SEED Student takes Wetskills Project a Step Further for $15,000 Prize

​Arun Raj, a second year Master of Sustainability Management student in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED), and his teammates have taken a project they developed during the Wetskills Water Challenge Canada and captured first prize in the2014 Future Water Technology Competition organized by the University of North Carolina and Takata Corporation.
The Water Institute sponsored Eduardo Cejudo, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Arun Raj, SEED, to participte in the Wetskills Challenge Canada 2014 workshop held at Ryerson University in June 2014. During the two week workshop the attendees were divided into five teams and each team assigned a case study topic. The teams were required to produce a brief report, a poster, and a two minute elevator pitch about their solution. They were supported by experts from a variety of disciplines and sectors, including the case owners. Arun Raj was in a group that proposed a real time monitoring system for mining effluents. 
Following Wetskills, Arun's team was invited to the Netherlands by the case owner, INCAS3, to present their solution at the Canadian-Dutch SME business event hosted by INCAS3 in September 2014. 
At that time, the team also applied to the Future Technologies for Water Competitionorganized by the University of North Carolina and Takata Corporation, which garnered over 70 applications from 27 countries. After a final in-person presentation by three finalists, Arun's team, Team Espresso, was selected as the winner of the $15,000 prize and professional mentorship to take the idea to the next stage. Congratulations Arun!