FOUNDATION CONNECTION
IDEA GENERATORS Calgary members take part in the second phase of the Idea Jam—arriving at more than 100 ideas to guide the APEGA Foundation in creating a new initiative.
From our questions, we realized our reason for existence: to build a stronger engineering and geoscience community—one that connects, empowers, and inspires APEGA members to be leaders in the creation of sustainable solutions to the province’s and the world’s greatest challenges. In June, we were ready to ask our membership to join us in an ideation process. A group of 25 professionals came together in Calgary and captured more than 100 ideas in the half-day session. In the end, we identified the most meaningful and unique ideas we’d come up with. Then in September, we reached out to Edmonton members, asking them to narrow the field to a single, cohesive idea we could action in the next 12 months. Participants merged the four ideas that came out of Calgary into one, to form the nucleus for our new initia- tive—an initiative we hope all engineers and geoscien- tists can get behind and be proud of. The idea that emerged was to create the Social Innovation Prize. It will be awarded annually to a diverse team of engineers, geoscientists, and students, working together to solve our most pressing social challenges in
a sustainable way. They’ll be using an engineering and geoscience approach to problem solving. Each year, the competition will have a different theme. The inaugural theme, we’ve decided, will focus on the social needs of a rural Alberta community. The whole initiative will be preceded by a thought- provoking public speaker series, designed to delve into rural issues and the roles applied scientists can play in solving some of our community’s most persistent challenges. Help us create a meaningful and unique way to inspire more engineers and geoscientists to make a difference. Help us become even more impactful as a conduit for giving back. Help us make a world of difference. LINKS APEGA Foundation Would You Like to Get Involved or Donate Money? socialinnovation@apegafoundation.ca
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