Seven SFU students and alumni named to Surrey Board of Trade's 2023 Top 25 under 25

The Surrey Board of Trade has celebrated its annual Top 25 Under 25 awards—recognizing seven Simon Fraser University students and alumni among its 2023 recipients for their outstanding contributions to the Surrey community.

Since its inception, more than 100 students and alumni have received the award, which is given to business or community-minded people 25 or younger who work in Surrey or contribute to a business or community-related project for in Surrey.

Here are this year’s SFU affiliated recipients:

Amadea de Wit

Fourth-year Mechatronic Systems Engineering student Amanda de Wit is the founder and chief technical officer of Alivio Technologies, a company that is developing a compact wearable device that provides pain relief for foot dystonia. She is also the engineering design project lead for Lab 915, a health technology start-up made possible through the SFU Venture Connection incubator lab, and recently received the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Undergraduate Research Award.

Colton Sandberg

A recent SFU science graduate, Colton Sandberg is the program coordinator for the Cove-Healthy Living Service Hub, a city-funded initiative that delivers crucial support to unsheltered individuals. He also participates in the Surrey Mobilization & Resiliency Table (SMART), helping to bring together multiple organizations and agencies to address the needs of marginalized and vulnerable community members experiencing acutely elevated risk. A minor hockey coach, he also works with the Canucks Autism Network.

Ekam Panesar

A student in SFU’s Beedie School of Business, Ekam Panesar is the founder of DishPal Restaurant Services Corp. and Vivvion Marketing & Advertisement. DishPal provides an elevated food delivery service while Vivvion provides an innovative and cost-effective alternative to traditional marketing methods. Ekam has grown his team to more than 200 drivers, served 15,000 customers, and earned more than $150,000 in the first two years.

Glisha Nadine Dela Cruz

Glisha Nadine Dela Cruz is a Filipino-Canadian singer/songwriter who has gained significant popularity on Spotify and Amazon Music with teens and young adults in North America and Asia. Glisha’s music has garnered over 1.5 million streams across different platforms. Her latest single, Why We Can’t Be Friends, was named one of the top songs of 2022 by Permanent Rain Press. After her studies in communication at SFU she pursued a degree in music technology at Douglas College and now works as a music coach in voice and production.

Helen Sofia Pahaou

As a student advocate, Helen Sofia Pahaou has helped the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) advocate for critical services to students, including advancing the student housing rights initiative, which allocated funding to retrofit ablution and prayer spaces. She also spearheaded lobbying for affordable student housing and to establish a 2 per cent cap for international students. In 2021, she was awarded the Gunraj Gill Memorial Award for Political Science.

Quadrat Aujla

A recent graduate of SFU’s health sciences program, Quadrat Aujila is a research assistant at the B.C. Children’s Hospital BioBank, leading the Patient-Family Advisory Committee, where patients and their parents work with research staff to develop strategies to move toward patient-centered care. The recipient of a Women of the Year award for her work done through SFU’s Science Alive, she also volunteers for the Fraser Health Crisis Line.

Ryan Stolys

A computer engineering student in SFU’s Faculty of Applied Sciences who will graduate in June with distinction, Ryan Stolys is the co-founder and technical lead of One Iota Performance, a sports performance company focused on golf and co-developed with SFU golf coaches. The company launched publicly in February. In the 2022 Coast Capital Venture Prize Competition, Ryan and his team tied for first place in the idea stream, and later earned a place in SFU’s eCoop program, supported by SFU’s Coast Capital Venture Connection.