Tag: COMM101

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Social Entrepreneurship gets Google Involved


Google Headquarters

Randy Haykin, Founder and Partner of Gratitude Network is hosting a social entrepreneurship event at Google’s headquarters. His aim for this conference is to improve and create radical changes in education. Previously held at Pixar, this conference is populated by many influential people from the entertainment, entrepreneurship, science and technology industry. Entrance fees will go into the award pool for three social entrepreneurship’s up to a total of $30,000 – known as “crowdfunding”. The three main aspects that this conference will focus on regarding education change is: process, business model, and technology. He hopes that this will spark innovation and allow people to share their “passion for improving education”.

I believe that this conference will be able to help many schools that lack the funding to have proper technology to finally be able to utilize these new technologies. Not only that, this conference will inspire many other future social entrepreneurs to aim to create such a big and successful event. However, as I read this article, it raised a few concerns to me as to where the $30,000 grand award will be finally utilized. Perhaps many people with the right mind set attending this conference will pay for the admission fee – but the final allocation of these fundings will not be entirely to the right cause.

At the end of the day, Haykin describes this as “labour of love. All because we want to make a global impact starting with education”.


(Source: Social Entrepreneurship Event at Google HQ Aims to Catalyze Change in Education, Google Headquarters, Gratitude Network)

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Destruction of Diversity and Businesses (Comment on Andrew Huang’s post)

Andrew chose the article “Vancouver pursues regional ban on Shark Fins”. This post talks about how Vancouver is pushing Burnaby and Richmond to altogether ban selling shark fin. The article states that this will be a major threat to multiculturalism that has been established for so many years in Canada. Vancouver Coun. Kerry Jang proposes an alternative way for restaurants to serve delicacy so to not harm restaurants’ businesses.

I agree with Andrew that this ban will threaten many Chinese restaurant’s businesses. Shark fin is a very popular cuisine among Chinese people and if this threat persists, there may be a possibility of a black market emerging. This would not be the preferred outcome for the government. However, I do not agree with the article that this will disrupt our multiculturalist state. This will merely affect what a minimal amount of Chinese people eat for dinner. Most people rarely eat this unless it is a very special occasion like wedding. This will not affect the multiculturalism, just merely affect restaurant businesses and their profits from these expensive shark fins.

(Source: Shark Fin Soup, Andrew’s Post)

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Blog Post

Quiznos’ Quizzical Actions

For the past summer, my brother has worked at Quiznos as a part time job. Over the course of the two months, he’s have had countless complaints about the manager and the management style. Some of the poor treatments he experienced included:

– If employees work more than 8 hours, they swipe out at exactly 8 hours to avoid getting reprimanded, and then continue  their duties until finished

– Getting scheduled for 7.5hrs many times so to avoid getting a paid break for working 8 hours+

– Not getting a break after 5 hours

– Guilt tripping employees into not quitting/ continuing to work/ working more

I believe (aside from the other moral, or humane issues) that the main ethical issue involved was the meal break issue. According to the Government of B.C., Ministry of Labour, Employment Standards Branch, under section “Meal Plan” it states that “an employee must not work more than five hours in a row without an unpaid 30 minute break”. My brother has no choice but to stealthy grab a ‘crushed’ cookie from the front and eat it in the back in substitute for his break. He works long hours and the manager schemingly designs the schedule so that employees work long hours without getting a break and therefore not paying for non-labour. The manager is clearly infringing on labour laws to get the most out of her employees without having to pay any extra fees. This is unethical and luckily he was able to quit after getting guilt tripped multiple times (he knew of cases where employees quit and was still scheduled for work afterwards).

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