Growing up, I spent my summers in Muskoka, gaining an appreciation for the outdoors and living simply, without any distractions from technology. These years gave me an appreciation for nature, as I often spent time kayaking or camping on Lake Muskoka. However, I am also known to my friends as the most technology-obsessed person they know. I'm an early adopter of new products, and love staying updated on breakthroughs in the technology sector. While a passion for technology and nature may seem conflicting, I find interest at the crossroads where technology is used to help preserve our environment.
Additional Information
Personal Definition of Sustainability
Sustainability is about individuals and businesses operating in a mindset that takes the future of the community into account. For individuals, being sustainable means acting in the best interest of the public by reducing waste, and helping others in need. For businesses, acting sustainably is a necessary strategy to ensure long-term existence, and is achieved by reducing their impact on our finite resources. Sustainable actions not only create individual benefit through a lowered cost of living, but also ensure that quality of life can be equal, or better, than our current state for future generations.
Sustainability-In-Action
While competing in a marketing competition, I was tasked with creating an art display out of NESTEA cans. Given our shared love of music, my team decided to create sustainable working instruments out of recycled products. We located a used guitar through Kijiji that was working, but damaged. Carefully, we sawed away the body of the guitar, keeping only the neck, strings, and electronics. Next, we used recycled NESTEA cans to create a new guitar body. While the entire experience was risky, as we had no experience re-wiring guitars, the end product turned out great, and made quite the impact when our team performed at Yonge-Dundas Square weeks later.
Inventa, the experiential agency where I interned over the summer, used a legal document system for a program that required thousands of sheets of paper to be printed each day. To make this program more sustainable, I initiated and created a digital signing system that saved the agency a total of $10,000 in paper and development fees. For the summer of 2013, I plan to make similar use of my expertise in creative, sustainable problem solving while working at a CPG company.
