Today’s millennials have come of age during times of economic and environmental challenges and are more conscious of their roles in shaping the world and how they can contribute to solving social issues. As a result, there has been an increase in interest among young people from a diversity of backgrounds to work in purpose driven careers where they can leverage their educational backgrounds to create inter-sector value. On the other hand, with the increase in social enterprises, public-private partnerships and focus on corporate social responsibility, a surge of non-traditional impact careers have been created in various industries each addressing different social issues. This emerging trend has not yet been equally supported in terms of career resources compared to the availability of information accessible for traditional careers. We need to facilitate the intermediation that is needed between young people eager to evolve their education and passion for impact into careers and the local opportunities that exist.

Losoca (standing for “local social career”) will make local impact career information available to youth by introducing young professionals within the local social-impact sector and outline the important social issues their work address. In creating a catalogue of opportunities in the city, we hope to inspire young people with the impetus of creating social value in their work. We will launch profiles of 12 individuals in Toronto as a test pilot to the project on our website in next 3 months targeting undergraduate students already involved in impact work and with the aim to scale up the project in terms of scope of issues and audience both in Toronto and across other Shaper hubs in the next 6 months.