LAB*B helps take youth ideas to action

By Paul Mayne

At any given time, conversations can range from the next big entrepreneur, a collaboration on an arts project, a potential business startup or even a community initiative around mental health. And that’s exactly what former Western student Harpreet Zingh, and Harman Grewal, BA’14 (Visual Arts & Psychology), had in mind when they created LAB*B.

LAB*B brings the freelance and entrepreneurial communities together, in a coffee shop-type setting, to bounce around ideas and concepts. And it was the pair’s time at Western that got them thinking about taking on such an adventure.

Zingh and Grewal met through the then Biz Inc. program (now Propel), plus each had taken part in Western’s Pre-Law Society’s mock trials. They had the same ideas and goals, and were from the same hometown – the Brampton bond began.

“So much of this has been influenced by Western,” said the 24-year-old Zingh. “Just being in a very social environment, a very entrepreneurial environment, it was very different from growing up in Brampton. Nobody truly wants to leave Western, and when we were realizing our time was kind of coming up here, there was the anxiety and contemplation of what happens next.

“There were a lot of things we could have done and stayed in London, but going back to our hometown we realized if we were able to build something along the lines of LAB*B, it creates a lot of networking opportunities and creates community back in our hometown. It’s an environment we want to see succeed, as well. We’re basically importing stuff from what we learned in London into Brampton. How do we recreate the Western atmosphere in our own little world here?”

The two began LAB*B in the summer of 2013. Grewal, 26, had just graduated and Zingh was beginning his final year at university. It began as an initiative to bring the innovative and pioneering community together with the goal of having a beautiful space to work out of. But the membership fee, at that time $200, wasn’t blossoming into what the pair had hoped for.