Designing Canada's First Neurodivergent-Led Mentorship Platform

Challenge

1. Building Canada's first Neurodivergent-led mentorship platform
2. Bootstrapping as a non-profit startup
3. Building our team and saying goodbye to members throughout the years
4. Juggling post-secondary, grad apps and internships with ND∞Connect.

Milestones

1. Secured ~$50k funding through grants, and partnerships with Interac, IBM, Venture for Canada and University of Toronto
2. Gained recognition from 600+ business leaders across Canada
3. Selected as 1 of 36 entrepreneurs by Next Canada.

How It Started: Non-Profit Turned Start-Up

As high school students in 2017, Eliana, Peter and I didn't know much about how the world works, but as a neurodivergent individual, being close to people who were neurodivergent or as immigrants ourselves, we realized the unjust barriers people with ND face, and wanted to help create a neuro-inclusive and just work environment and tackle systems-level change.

I remember having my interview at Chapters (a bookstore) for the Head of Finance position. For the remainder of high school, we pulled every connection we had and got ourselves into the basement of a church to host our weekly meetings.

Why a neurodivergent mentorship platform?

Our organization lived on two principles: lived experience is expertise and nothing for us without us.

Initially as a non-profit, we aimed to empower neurodivergent people to pursue their passions and become leaders in their communities while helping organizations embrace inclusive hiring, create positive work cultures, and develop better work processes.

Speaking to hundreds of ND people across the globe, we found an opportunity to further our impact by connecting ND people who share the same lived experiences. As a neurodiverse team, we know that mentorship is most effective coming from people who get it because they've gone through it.

Bite-size Design Work Throughout the Years

Platform

Logo

Pitch Decks

My Last Day at ND∞Connect

It was not easy to let go of a venture that I had been part of for 6 years. Making the decision to leave felt like losing a part of my identity. June 2023: experiencing co-founder breakups, reflecting, being grateful and gaining new meanings to the word commitment.

Let's rewind, shall we?

Define Neurodiversity

‍Neurodiversity (ND) is an umbrella term that refers to the entire human range of cognitive diversity. Brains work and engage with the world differently, but some in more similar ways than others. We call them neurotypes, some neurotypes include Dyslexia, Autism, ADHD, and Neurotypicality.

What is ND∞Connect?

ND∞Connect is a startup that evolved out of Viability, a non-profit I co-founded in 2017. We are a neurodiverse team working to co-create brighter futures by designing a mentorship platform that fosters a network for neurodivergent (ND) people and provides lived-experience-based mentorship that works.

"Being a neurotypical designer in a neurodiverse startup challenged me in ways I hadn't imagined."

Lived experience is expertise and embracing that and co-creating designs is a crucial skill as a designer. Over time, I unlearned my biases and co-created with my team an environment where our members could participate in ways that felt comfortable to them.

Read more on LinkedIn ↗

The Journey: Highlights & Milestones

2017: Interviewed for Head of Finance

I interviewed at Chapters, a chained book store in Toronto. I joined to help out as the position was relevant to the math and business degree at the time at the University of Waterloo.

2017-2019: Building Momentum, Became a Cofounder

Over the years, we saw an opportunity to scale beyond employment support. We held team meetings at the public library, recruited talented people in our circle, joined incubator programs. We pulled all-nighters to work on grant applications, held booths at community events and talked to a ton of people. We also took breaks to focus on our post-secondary / grad applications and internships. Some of us juggled all at once.

At first, people were not receptive to the idea of "neuroinclusion" when we try to pitch it. We decided to have some fun.

We were invited to booth at Hollande Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital.

One of the many events where we got to talk to parents and caretakers about our mission.

2020: Covid happened, so we moved our programs online.

We hosted ND social program, comedy show on Zoom, just to name a few.

2021: Building ND∞Connect

We shifted from 1:1 career coaching to software as a service (mentorship). We held community design sessions to gain a better understanding of the needs and pain points of the ND community.

"70% of neurodivergent people don't have access to mentors that get us"

Mentor Canada, 2022

As co-founders, we came across disagreements often: how we run workshops, our legal structures, our priorities, how fast we should build, etc.

Early 2022: Winning the MaRS and CIBC Inclusive Design "Support at Work" Challenge

We received Honourable mention for our concept of ND∞Connect, it's a great validation for our work that was still being built underground!

Mid 2022: Invitation as an Alpha Startup at Collision

Companies including EY came to talk to us about partnership regarding accessibility initiatives. It was also our first day demoing. It was amazing to see the number of companies who validated our mission!

"Collision is one of the world's biggest tech conferences."

Bloomberg

Late 2022: ND∞Connect: From an idea to wireframes

I led design workshops on Miro for our team and community members. Everyone had varying degrees of UX experience, we started from the basics. Here's our team having fun while learning about tools in Miro.

Establishing our design philosophy. Collecting feedback from the community to improve our next design session.

💡 Setting up loose structures and clear instructions to guide participants. Allow space for participants to use their own methods to ideate and consolidate ideas. Diverging is crucial because everyone organizes information differently.

Co-creating the app with the community, and prioritizing core features for our MVP.

What's not illustrated: creating accommodations for different accessibility needs during our design sessions, designing around conflicting accessibility needs in our app. Creating our "winning" team by setting clear roles and sometimes shifting roles, interviewing people who are vision aligned with us, saying goodbye to some members, co-founder conflicts, and more.

Early 2023: Next 36

🎉 The co-founders Eliana, David and I were accepted to the Next 36 Entrepreneur program! We're officially the cohort of 2023 for our venture ND∞Connect!

"Every year, NEXT Canada selects 36 entrepreneurs whom they believe have what it takes to build the NEXT unicorn that will shape Canada's economy."

Next 36, Canada

Mid 2023: ND∞Connect became a separate for-profit co-op entity from Viability

Viability remained a non-profit organization focused on workshops and programs for our ND community.

June 2023: My Goodbye

After 6 years, I decided to leave ND∞Connect to focus on other aspects of my life and pursue curiosities I had put on hold. Letting go of a venture that was part of my identity was challenging. Co-founder breakups are the worst.

Originally, I took a gap term from my last year of university to build ND∞Connect. Looking forward, I have gained a profound meaning to the word 'commitment' = prioritizing your dreams and doing everything in your power to protect them.

Journey Forward

I spent the next month after ND∞Connect figuring out what I want next:

I did some not-so-productive but equally important things that I finally had the time for:

Learning

As someone who strives for achievements, I used to throw myself into every opportunity and believe that it was the fastest way to grow. I eventually realized that spreading myself across 10 domains was unsustainable. I now believe in choosing to do one thing really well.

Burn-outs are not fun. In your journey, I hope you are taking care of yourself and following your heart. I hope you take a bet on your dream and know that you will eventually make it.

This project spanned six years of my life, evolving from a high school initiative to a recognized start-up. I'm incredibly grateful for the experience, the team, the community, and the lessons learned in entrepreneurship, design, and collaboration. Check out the live platform at ndconnect.app.