The Sask. Polytech School of Business held its second annual student showcase event April 25 at the Western Development Museum (WDM) in Moose Jaw.
The event gave 26 student groups the unique opportunity to connect with potential employers and investors, all while showcasing some of their innovative projects during the 2023-24 academic year. Students came from all four of Sask. Polytech’s locations in the province including Moose Jaw, Prince Albert, Regina, and Saskatoon.
“The students (attended) as part of their work-integrated learning, and that means they’ve worked on projects, either with industry or (in simulated) industry experiences,” said Kristen Craig, dean of the Sask. Polytech School of Business.
“They’ve come up with their own innovative ideas and turned them into a project.”
The projects specialized in human resources, project management, supply chain management, financial services, accounting – and almost every area of business that you could think of, so long as the focus was on innovation.
“We try and have the students come up with solutions to business problems that they could then pitch to industry, or… industry (representatives) come to us, and they say they have a problem that they can’t figure out the solution to,” she explained.
One of these student groups was a project management team from the Prince Albert campus.
In their hometown, the Prince Albert Arena & Aquatics Recreation Centre is currently under construction and the group reached out to explore innovative solutions for the new project.
After some research, the group learned that the City of Prince Albert plans to borrow $18 million for the Centre. Sheena Sherafudin, a student in the group, said the project is now around 80 per cent complete, and to offer a better solution, the team is recommending a pre-booking option to minimize this projected cost.
“(If we’re successful) the city won’t be in debt to pay that $18 million borrowing,” she said.
The group then reviewed the Centre’s project map and explored its 10 knowledge areas and six project bases. They now hope to further streamline these processes to improve efficiency as part of their future role as project managers.
Once completed, the Centre will feature two NHL-sized skating rinks, a nine-lane competitive pool, a wave pool, two water slides, and will cover 51,500 square feet.
Another group is studying business at Moose Jaw’s campus and they’re working hard to develop an innovative plastic recycling facility in Moose Jaw.
Itoro Jones, a student in the group, said they’re projecting a near-future increase in housing demand with a resulting increase in the demand for construction materials.
“And so, we’re thinking, ‘How do we meet this demand (and) at the same time clean up the environment?’” Jones said.
To help plug this gap in a responsible manner, they’re looking to re-purpose post-consumer plastics to manufacture innovative building materials including sewer pipes and plastic tiles. All they require now is an investor to back the idea.
The WDM venue was chosen for the second straight year and Craig said this was intentional.
“There’s so much history with the (WDM) that we wanted to have our students and industry come back and relive that history. We (want) to tie it into the future (with regard to) where we’re going,” she added, noting that the venue provides an inspiring back-and-forth symbolism.
The hope, Craig said, is that students can form valuable connections with industry leaders.
“Being able to have local businesses here this evening means a lot to us. We wanted to make sure that we had that local connection to the community,” she concluded.
To learn more about the Sask. Polytech School of Business, visit SaskPolytech.ca/About/School-Of-Business.
