Innovation is abound in Prince Rupert.
After Andrea Pollock won $2,500 for her business, Island Sugar in the ThriveNorth Business Challenge earlier this month, two more Rupertites won cash prizes for their innovative work and active minds.
Hans Seidemann and Aaliyah Mahboubi won $1,000 each at the Third Annual 2016 Skeena-Nass Centre for Innovation in Resource Economics Northwest Innovation Challenge.
Seidemann won the CityWest Regional Relevance Prize, awarded for the innovation that best addresses the needs and opportunities of northern B.C.
Seidemann entered the project called ‘Skeena Chinampa’, an idea of creating long, floating gardens on North Coast muskegs similar to South America’s Chinampas (shallow lake bed area of rectangular parcels of crops) to be used for agriculture.
Mahboubi’s innovation was called ‘Microbial Film Power Generation’, awarded for the most innovative use of a bio-product. The project focused on generating power from microbial activity (microorganisms like bacterium that cause disease) in coastal bogs.
Mahboubi, 12, then went to Montréal last week for the Canada-Wide Science Fair, where she won an additional $250 and a gold medal. She also captured two trophies at the regional science fair.
Mahboubi and her family are hoping to start generating an interest in attracting young talent to the sciences on the North Coast, and Northwest Community College also offers summer science camps for elementary students. For more information, visit www.nwcc.bc.ca