Meet the Founder of
Project Pulse Winnipeg

Winnica Beltrano

Winnica is a Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) student at University of Manitoba’s Dr. Gerald Niznick College of Dentistry. She received her Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours), First Class degree with a major in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Calgary in 2020.  Winnica was born in the Philippines and immigrated to Canada in 2002. As a first-generation Canadian, she was challenged to be resourceful at a young age in the face of an environment with limited resources. Winnica founded Project Pulse Winnipeg (PPW) in 2015 because she saw it as an opportunity to increase accessibility to educational and co-curricular opportunities for students who may be disadvantaged due to uncontrollable factors like their socioeconomic status or upbringing. Winnica is always amazed to see how much PPW continues to impact high school students across Winnipeg every year. Her favourite part about working with the PPW team is being able to mentor and witness the growth of high school students from a variety of backgrounds - empowering them to dream big and reminding them that there are no limits to what they can accomplish.

As part of her involvement with PPW, Winnica became a recipient of the national 2016 High School Canadian Medical Hall of Fame Scholarship and 2017 Terry Fox Humanitarian Award. While she has been grateful for these opportunities to receive financial help for her education, she believes that accolades will always be secondary to the intrinsic fulfillment she feels from giving back to her community in purposeful ways. Through all that she does, Winnica is always looking for purpose-driven experiences in pursuit of continuous personal growth and lifelong learning. In doing so, she encourages others to never lose sight of their purpose, remain grounded in gratitude, and lead with kindness.