Students and Graduates Deliver Tech Innovation for Montreal Community at Morgan Stanley hackathon

The Morgan Stanley Montreal Code to Give initiative concluded its inaugural week-long hackathon, bringing together 18 teams of coding students and recent alumni from leading Canadian universities to develop digital solutions addressing real community challenges. The competition has emerged as a powerful model for connecting emerging tech talent with nonprofit organizations pursuing meaningful social impact across the city.

Tackling Real-World Challenges Through Code

Across a seven-day sprint of design thinking, prototyping and development, participating teams from institutions including McGill University, Polytechnique Montreal, and the Universities of Alberta, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto worked on assigned technical briefs. Each team received mentorship from experienced Morgan Stanley technologists while collaborating to solve specific problems facing three Montreal-based nonprofits: DESTA, which supports Black youth pursuing educational and business ventures; Fillactive, dedicated to keeping teenage girls engaged in physical activity; and La Tablée des Chefs, an organization combining food security initiatives with culinary skills training for young people.

The hackathon structure—moving from initial concept through iterative development to final presentations before a judging panel—replicated real-world product development. Winning teams received financial prizes and internship interview opportunities at Morgan Stanley, while the firm committed to dedicating its technologists to transform prototypes into production-ready platforms.

Three Winning Solutions Reshape Community Programs

DESTANATION Connect emerged as the solution for DESTA, featuring a web-based platform that incentivizes B2B and B2C interactions within Black-owned business communities through a badge system and referral mechanics. The winning developers were Ahmad El-Rahim, Moussa Fofana, Catherine Landry and Aleksandra Maric.

The Fillactive Community App addresses youth wellness by gamifying exercise participation and building peer accountability among students, instructors and the organization itself. This solution was created by Evan Freyah, Robert Joseph George, Tanyaradzwa Gozhora, Pranav Kural, Carina Tam, Tyler Watson and Jiaqi Zhao.

For culinary education, Road to Chef functions as a mobile platform enabling secondary students to propose recipes and challenge peers, embedding sustainability considerations into food exploration. The development team included Anas Barbouch, Karl-Emmanuel Bastarache, Carl Hewett, Étienne Lazure, William Martineau, Anh-Tuan Pham and Andy Tran.

Morgan Stanley’s Commitment to Technology-Driven Social Change

Alan Vesprini, who leads Morgan Stanley’s Montreal technology operations, emphasized the program’s dual purpose: “This hackathon reflects our belief that technical innovation belongs in service of community. As a major technology employer in Montreal, we have both the capability and responsibility to direct our expertise toward the organizations improving residents’ lives.”

The hackathon operates within Morgan Stanley’s broader Global Technology Change Makers initiative, a program spanning multiple technology centers worldwide. Since 2018, this umbrella effort has deployed pro bono technology services to 30 nonprofit partners addressing homelessness, children’s health, environmental conservation and hunger-related challenges.

Impact Beyond the Competition Week

Jean-François Archambault, founder of La Tablée des Chefs, reflected on the experience: “This Morgan Stanley hackathon provided both immediate deliverables and long-term partnerships. The student teams brought fresh perspectives while Morgan Stanley’s senior technologists ensured solutions would be sustainable and scalable. We’re now equipped with tools that expand our capacity to reach teenagers and build their understanding of nutrition and sustainable food systems.”

The 2021 Montreal hackathon represents the model in action—students gaining real-world development experience, nonprofits accessing enterprise-grade technical capabilities, and a global financial services firm demonstrating that technology investment extends beyond market operations into community infrastructure.