Broker Spotlight: Ara Mamourian, RE/MAX Hallmark Brokerage

Are you receiving Inman’s Broker Edge? Make sure you’re subscribed here.

Name: Ara Mamourian

Title: Managing partner

Location: Toronto, Canada

Number of offices: 1

Experience: 14 years

Number of agents: 6-person team

3 reasons Mamourian’s in the spotlight

When a friend on the school board told Ara Mamourian that dozens of students at Toronto’s Nelson Mandela School didn’t have the right technology equipment to participate in online learning (back in 2020 when COVID numbers began to rise in Canada), he thought it was “absolutely insane.” So, on his own dime, he started purchasing used laptops off of local Facebook pages. Eventually, he made contact with a supplier of refurbished Google Chromebooks, and he’s been able to donate about 10 laptops per month ever since (for those keeping score, that’s about 150 laptops donated in total).
If that isn’t enough, as COVID cases began spiking last week and Toronto schools started making the switch to remote learning, Mamourian learned that 60 more kids at the Nelson Mandela School needed technology and another local school had 200 technology requests. He took his efforts to social media and raised $6,000 in two minutes from another Toronto broker (shout out to Ken McLachlan!). After posting another request on Instagram that raised $26,000, he will fill another 260 device orders.
Harnessing all this goodwill, Mamourian is launching a non-profit (soon-to-be-named) that will aim to go beyond supplying tech and also provide education and mentorships to those in need.