PhD student Malissa Bryan is the recipient of an Innovation Guelph Rhyze Ventures Award, winning in the Social Enterprise stream. The award is given to women-led businesses that have a strong and successful business model and comes with a cash prize.

The Rhyze Ventures [1] program, now entering its third cohort, offers an eight-month curriculum of in-class learning and mentorship for women entrepreneurs. Bryan was one of 56 participants and went on to become a finalist and pitch her business to a panel of judges on August 12 [2].

 

Bryan, a graduate student in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, is the founder of Rainbow Diversity Institute [3]. The organization provides consulting services to individuals and corporations on equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). The institute's team of leaders in anti-oppression offer equity training, policy development, strategic planning, workshop facilitation and other services.

Bryan completed her undergraduate and master's degrees at the University of Guelph. Her current research focuses on race, equity, and inclusion in education. Bryan is also a co-lead of the Sexual and Gender Diversity research cluster [4] at the Live Work Well Research Centre within the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences.