By Eric Bourque
THE VANGUARD
NovaNewsNow.com
Just before the announcement of the winners of the 2011 Ideas Competition at Nova Scotia Community College Burridge Campus, representatives of the college offered congratulations to all of the participants, citing their attitude and the innovative nature of their ideas.
The competition winners were announced March 14 during a noon-hour ceremony at Burridge, where top honours went to the team of Kristin Rhyno and Crystal Vautour.
In addition to winning a prize of $1,000, the two qualified for the next round of competition. This was to be held in Halifax and feature winners from other NSCC campuses. The champion from that round moves on to a provincial competition against winners from Nova Scotia universities.
The Burridge competition included a submission process and various workshops for the participants.
“It was a good experience,” said Vautour. “We’d recommend it to everybody.”
The Burridge winners weren’t prepared to discuss the details of their idea at this point.
Competition participants got to present an idea about an innovative product or service to a panel of judges.
Mary Thompson, the Burridge principal, said she was impressed by the ideas submitted.
The participants were innovative and enthusiastic, she said.
They displayed passion in presenting their ideas, she said, adding, “That’s really what you need as entrepreneurs. It was amazing,”
Kelly Setlakwe, faculty, school of business, and campus lead for the entrepreneurship initiative, offered a similar assessment and noted that the hope is to try to get students thinking in an entrepreneurial way.
“It’s a program across the college and it’s just to kind of bring entrepreneurship to the forefront and this is one of the things that we do, this competition,” she said.
The competition is open to everyone, not just business students, she said.
“This year we had somebody from carpentry, so I was thrilled that that happened,” she said.
