Acadia student team named champion for environmental education

Acadia SIFE Team
Acadia SIFE Team

(Toronto, ON) - Acadia University's "Students In Free Enterprise" or SIFE team has been named the SIFE Green Challenge Regional Champion by national charitable organization Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship (ACE).


All Atlantic based SIFE teams were judged by live panels of business professionals and regional champions were announced on Friday February 26th in Halifax at the 2010 ACE Atlantic Regional Exposition, proudly supported by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA). 


The SIFE Acadia team stood out to the judges because of their dedication with providing access to clean public drinking water on campus. The team's "Back to the Tap" project is a joint venture with Water Watch Acadia to eliminate the sale of bottled water from Acadia University. The SIFE team has also partnered with the Ivan Curry School of Engineering to design and build a prototype for a carbon filtered water bottle refill station. Once the prototype has been tested SIFE Acadia will build and install 32 water fountains between May and September of this year.


"This project never would have launched had it not been for the vision of Peter Romkey, the director of the K.C. Irving Environmental Science Centre, and without the support of Acadia University," explains SIFE Project Manager, David Paterson. "Our small school setting has empowered SIFE to instill real change at Acadia University; something we feel could not have been possible at a larger institution."

The end goal of this annual challenge is for SIFE teams to provide others with the knowledge required to make positive environmental decisions, both in their personal and professional lives. Teams have been provided the necessary tools and training from ACE to develop and implement their extensive projects to help others. The Acadia team will now move on to the national level of competition taking place in Calgary on May 11th.

"SIFE Acadia is taking on a leadership role with eliminating wasteful water bottles on their campus, for this reason they have been named a Regional Champion", comments ACE President, Amy Harder. "I would also like to thank ACOA for their support in Atlantic Canada; with their assistance we continue to provide a platform for young easterner's to explore entrepreneurship as a viable career option." 

About ACE
Founded in the mid-1980s, ACE is a national, charitable organization that is teaching and igniting young Canadians to create brighter futures for themselves and their communities. Through a collaborative partnership between higher education and industry, ACE delivers a team based program, Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) and an individual based program, the Student Entrepreneur National Competition. This programming provides university and college students access to real world experience, through outreach projects and business ventures that compliments in-class studies. Students involved in ACE make a meaningful contribution to their communities today, while also discovering their potential to achieve an even greater impact as the leaders of tomorrow. Last year, students involved with ACE created 600 jobs, logged 260,000 volunteer hours, impacted 63,000 people - all the while generating over $40 million in economic activity.

 

Contact:

Jaime Szegvary

Communications Consultant, ACE
416.619.8994
jaime@acecanada.ca  

David Paterson
Project Manager, SIFE Acadia
902.300.0572
david.paterson@sifeacadia.ca

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