Across the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, you find Tar Heels helping Tar Heels. Whether its students helping students, faculty helping students or vice versa, the Carolina community is always ready to lend a hand, especially when it comes to entrepreneurial mentorship.
Innovate Carolina recently spoke with Amrutha Nandam, a Carolina undergraduate student and founder of Special Needs Special People (SNSP), and Jaki Bonilla, social innovation initiatives coordinator with student affairs at the UNC Campus Y.
Bonilla, a Carolina alumna, first met Nandam when she was still in high school. That’s where she saw the infectious spark of energy that Nandam infuses into everything she does. Now in her second year at the University, Nandam is using her social innovation know-how and the mentorship she’s received at Carolina to teach people how to embrace and champion diversity, while reducing the bullying that students with accessibility differences face.
Through it all, Bonilla and Nandam continue to share a special mentor-mentee bond. And Nandam is paying that mentorship forward as she now hosts SNSP programming in local schools, including her former elementary school. We wanted to know more about their collaboration, how they worked together and how mentorship can launch more than just ventures.
Read the Q&A at innovate.unc.edu.