Student Life

Advice from Fellow Students on Becoming Socials Entrepreneurs

Get inspired by two university students selected to represent Canada in a global innovation summit.

While most students will be catching up on sleep, binge watching movies and upping their tik-tok game, others will use this time challenge the status-quo and revolutionize our social landscape.

McMaster’s University students, Julian DiVito and Karan Ballal, sought solutions to their academic anxiety by developing an award-winning concept to alleviate stress. Using a Virtual Reality platform, the duo expose students to common, anxiety-inducing situations in the hopes of alleviating typical performance barriers. Julian and Karan submitted Sightly to the Red Bull Basement University innovation summit and were selected to represent Canada in the global finals last semester. At the event, they were given the chance to refine their concept among a group of mentors and received invaluable advice from a panel of experienced project developers.

Here is some advice on how to get started:

Think simple, the best idea can be right in front of you 
Our concept for Sightly came from a personal need. Karan and I both struggled with our mental health and as a result, we began to isolate ourselves. Over time, we became more comfortable when isolated and more anxious in social situations. We knew that we needed to improve this and when we began looking for options, nothing seemed to fit our needs. We are both really interested in emerging technologies and this led to the idea of combining virtual reality with a self-guided therapy program.
Crowdsource
Build a simple version of your idea and put it in front of people as soon as you can. You need to test if you're actually solving the user's problem with your idea. Don’t be intimidated to share your idea. You must be relentless on getting feedback from potential users. Chances are your initial idea won't be the one people want in the end.
Solve for a tangible benefit 
With this simple set up, our goal is to have this concept offered through a virtual reality headset available in all campus wellness centres. To date, we've been having meetings with some directors at schools and are working towards making this happen! Your time at University and College are supposed to be the best time of your life, but if you're not comfortable expressing yourself in social situations this makes it difficult to enjoy. We hope to provide a fun and engaging way for young adults with social anxiety to build confidence and self-esteem.
Think long term 
Having confidence in yourself and high self-esteem is so important to your mental health and quality of life. The long-term benefits of this model are to will allow students, as well both of us, the ability to comfortably express ourselves and be more confident tackling new situations that can be applied even outside our academic pursuits.

Anyone interested in getting early access to the program can check out the link here