A school project in the real world

Carve your own path.

Kyle Hawyes: A school project in the real world

When Kyle Hawyes enrolled at Coast Mountain College, he never pictured himself designing a board game that would be sold on Amazon and used in classrooms across the country.

As a first-year business administration student, Hawyes’ studious perspective towards school was quickly challenged when he was assigned a special kind of project in his business ethics course. Through an experiential learning platform called Riipen, which connects schools to businesses to offer students real life experiences, he was exposed to a real-life problem.

His class was connected with the Unique Get Together Society, a non-profit based in B.C. dedicated to empowering Indigenous and underserved communities, to come up with marketing strategies to help the organization educate the public about discrimination and other social inequalities.

“It was a very open-ended project that we got, our teacher gave us the reins to do whatever we wanted so we could use the best of our abilities,” Hawyes explains.

“It’s a very difficult topic to talk about and it can be a very touchy subject... I know I like to learn things through games, and I thought other people would benefit learning about such a hard topic through a fun memory game.”

Hawyes says many of his peers approached the assignment by creating PowerPoint presentations and designing infographics but he knew this was his opportunity to bring his work to another level. Tackling the project on his own, he was eager to make his board game stand out.

“I spent probably around 20 hours just creating different prototypes for this game... I then started designing the cards and box on InDesign, which was really cool to bring my graphic skills into this class,” he says.

After working with Debra Abraham, the CEO and founder of Unique Get Together Society, Hawyes says he’s become more conscious of discrimination in different areas of his life and sees it even more visibly from a business standpoint. He adds it was her enthusiasm for her work that really pushed him to do his best.

“A lot of it stemmed from what Deborah stands for, she makes such a huge impact on people’s lives. It was such an honour to work with her and learn from someone making a positive difference in the field,” Hawyes says.

“I think so many of our eyes have been opened by this hands-on experience... it’s really boosted my passion for learning and to make this world a better place.”