Enactus SFU initiative moves on to national contest

The following press release was published by SFU Public Affairs and Media Relations.  

A team of entrepreneurial Simon Fraser University students competing at this weekend’s Enactus Canada western regional exposition will advance to the nationals, while another SFU teammate has been recognized with a top leadership award.

The student-team from Enactus SFU secured a win in the Capital One Financial Education Challenge, one of three topic challenges at the exposition held in Calgary, involving more than 400 student leaders, academics and entrepreneurs from B.C. to Manitoba.

Students compete by showcasing the impact they’ve had in their communities through the entrepreneurial initiatives they’ve created. Beedie School of Business undergrads Taimur Naveed and Leslie Chow, and School of Interactive Arts and Technology designer Ronaldo Pagaduan will move on after highlighting a pair of financial literacy programs, Count on Me and Hunger Actions.

The Count on Me program prepares at-risk youth for their future financial needs, while Hunger Actions aims to improve the quality of life of low-income single mothers by maximizing budgets spent on nutritional food to create healthier families.

Meanwhile SFU Beedie student Chantelle Buffie, the program manager of Enactus SFU’s 2012/2013 Student Entrepreneur of the Year initiative, was named the 2013 HSBC Women Leader of Tomorrow for Western Canada.

Buffie follows in the footsteps of SFU Communication student Sonam Swarup, who won the award last year. The pair co-founded Fusion Kitchen, a social venture that aims to help recent immigrant women develop transferable skill sets and gain work experience through teaching ethnic cooking classes focused on dishes from their culture.

Enactus SFU students also competed in the TD Entrepreneurship Challenge and the Scotiabank EcoLiving Green Challenge.

Students Lara Ahmad and Hardeep Heer, and their designer Patricia Bernal, showcased SFU’s SEY competition, which provides $5,000 in seed money to SFU student entrepreneurs, and the Jumpstart accelerator program, which launched the businesses of three early-stage entrepreneurs by providing mentorship and tools.

Meanwhile Nathan Lobo and Winona Bhatti, along with tech designer Jasmine Lew, showed the environmental and social impact of the Banner Bags program. Students teach high school sewing classes how to turn nylon banners into reusable shopping bags and other designs. Since its inception the program has involved more than 30 schools across B.C. and saved more than 1,400 pounds of nylon from going into landfills, avoiding the creation of an estimated 35,000 pounds of CO2 emissions.

In addition to their regional winners,  the Enactus SFU team will compete against 39 other teams from across Canada at the national exposition in Toronto May 6-8.

Enactus, formerly known as Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), is a global organization that uses entrepreneurial action as a catalyst for progress. Its mandate at SFU is to encourage entrepreneurship.

Simon Fraser University is Canada’s top-ranked comprehensive university and one of the top 50 universities in the world under 50 years old. With campuses in Vancouver, Burnaby and Surrey, B.C., SFU engages actively with the community in its research and teaching, delivers almost 150 programs to more than 30,000 students, and has more than 120,000 alumni in 130 countries.