45
Countries, 1500 students, 3 Days of Enlightenment: SIFE 2005
(See Photo Gallery below)
October 12,
2005
By: Paul
Tilley
As we
stepped through the doors of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC) last
week, we didn’t really know what to expect.
Chan
Wiseman (ACE Clarenville President), Tracy Holloway (ACE Advisor), and I (ACE
Advisor) were met with a parade of flags followed by smiling young faces that
literally came from every part of the world.
This
was the 2005 SIFE World Cup! National championship teams from 47 countries
converged on
Toronto
for three days of competition – 1 team would emerge the best team in the world.
Team Presentations were combined with directed learning opportunities. One such
learning opportunity was a meeting of team advisors from schools across Canada.
There we got together to share ideas and address some of the challenges that our
teams are facing.
Over
the three days we had the opportunity to sit in on outstanding presentations by
the various teams – each judged by top CEO’s. Regardless of where the teams
came from, it seemed that their challenges were very similar to our own and
their goals were identical. SIFE president Bruce Nasby summed it up well when
he noted “It's fascinating to see different cultures unite together with the
shared goal of making a positive impact on their communities."
We
learned a great deal from the conference and brought some of it back too. We
shot 1 ˝ hours of video, did interviews and made many contacts with other
campuses in
Canada,
the U.S., Africa and Europe. We hope to be able to use our experience at SIFE
to create other learning opportunities for current ACE members, and future ACE
members.
We
would like to express our thanks to our students, ACE
Canada,
ACOA and the College of the
North
Atlantic
for making this experience possible.
Pictures of the event have been placed in the hallway upstairs and will be
posted on my website.
Chan
with ACE Cabot
Toronto
Mayor David Miller
Chan
and Tracy in the Convention Centre
The Championship Round
Steve Thorne (ACE Corner Brook), Chan and Tracy on Young Street
