The 2025 edition of The President’s Challenge was won by Referra-Link, a software platform that streamlines the referral process by implementing a centralized pooling system with a unique pool for each medical specialty. Referra-Link was led by science students Luke Aprile, and Darren Porciello, and social science student Jenna Diab.
The President’s Challenge is an annual competition hosted by President Alan Shepard and the Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship Powered by Ivey that invites students from across all Western faculties to employ their strengths and entrepreneurial thinking to tackle major societal challenges. Over the past two months, over 200 students have been working on solutions to improve the patient journey for Canadians seeking specialist care. In a group of 11 high-come countries, Canada ranked at the bottom on wait times to access specialists.
Held in Toronto on March 31st, The President’s Challenge Finals was judged by an expert panel of judges that included Dan Carbin, co-founder of Santis Health, Dr. Michael Peddle, FRCP ’08, the Associate Medical Officer at Ornge, and Medical Director for the LHSC Emergency Management Program, Dr. Chris S. Simpson, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Executive of Ontario Health, and Dr. Connie Clerici, QS ’08, LLD ’22, the founder and CEO, Closing The Gap Healthcare. Clerici has played a central role in establishing the competition through her generosity and her leadership in the field of healthcare.
The competition final also included a keynote by Dr. Ken Milne, BSc ’91, MSc’95, and Family Medicine Residency ’97, EMBA ’25 on the relationship between healthcare and artificial intelligence.
The winning entry Referra-Link seeks to ensure a more equal distribution of patients among specialists to eliminate extreme wait times. The software provides physicians with standardized e-referral forms, co-designed by specialists. These forms will help primary care physicians critically assess their patients, ensure appropriate referrals, and level of urgency. Additionally, to enhance communication and transparency, Referra-Link provides live updates on referral status to both patients and their primary physicians.
Second place was secured by PhysicanFlow, which acts as the AI referral assistant and API middleman to communicate between the scheduling functions of EMR systems. The idea was led by health science majors Kento Hayash, and Callum Lew, arts and humanities student Sydney Burns, and social science student Julia Piskunowicz.
Third place went to The Central Care Hub led by Ivey MBAs Heba Beshai, and Jubin Alex, and health science and medical student Priya Thomas. The venture presented an AI-enabled, centralized platform designed to streamline and enhance healthcare coordination across patients, general practitioners, specialists, and diagnostic centers for patients who are deemed to be likely candidates for hip and knee joint replacement surgeries.
Runners-up included canSOAR consisting of science and Ivey dual-degree student Ananya Gupta, and social science major Millan Deol, and NavigAid, created by health science students Erica Diana and Fasih Rehman, and science major Asha Chari.
The President’s Challenge was supported by more than 40 volunteers from Western's community of alumni, faculty, and friends, who gave their time to conduct workshops, mentor student teams, and evaluate student ideas. Over the past two months, these volunteers helped students delve deeper into the problem, discover new ways to think about complex problems, and, refine solutions and pitches for the competition.
Volunteers for The President's Challenge included Andrew Leest, Bill Wilkinson, BA, MA, Bruce Barber, HBA ’80, Christopher Misch, Danny Chang, BSc, David Muir, BSc’89, PhD’94, Diem Le, MBA ’22, Eric Martin, HBA ’85, Hersh Gandhi, HBA, Ilham Punjani, Karen Wright, MBA ’84, Katie Herbert, HBA, Kayvon Khalili, BA'90, MBA '00, Kerry Harris, Mara Rubinoff, Marty Smith, Marvin Bishnoi, MBA ’22, Matt Bellia, BMOS’15, Matthew Gray, HBA ’11, Mazhar Alvi, Melinda Lehman, MBA ’94, Morgan Rosenberg, MBA ’15, Neil Sehra, MBA ’16, Patrick Spence, HBA ’98, Samantha Roman, Sarah Shu, MBA ’09, Simran Kaur, Umad Khan, MBA ’22, Deniz Edwards, MBA ’12, Domenic Cecol, Dr. Matthew Teeter, Alex Kopacz, BESC’13, Burns Cheadle, PhD ’86, Dr. Lauren Cipriano, BSc’03, HBA ’05, and Tammy Quigley.