Kelly Lovell is a 19-time award-winning young entrepreneur passionate about bridging opportunity gaps to prepare young people for the future of work and solve global challenges. Focused on bridging opportunity gaps for youth, her network now reaches over 15 million young changemakers across 243 nations and territories worldwide. Based in Kitchener, Ontario, a small city near Toronto, Canada, Kelly says “The inspiration behind BridgingTheGap was really around creating an inclusive and participatory platform that gave youth access to decision-makers to co-create solutions.” Considered a changemaker herself and having attended many conferences, seminars and high-level events for youth she wanted to address problems she had experienced: creating pathways for new youth leaders—women, visible minorities and youth being left out of innovation—‚access to senior leaders and platforms of influence, and being seen as equals in the decision-making process. The significance of bridging these gaps over the year has heightened, Kelly remarks, “With young people being the most vulnerable to job loss, particularly during the pandemic, the inequalities and innovation barriers young people face are greater than ever before.”
In addition to serving as Founder and CEO of her two companies BridgingTheGap Ventures and MyEffect, Inc. she is a 10-time UN speaker and three-time TEDx speaker.
An active community leader and global ambassador for change, Kelly is a member of the UN Volunteer Groups’ Alliance Steering Committee, the Impact2030 Toronto Council and the youngest member of the UN Volunteers Secretariat’s Global Taskteam on Volunteering for SDG Acceleration. Her insights and leadership impact have been featured at some of the world’s most respected events including the UN High-Level Political Forum, the UN Commission on Social Development, the UN President of the General Assembly’s Youth Dialogue, Global Festival of Action, the UN ECOSOC Youth Forum, the World Bank’s headquarters and UN Global Goals Week.
Kelly is also the youngest external advisor for the Government of Canada’s federal Interoperable Skills Working Group and has served as a G7 Expert Roundtable panellist and G20 Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance Canadian delegate.
Kelly Lovell’s accolades include Corporate Knights 2019 Top 30 Under 30 Sustainability Leader, the Queen’s Young Leader Award, Startup Canada’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Ashoka’s Emerging Innovator of Canada and Starfish’s Top 25 Sustainability Leader Under 25 and Canada’s Most Powerful Women: WXN Top 100.
[button color=”red” url=”https://www.aspire-canada.com/dwqa-questions/” size=”medium”]Ask Me A Question[/button]
