By Matt Marcuccio
Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) Laurentian University is heading to Toronto on March 17th and 18th 2011 to compete at a Regional level against other SIFE teams from Universities and Colleges of Central Canada.
The event, held by Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship Canada (ACE Canada – Official operator of SIFE in Canada), will be comprised of 3 optional challenges. Throughout the year, SIFE teams around the world partake in real projects throughout the community with specific criteria, giving the members valuable hands-on experience while helping the community.
The criteria is based around “empowering the community” and “improving the quality of life and standard of living” through the power of business. These challenges are: TD SIFE Entrepreneurship, SIFE and Scotiabank Go Green and SIFE Financial Education.
For the first time since the team’s inception in January 2009, SIFE LU will participate in all 3 challenges. The presentations consist of presenting your projects and results to a panel of 16 business executives from the sponsor companies. 11 devoted members of the LU team are going to be heading down to Toronto to compete and hopefully bring pride to Laurentian by placing top three in one of the competitions.
They will be competing against some of the powerhouse teams of Ontario such as Ryerson University and George Brown College.
This event also provides an amazing opportunity for the students to network with some of the largest companies in Canada (The Forzani Group, Canadian Tire, KPMG, TD, Scotiabank, Telus, Tim Horton’s, Wal Mart, Sun Life Financial along with many others).
A new addition to this years competition: live interviews for real jobs with several of these companies will be taking place at the event along with information sessions about employment within these establishments! These companies have specific jobs exclusively for SIFE students in Canada, offering an extra incentive to participate and become a member of SIFE teams, an incentive other clubs cannot offer! They realize the quality of students that SIFE has to offer and this gives them the opportunity to have the first grab at the talent.
There is a spot for students from any program. Whether you’re in commerce, engineering, languages, geography, communications, or any other field of study, there’s definitely projects that can use your expertise!
If you’re interested in joining SIFE LU and standing out among other students, please contact Matt Marcuccio mm_marcuccio@laurentian.ca for more info.
Editor’s note: For full coverage on the upcoming event, check out the March 11 issue of the Lambda.
mm_marcuccio@laurentian.ca