Made in Scarborough ♡

Where I’m from, and what it gave me.

I grew up in Scarborough - the part of Toronto people often talk about like it’s far away, or rough around the edges, or somehow separate from the rest of the city. But for me, Scarborough is home. It’s where I learned how to work hard, how to create opportunities when none are obvious, and how to move through rooms where you don’t always see people like you.

I come from humble beginnings. My parents immigrated to Canada with very little. Like a lot of immigrant families, they were building stability from scratch - figuring out work, language, systems, and a country that was still new to them. My dad was a jack-of-all-trades - mechanic, plumber, whatever work he could pick up. Someone who could fix almost anything. Growing up, I watched him work long hours doing whatever needed to be done to keep things moving. The schools I went to didn’t have fancy programs or a long list of alumni going into tech or finance - no one around me really talked about those paths.

So most of the time, if you wanted something, you had to go find it yourself. You learn how to hustle.

One of the first moments where I realized that possibility could exist outside of what I saw around me was when I applied to SHAD in high school. SHAD is a national enrichment program for students interested in science, technology, and entrepreneurship. I didn’t know anyone who had gone before. My school had never heard about it. I applied mostly out of curiosity and a bit of hope.

I ended up getting in.

That summer changed how I saw the world. For the first time, I was surrounded by students who were building things, asking big questions, and imagining futures that went far beyond what we were used to seeing in our classrooms. It was the first time I realized that there were entire ecosystems built around ideas, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

This experience motivated me to go into Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Part of it was wanting to challenge myself - I’ve always felt drawn toward the most difficult path that feels slightly out of reach. The other part was wanting to be a role model. Engineering programs are still heavily male-dominated, and I wanted other girls from backgrounds like mine to see that it was possible.

Today, I work in venture capital at an early-stage firm where I spend my time meeting founders and helping back new companies at the very beginning.

My experiences taught me how to walk into rooms where I might be the only person with my background and still feel like I belong there. It taught me how to ask questions, how to figure things out on my own, and how to keep pushing forward even when the path isn’t obvious.

And it shaped the way I look at founders. It’s about resilience, hustle, and the quiet confidence that you can build something meaningful even if you didn’t start with the same resources as everyone else.

Scarborough definitely didn’t make the path easy.

But it gave me something better: the ability to create my own.

Everything I wanted to tell you by artist Hiba Abdallah, Nuit Blanche