Shad Valley
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shad Valley is a Canadian summer program for high school students that takes place during the month of July, and focuses on entrepreneurship, science, and technology. Shad Valley currently operates at twelve campuses across Canada, each campus hosting between 48 and 60 students. There is no set curriculum across the campuses: the activities taking part on each campus depend entirely on the diverse talents of the campus' staff.
Open to students in Grade 10, 11, and 12 (or the equivalent), the Shad Valley program entails a relatively intensive application process. In addition to maintaining a diversity of Shad participants at each campus, the selection process ensures that all those who are there truly want to be there. This process is likely one of the key ingredients in creating the unique sense of community that so characterises each Shad experience.
Since 1998, a major component of the Shad Valley experience has been the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Entrepreneurship Cup - one of the few parts of the program that remain consistent across the different campuses. The RBC Cup is a business competition involving multiple components: marketability of concept, quality of prototype, business plan, and business presentation skills. Much of the program is spent in preparation for the RBC Cup: internal competitions at each campus are hosted on the fourth week of July, and the regional winners continue to a national competition in Waterloo, Ontario.
In August, after attending the University portion of the program, students who applied for a Summer Internship program and received a job offer begin their work experience at one of the many business partners of Shad Valley.
The campuses hosting Shad Valley vary occasionally. 2006 hosts included: Carleton University, Dalhousie University, Lakehead University, McMaster University, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Queen's University, Laval University, Trent University, University of British Columbia, University of Calgary, University of New Brunswick, and University of Waterloo. In past years, Shad Valley has been hosted by Queen's University at Herstmonceux Castle in England and by University of Strathclyde in Scotland - thus allowing for Shad Valley's claim to internationality.
[edit] History
Shad Valley was conceived as a non-for-profit educational organization in Waterloo, Ontario in 1980. It was founded by Dr. Derek Lane-Smith and originally named the Shad Valley Centre for Creative Technology. Shad Valley was created as an organization to provide a motivating summer educational program for outstanding youth. The first official Shad Valley program ran in the summer of 1981 at St. Andrew's College, a private boys' high school in Aurora, Ontario. Currently, in 2006, Shad Valley operates at 12 universities across Canada (see above). The Shad Community now consists of over 10,000 Shad Valley alumni (also known as "Shads"), over 150 business partners, and thousands of educators across Canada. There are 17 Rhodes Scholars among the Shad alumni.
