During the current health situation, a lot of college students we’re forced to think outside the box. Never in history has something affected us on such a global level. Especially our youth.
Although you don’t hear about this in the media, one of the biggest affected age range is of students that are between 18-24. That’s right. The next generation, aka the classic college crowd.
With literally no jobs on the horizon, and absolutely nothing to do, most college students were forced to stay in their homes. Though some took this as a negative experience, it did spark some incredible levels of creativity within some students.
Who, in this short period of time, came up with some incredible innovations. Without having an expensive college fund if we may add.
Let’s have a look at a few of these super stars in the making:
Siran Xu
When Siran noticed that face masks are a downright necessity right now, she teamed up with her friend and created a marketplace called CVMatch.
The goal was to connect Chinese suppliers with the Western need for masks and other medical supplies.
Since May of last year (2021), CVM has provided over 2.5 Million surgical masks and 1.5 million N95 masks. With over 400,000 other additional medical supplies. These ladies aren’t going to let some health situation stop them. These girls are actively looking for problems and solving them.
Girl power is shining here for sure. Big time.
Luke De Wilde
This young man deserves a tip of the hat and then some. He was one of the few people who actually dared to help the most vulnerable group during this time. You guessed it . . . our seniors.
Luke had the keen sense of spotting an incredible issue. During this time of lockdown and restrictions, how can seniors get groceries and essential supplies? Since they were the most infected, it didn’t really encourage others to help them.
Well this is when Luke launched EssentialSupply. A volunteer driven service that aimed to help seniors get their daily necessities and more. He created a resource where no fees / extra markups were added and solved a phenomenal issue.
Not to mention the amount of “good energy” he gained during this process. Luke and his awesome team of volunteer delivery drivers. We are not sure if this was a ‘For-Profit’ business but it would look amazing on any resume.
Khalil Fuller
Next time you see the word innovation in the dictionary, we hope to see this young man’s picture right next to it. Who would have thought that you could redirect funds in unused gift cards and help a ton of people out. Well that’s what Khalil Fuller did.
He literally conceived and launched the idea in a couple of weeks (Launched as in with a fully working website, etc). Gift Card Bank, his company has helped over 2000 families by providing them with money from unused gift cards.
So if you have a gift card with some cash in it, feel free to donate it to these guys and they’ll put it to good use. Great job Khalil and team.
Susannah Shattuck
Well, If you were looking for a future candidate for a Nobel Prize winner, well we got one (Actually all the students on this list).
Susannah, just like any real problem solver, saw an issue. Issue was restaurants are struggling, and health care professionals need meals, is there any way of putting the two together?
She created a way to collect donations for restaurants, which would give them a boost. This allowed them to create extra meals which would go to frontline workers such as nurses, caregivers, etc.
If this isn’t genius, well we don’t know what is. Best part, this idea is now spreading almost on a national level and more restaurants / frontline workers are enjoying the fruits of this. A win-win situation? Absolutely.
Bottom line, although we’re all going through some of the toughest challenges, there are still unlimited solutions around.
If we really want to solve them, by golly nothing is impossible.
Source: Stanford