Kids Connect Calgary is a youth outreach program aimed at connecting students with experts in different fields to prove that when given the option, kids are truly able to achieve the goals, no matter how lofty they may be. We bring real-life role models into your classroom, experts from diverse fields who help students see what’s possible for their future.
How it works
Kids Connect functions as an in school field trip. A featured speaker alongside the executive director visits different local schools to meet students. The speaker will provide a short presentation on what they do, what makes their career rewarding and what students can do if they’re considering pursuing a similar path. Afterwards the director conducts a brief interview with the speaker before opening the floor to questions from the students.
When the presentation is over, students have the opportunity to confer directly with our chosen expert and often provide recommendations for future speakers from other fields they’d like to explore.
Prospective Speakers
Shovik Shengupta
Tech Executive and Entrepreneur
Mr. Sengupta serves as the vice president of Product Strategy at XI Technologies but is also a well known restauranteur in Calgary. He’s listed in Avenue Magazine under Calgarians We Love. Mr. Sengupta has opened multiple locations of Lil Empire Burger across the city and owns fan favorite Calcutta Cricket Club. Since 2017 Calcutta Cricket Club has been a wild success and has now recently expanded to a larger location. Calcutta Cricket Club has been listed under Calgary’s top 12 restaurants for 2025 and has been seen on Canada’s top 100 restaurants as well.
Steve Savic
EVP and Executive Creative Director
For over 25 years, Steve has been working in digital media and advertising. He’s created ads and brand experiences for some of the world’s best know companies, like Nike, Rolex, Mercedes, Dell and Nissan. Today, Steve leads a team of talented creative designers and copywriters at Critical Mass, an experience design agency.
Steve is constantly thinking about ways to apply technology across platforms. He combines film, music, art, and technology to tell stories in ways that make people pay attention. Innovation is in his DNA. He spearheaded brand experiences that have been selected for tech development programs for Disney, Oculus, Google, Microsoft and Instagram.
He studied at the University of the Arts Visual earning a degree in Visual Communication Design, and here’s the cool part: when he was a student, he literally traded commercial design work for ski-passes.
Dr. Micheal Kwan
MD, FRCSC, FACS
Dr. Kwan completed his medical degree at the University of Calgary and his General Surgery residency at the University of Calgary. He then completed a fellowship in Surgical Endoscopy at the University of Adelaide in Australia. He is a fellow of both the American College of Surgeons (FACS) and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (FRCSC).
Dr. Kwan is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. He was most recently the Co-Director of the General Surgery Residency Program and has been the director of the Benign Gastrointestinal Disorders Clinic in Calgary. He is the current Site Chief for General Surgery at the South Health Campus.
Dr. Kwan has a strong interest in the role of technology in advancing health care. He is focused on leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance clinical decision making, streamline operations, and ultimately improve patient outcomes. Outside of his clinical work, he spends his time building and supporting health technology startups as a co-founder and collaborator and enjoying time with his wife and two daughters.
John Lowenstein
EVP and Executive Creative Director
John Lowenstein is a documentary photographer, visual artist and filmmaker. Mr. Lowenstein was born in Boston Massachusetts and was raised in Chicago. He graduated from the University of Iowa with a BA in English and completed a Masters Degree in Fine Arts from Columbia College as well as the Universidad del Pais Vasco in Spain.
Mr. Lowenstein lived on the South Side of Chicago for twenty years and taught in local public schools. He now specializes in long-term in-depth documentary works with themes of power, racial discrimination and poverty.
Mr. Lowenstein is a Guggenheim Fellow in Photography, along with his many other accolades including winning Getty Images Grants for Editorial Photography, receiving the World Press Award and being named as a USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism Racial Justice Fellow.
He’s also a National Geographic photographer whose international projects have varied from covering that aftermath of the 2010 Haitian Earthquake, elections in Afghanistan, and violence in Guatemala. His large scale documentary project Shadow Lives USA tells the story of the men and women who have taken up the largest transnational migration in history following the migrant trail from Central America to the United States. James Estrin of the New York Times writes “While Mr Lowenstein is hardly the only photographer to cover Mexican and Central American migration, few have done it as comprehensively over such an extended period of time”.
Kimberly Jones
Registered Nurse
Kimberley Jones is a registered nurse in the operating room at the Peter Lougheed Centre in Calgary, Alberta. She earned her Bachelor of Nursing from the University of Calgary in 2010 and her Master of Nursing from Athabasca University in 2022. Her master’s thesis, which examined the experiences of Black nursing students in predominantly white institutions, received a Governor General’s Academic Gold Medal nomination in 2022. Kimberley’s scholarly work has been published in the Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and Nurse Researcher.
With nearly 16 years of nursing experience, Kimberley has had the privilege of caring for Albertans across a wide range of surgical and clinical contexts, including colorectal and esophageal cancer, Crohn’s disease, breast cancer, obesity, and gastric cancer. She is deeply committed to education and mentorship, regularly precepting nursing students and perioperative nurses. In addition, she serves as the Peter Lougheed Centre representative for the South Operating Room Nurses Association (SORNA), an organization dedicated to ongoing professional development and community-building among perioperative nurses in Alberta.
The daughter of two Jamaican immigrants, Kimberley was born in Toronto and raised in northeast Calgary alongside her three siblings. Her early life was shaped by significant financial hardship and the absence of her father, experiences that fostered resilience, determination, and a strong belief in the power of education. Grounded in her faith and driven by a commitment to equity, mentorship, and excellence in care, Kimberley continues to integrate clinical practice, scholarship, and advocacy in her work—seeking to improve outcomes for patients while advancing the nursing profession.
Interested in organizing a talk, hosting an event or other inquiries?
Please reach out.
Anjali Malis Datta
(Founder & Executive Director)
Kids Connect Calgary© was founded by Anjali Malis Datta, a high school student in Calgary, Alberta and Executive Director.