If you’re a student with a head full of ideas about how to improve B.C. industries and make people’s lives easier, a new competition is promising to give you a chance to shine — and a shot at $20,000.
The first STEM Spotlight Awards, sponsored by The Vancouver Sun, give students entering the skilled trades a chance to pitch their ideas and win cash and job opportunities. The awards are presented by the engineering support services firm Babcock Canada, and are an import from the U.K.
The idea behind the awards is to show students and their parents the benefits of choosing a career in a more practical, hands-on field, according to Babcock’s Hillary Cannon.
“There is a good career opportunity available for young people in skilled trades and apprenticeship. There is potential that there may be a sort of stigma attached to it because it’s not a university degree,” Cannon said.
“We wanted to spread the word that, actually, it’s a perfectly viable, perfectly respectable, perfectly lucrative career path that’s available.”
The overall winner will get a $20,000 cash prize, as well as what Cannon describes as “bespoke mentorship” from Babcock. In the U.K., that includes things like contact with patent lawyers and resources to turn ideas into reality.
Industry insiders in five sectors — technology, environment, marine, mining and energy — will give the students a specific problem they face, and ask for ideas about how to fix it. A winner will be chosen in each category, and that young person will receive a prize that could include money, job opportunities and mentoring.
Past winners from the U.K. include people like Holly Bishop, who dreamed up a bracelet that reminds wearers to take their medication, and Abbie Romano, who envisioned construction equipment that can be operated remotely.
“If the judges and sponsors of past competitions in the U.K. have learned one thing, it is that despite a shortage of workers in the STEM sectors, there is no lack of inspiring individuals and exceptional ideas,” Babcock Canada president Mark Dixon said in a news release.
The competition kicks off in September, and is open to all Canadian citizens who are enrolled in post-secondary education in a STEM-related field (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in B.C. The winners will be announced in early 2017.
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