WATERLOO, Ont. (Tuesday, Mar. 6, 2012) - Three University of Waterloo chemical engineering students surpassed more than 80 teams from across the country to win the first-ever Walmart Green Student Challenge.
Fourth-year students Arthur Yip, Jake Yeung, and Alan Thai took first place with their idea of a green energy hub for retail distribution centres. The hub concept integrates solar, wind, and hydrogen technologies that will power lighting, refrigeration, and forklifts in a sustainable manner, and this would also result in considerable long-term financial benefits for corporations.
“We are excited to have brought our project into the real world through this competition and we are committed to bringing our sustainable green energy hub design to life,” said Yip. “The challenge encouraged us to think about sustainable business from a different angle. At the end of the day, the idea can’t just be good for the environment, it has to be good for business.”
The students won $60,000, half of which they will donate to Waterloo’s chemical engineering department to help support future fourth-year design projects. Walmart Canada will also bring the team to Calgary to tour the company's newest distribution centre to see how the company could implement the winning idea there.
“I’m extremely proud of this tremendous accomplishment,” said Adel Sedra, dean of engineering. “I’m not only impressed by the students’ innovative green energy hub design, but that they’re giving back to their department to help future design teams. Arthur, Jake and Alan are an excellent example of the outstanding students we see in the Faculty of Engineering.”
Yip, Yeung and Thai’s win at the Walmart Green Student Challenge is the latest in several other wins for Waterloo students in national competitions.
“The University of Waterloo commends all of the semi-finalists on their excellent work in providing more energy-efficient alternatives,” said Feridun Hamdullahpur, Waterloo president & vice-chancellor. “The first-place team’s excellent design demonstrates the innovation and quality inherent in so much of the student work at Waterloo, helping solve the big issues of the future.”
The competition lasted five months. The semi-finalists were Waterloo, the University of Cape Breton, York University, Western University and the University of Calgary. A panel of five CEOs from Walmart Canada, Coca Cola Refreshments Canada, Unilever Canada, Maple Leaf Foods and the David Suzuki Foundation selected the winner.
Image: Walmart Green Student Challenge winners.
About Waterloo Engineering
The faculty of engineering at the University of Waterloo is a multi-faceted engineering school with eight academic units, home to about 280 faculty members, more than 1,825 graduate students and 6,550 undergraduate students. More than 34,500 alumni have made their mark in industry, academe and the public sector, in Canada and around the world. For further information, go to www.engineering.uwaterloo.ca.
