Welcome to the team Leah, Jen and Basil!

To get to know our new hires better, we asked each of them a few questions about themselves.

Leah Ren - Web Developer Intern

Leah was born in Vancouver, and now lives in Edmonton, AB, where she studies at the University of Alberta. Coming from a Computing Science background, she enjoys developing all sorts of software from games to websites. She also has an interest in biology, history, and art, and tries to combine these other interests with programming whenever possible.

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What area(s) of impact are you are most passionate about?

I’m really passionate about conservation and climate change, especially given the natural disasters and environmental concerns that the 2020’s have brought. It’s a rampant issue that I’m interested in finding new ways to help combat.

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What has been your favourite volunteer experience to date?

My favourite volunteering experiences have been working as an assistant leader at kids summer camps. I used to go to camps as a child, so it was nice to be on the other side of things and make sure the kids had fun. Most of the children I worked with came from low income families, so it was nice to be able to help give back to those in my community who may be less fortunate. 

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What's a fun fact about you?

A fun fact about me is that I’m also a freelance digital illustrator on the side!

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Jen Fairley - Digital Marketing Intern

Jen is a marketing student at UBC Sauder School of Business with a passion for all things digital content. Before moving to Vancouver, Jen was born in Japan and grew up in Ontario where she participated in a variety of extracurriculars such as soccer, piano, karate, Japanese school, and lots of volunteering. In her spare time, she likes to edit videos that document fun memories with her friends.

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What area(s) of impact are you most passionate about?

I'm passionate about advocating for women’s rights. I find that women’s issues are often overlooked, since a lot of progress has been made regarding gender equality in the past few decades. However, it’s still a very relevant issue today and there’s still a lot of work to be done to achieve equality. While I haven't volunteered with any nonprofits for female empowerment, I am open to exploring!

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What has been your favourite volunteer experience to date?

One of my favourite volunteer experiences has been volunteering at a local annual Japanese community sports event where I used to participate as a kid! I eventually grew out of the participant role and started volunteering to give back to the community I grew up with, and it has been very fulfilling. As an individual who comes from a Japanese background and enjoys playing a variety of sports, this event is very important to me!

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‍What is a fun fact about yourself?

I speak three languages: English, French and Japanese!

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Basil Al-Isa - Full Stack Developer

Basil is a Full-Stack Developer who is fascinated by technology and is looking forward to making an impact with his skills. With a lifelong dream of becoming a programmer, he started studying Computer Science and took many programming courses independently until he attended a web development bootcamp with an organization called Re:Coded In Istanbul, Turkey. He now enjoys applying the experience that he gained to real-world projects. Apart from his love for coding and computers, Basil also loves to volunteer, play football, and hang out with his friends.

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What area(s) of impact are you most passionate about?

I’m passionate about humanitarian issues, specifically to do with refugees. As someone who is originally from Syria, I found it very fulfilling volunteering at a community centre where I helped children of Syrian refugees get access to education, and even did some teaching myself. I’m also interested in supporting causes against climate change, as I used to volunteer for a project that focused on reducing waste at textile factories in Turkey. 

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What drives you to get involved in your community?

I’ve had the value of giving back and helping others engrained in me by my parents since childhood. I like being able to see first hand the change that is created when you do good by others. 

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What has been your favourite volunteer experience to date?

In 2012, I was part of a group of young university students that founded an organization in Syria that opened schools and provided Syrian children with education. This experience was my favourite because it was my first humanitarian project and so it was very memorable. It was what piqued my interest in other humanitarian opportunities as well.

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What's a fun fact about you?

I google everything! I even used Google to try to come up with an answer to this question!

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Deborshee Hore - DevOps Intern

Deborshee is following his desire to advance in the mining process by pursuing a Bachelor of Applied Science in Mining Engineering at UBC. Apart from being a third year mining engineering student, he has a strong interest in the automation field along with data analytics and he has developed skills in instrumentation and technical writing and programming. 

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What area(s) of impact are you most passionate about?

I’m very passionate about controlling pollution in densely populated areas and in order to combat increasing air pollution in countries like India. I was able to participate in group projects hosted by the University of Technology in Sydney, where we researched different possibilities of reducing air pollution through different subtasks both cheap and easily implementable while aiming to utilize available technology such as traffic cameras, mapping algorithms like google maps, air quality indexes etc. ‍

What has been your favourite volunteer experience to date?

My favourite volunteer experience would be working with an organization called Welfare of Stray Dogs(WSD), where we helped raise awareness to people across Mumbai, India about the mistreatment of dogs in India.We also helped people understand the treatment of rabies mainly from dog bites, a common cause of death for many people in India who are unaware of its dangers.

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What's a fun fact about you?

The first day I drove my car after getting my drivers license, I slightly crashed into a biker (Nobody was harmed).

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We're excited to have you all on board!