{"id":1818,"date":"2021-02-09T22:18:55","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T03:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/?p=1818"},"modified":"2024-02-13T11:50:44","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T16:50:44","slug":"janelle-hinds-entrepreneur-mentor-and-champion-of-diversity-in-stem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/blog\/janelle-hinds-entrepreneur-mentor-and-champion-of-diversity-in-stem\/","title":{"rendered":"Janelle Hinds: Entrepreneur, mentor and champion of diversity in STEM"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year, in honour of Black History Month, Futurpreneur is profiling a series of exceptional Black entrepreneurship leaders in our network\u2014entrepreneurs and mentors who are making a difference in their communities.<\/em><\/p>\n

Janelle Hinds wears many hats – and the collection is only growing.<\/p>\n

Toronto-based Hinds is the founder and executive director of Helping Hands<\/a>, an app created to help youth find meaningful volunteer and leadership opportunities. She\u2019s an advocate for young women, people of colour and newcomers to find opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), with diversity consulting and public speaking gigs filling her already-busy schedule.<\/p>\n

Last summer, Hinds added another title to the list, becoming one of the newest members of the Futurpreneur Board of Directors.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an entrepreneur, there’s a lot of support and resources that you need,\u201d Hinds says, citing funding, which can often be difficult for young founders to obtain, to mentorship and guidance in navigating the business world.<\/p>\n

Hinds says she jumped at the chance to be part of an organization that focuses on helping young entrepreneurs get their start.<\/p>\n

\u201cFuturpreneur is so focused on making sure that it’s the entrepreneur first – like, \u2018Does this really help the entrepreneur, yes or no?’ We will make sure that the entrepreneurs coming through our programs are getting the best experience that they can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hinds knows the ins and outs of entrepreneurship firsthand. An engineer by training, she founded several tech-focused initiatives before creating Helping Hands in 2015. The app-based service helps youth find volunteer opportunities, helping them satisfy graduation requirements while providing them with tools to build valuable early-career experience, pick up transferable skills and establish professional networks.<\/p>\n

Advocacy and consulting were never part of her game plan – but Hinds found herself taking on that work as she increased her involvement in engineering and entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple of years ago, I was noticing issues around women in the engineering space. The community in the university I went to wasn\u2019t very entrepreneurially focused, and a lot of other women didn’t want to speak about different issues. I went to Twitter thinking, \u2018I just need somewhere I can talk about this.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n

Others took notice, and Hinds soon began receiving public speaking invites, as well as requests from companies to advise them on their diversity-related practices. Now, she\u2019s regularly invited to speak at non-profits, schools and larger organizations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized I have a voice, and people are listening – I may as well speak,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWHO ARE WE MISSING?\u201d<\/h2>\n

Much of Hinds\u2019 consulting and advocacy work focuses on the \u201cunderestimation\u201d of Black employees and entrepreneurs – a concept she emphasizes over that of \u201cunderrepresentation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBlack founders aren’t underrepresented. There are a lot – a lot<\/em> – of small business owners, and if you go into Black communities, you’ll notice just how many people are small business owners,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt\u2019s that people don\u2019t assume these business owners know what they\u2019re doing, so they\u2019re not even offered the opportunity to grow their businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI frame it like this: Is your (organization) underestimating them? Those entrepreneurs exist – you just don’t see them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Providing those opportunities is a focus at Helping Hands: In addition to focusing on diversity in hiring internally, the team is currently working on a mental health and allyship guide<\/a> geared toward Black youth and allies. The guide, based on a similar document Hinds created in the wake of Blackout Tuesday last June, is being created with input from Black youth and will focus on mental health support as well as how friends and allies can support Black peers.<\/p>\n

Helping Hands also prioritizes outreach to groups serving newcomers and Black youth to ensure that they have access to the program.<\/p>\n

Proactively trying to ensure access in that way, Hinds says, is a step that all too many groups and companies skip when it comes to fostering diversity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like any marketing effort – you have to make sure you\u2019re doing the effort to [address the needs] of your audience,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know organizations say, \u2018We were looking at doing a youth employment round table, but no youth signed up.’ I asked some questions and I found out they did it in the middle of a school day.\u201d Same goes, she says, for networking or professional events held after hours, when many working parents who don\u2019t have access to childcare can\u2019t make it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, from hiring to selling your services, it’s not hard to look and think, \u201cWho are we targeting? Where are we marketing? Who are we missing?\u201d<\/p>\n

MENTORSHIP MATTERS<\/h2>\n

\u201cUntil you start a business, you do not realize how many little things you have to figure out and learn until the day you decide to start,\u201d Hinds says – another reason why Futurpreneur\u2019s focus on mentorship appealed to her.<\/p>\n

At the start of her career, she benefited greatly from a mentor who was also in the social entrepreneurship space – which, at the time, was \u201clittle more than a buzzword.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t a lot of popularity, programming or support around it, so she helped me clarify and understand my business model better and learn how to position myself to be recognized as a valid business and not just a charitable outcome,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Hinds is also quick to extol the virtues of peer mentoring. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t always have to be someone that’s had 20 years in the business – it could be a peer mentor who’s a couple of steps ahead of you and just making sure that you’re not falling down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hinds is part of a chat group of Black women who work in tech and business: \u201cWe’re constantly sharing resources with each other, but also asking for advice,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes we\u2019ve had discussions about our hair, or about how our clothing is perceived,\u201d Hinds adds. \u201cWe never have to explain ourselves – and a lot of the time, when I\u2019m talking to someone else, I find myself going, \u2018Let me give you some context.\u2019 We never have to do the context-building with each other – we just go straight into the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

By staying close with her peer mentorship group, she has also been able to learn about other fields she doesn\u2019t work in – e-commerce, for example – which allows her to pass on that advice to others if they\u2019re in need.<\/p>\n

The experience has made her a better mentor – and a better entrepreneur overall, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m faced with a new problem every single day, and I\u2019ve been able to build up the resiliency because I feel confident in figuring out a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want to learn more about how Futurpreneur can help launch your business? Click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year, in honour of Black History Month, Futurpreneur is profiling a series of exceptional Black entrepreneurship leaders in our network\u2014entrepreneurs and mentors who are making a difference in their communities. Janelle Hinds wears many hats – and the collection is only growing. Toronto-based Hinds is the founder and executive director of Helping Hands, an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1819,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entrepreneurship","category-mentoring"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}