It’s all about changing the world — but the recognition is also nice.
St. Clair College teams have taken first and third place places in the Enactus Canada 2024 Regional Competition, beating out dozens of other teams from across Central Canada.
Dyssolve, a student project creating processes for purifying greenhouse wastewater runoff and harvesting fertilizer, took first place in two categories.
“It is a personally important project,” said Sanay Santhosh, the Dyssolve student project manager. “I did a lot of volunteer work recovering plastic debris from the ocean. That is what led me to create a project that has to do with sustainable wastewater management. So it means something that I can be part of a small change.”
Enactus Canada, a social entrepreneurship program for college and university students, is among 33 members in the global Enactus family. It’s one of the world’s largest platforms for experiential learning, aligning with St. Clair College’s emphasis on hands-on learning through competitions, internships, and mentorships.
The organization annually hosts expositions in Atlantic, Western, and Central Canada, allowing students to showcase how their community outreach projects and business ventures can make a real impact. This year, 29 teams competed in several different categories.
They included two teams from St. Clair, led by Enactus St. Clair President Amol Sandhu, a third-year Marketing student.
The student project Endure, a social initiative that supports students with developmental disabilities, won third place in the Desjardins Youth Empowerment Challenge.
Endure is a partnership with St. Clair’s Community Integration Through Cooperative Education Program. It includes an eight-week program for students with developmental disabilities, teaching them skills such as time management, budgeting, and preparing for interviews.
“The projects aim to address global and community issues or problems in regards to environmental challenges, social challenges, and financial challenges,” said St. Clair College presentations coach Teodora Milovanovic.
A total of 30 St. Clair students, ranging from first to third year in programs including Robotics, Horticulture, Business, Chemical Laboratory Technology, Public Relations, and Millwrighting, went to the regional event.
The winners from each regional competition will head to Toronto in May for the National Exposition. That includes Dyssolve team members Santhosh, Avery King, Hallie Westwood, Mimi Nguyen, and Rebecca Sit.
The Dyssolve project won first in the Canadian Tire Environmental Sustainability Challenge, as well as the Innovation and Impact Challenge.
“We created a photobioreactor, which is a closed loop system that takes wastewater and we added an existing algae culture into the wastewater,” said Milovanovic. “That goes through the entire photosynthesis process. The wastewater is purified and can be used in greenhouses. Then algae that settles at the bottom of the tank can be harvested and turned into fertilizer.”
St. Clair will also do a combined presentation for all its Enactus projects at the national competition.
“This is huge for the students,” faculty advisor Michael Spadotto said of the St. Clair victories. “This is a very young team. We have a lot of new students on the team who just joined Enactus at the beginning of the semester. They just started learning about entrepreneurship and getting a feel for what the projects are all about.”