Every day, thousands of people get involved voluntarily. However, even though organizations in search of volunteers or donors abound and that candidates, drawn towards volunteerism because of their family environment, school or even employer, are ready and willing to help out, networking between organizations and volunteers is no easy task. In establishing Invup, two students at the Université de Sherbrooke wanted to remedy the situation. An initiative that is definitely in tune with the times, Invup is essentially a Web platform enabling volunteer work and philanthropy to benefit from the immediacy and infinite scope of the Internet. Invup thus acts as intermediary so that organizations can publish their requests for volunteers and donations which can then be viewed by volunteer workers or donors with matching profiles. And to stimulate social involvement, Invup proposes a points system that will reward individuals or groups of individuals who participate in the various volunteering opportunities on offer.

For many, the notion of sustainable development applies exclusively to environmental protection. For Josephte Morin-Valade, a student at TÉLUQ and the founder of Didac-TIC 5, the concept casts a much wider net to also embrace economic and social spheres. In setting up her initiative, she wanted to boost the concept of eco-humanitarian entrepreneurship (EHE). The business concept draws its inspiration from sustainable development in order to prompt communities to resolve issues so they can reap the economic and social benefits. To date, the business model put forward by Didac-TIC 5 has led to the creation of five projects in Québec and elsewhere thanks to the awarding of grants, in the form of donations, totalling $47,000. These projects include the Éco-Village d’accueil set up in Senegal to provide care for 300 street children and the Club multisport NovAction established in the Matapédia Valley to provide youth with lost-cost sports activities.

In setting up the KGP contest, three Masters students in project management at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) gave other students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in project management, a field where there’s no better way to develop one’s skills than through fieldwork. The first edition brought together 96 students from a wide range of fields and various universities, 23 professional judges and teachers and more than 30 volunteers. For the contest, which took place on 5 November 2010, the students were divided into teams and invited to address a problem linked to a project for the development of a new type of technology in the health sector. Each team carried out a full assessment of the project and then had to present an exhaustive analysis and submit a series of recommendations. The event was such a success that the final preparations are now already under way for the second edition of the contest.