. Her keynote was thought-provoking and inspiring and looked at the intersections of business leadership, sports and inclusion. After the keynote, Dr. Julie Vale, School of Engineering, Mark Surya, Head Football Coach, and Kristina Kupferschmidt, a computing engineering PhD student continued the conversation, sharing their experiences and advice on how we all move forward as in this work and as allies.  

Each year, HeForShe-inspired awards and scholarships are presented: the Gender Empowerment Scholarships, Ally Scholarship, and the community Impact Award. This year’s award recipients are Morgan Lunney, Katherine Haines, Yuha Khan and DENSO Manufacturing Canada.

Gender Empowerment Scholarship

Each year Stu and Kim Lang and the Angel Gabriel Foundation support two scholarships of $5,000 each, to a female Lang business student and a female U of G engineering student who have demonstrated a positive impact and significantly contributed to empowering or reducing barriers for women and girls in the business and Engineering communities. 

Morgan Lunney was this year's Lang recipient of the Gender Empowerment Scholarship. Morgan is a 4th year BComm student majoring in Marketing Management and minoring in Sports and Event Management. Outside the classroom, Morgan is also a member of the women’s soccer team and was awarded the CCAA National Scholar award and has worked with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment LaunchPad leading Women Empowerment workshops for youth aged 13-17. She has also created a program called Life after Sport with a team of female athletes, creating opportunities and connections for female athletes moving into the next chapter of their lives.  

Katherine Haines was this year's Engineering recipient of the Gender Empowerment Scholarship. Katherine is a 4th year Biomedical Engineering student and the President of the Engineering Society. Throughout her undergraduate degree, she has been heavily involved outside of the classroom, working with Creative Encounters Summer Camp, more specifically within STEMinsit camp, a camp run by girls for girls. She also was part of the planning committee for RISE: A Conference for Women in Engineering at the University of Guelph, and was a panel member on Young Leadership at the Conference for Advocacy and Leadership in Engineering (CALE). 

Ally Scholarship

The Ally Scholarship of $2,500 is funded by the Lang School and is awarded to a U of G undergraduate student registered in any program that has demonstrated that they are an ally to gender equality.  

Yuha Khan is a 4th year student, majoring in Government, Economics and Management at the Lang School. She is the Assistant Coordinator at the Student Help and Advocacy Centre which provides all campus members with legal information and resource referrals, and the President for both the Management Economics & Finance Students’ Association and the Guelph Pre-Law Society. She has created initiatives aimed at reducing barriers and creating accessible access to higher education such as facilitating a law school admissions panel which distributed resources for women, BIPOC and persons with disabilities, to allow for success in a historically exclusive field.  

Impact Award

The Impact Award recognizes an organization in the Guelph-Wellington region that helps improve gender equity in the community through policies or actions they support. 

Since 2021, DENSO has been an avid partner and supporter of Women in STEM at Guelph, supporting initiatives such as RiSE, a Women in Engineering conference for UG Alumni and undergrads to support their transition from student to workforce, and multiple programs for youth including Go ENG Girl, Go CODE Girl, Girl Guide day and a Creative Encounters camp promoting awareness of girls in engineering and science. As part of the award, the Angel Gabriel Foundation has donated to Creative Encounters on DENSO’s behalf.