U of G Engineering Students Win Safe Design Award

PRESS RELEASE-MINERVA Safety Management Education

Safety Awards Honour Innovative Student Engineering Designs
Promoter of workplace health and safety instills mindset via post-secondary classrooms

TORONTO, ON – Minerva Canada Safety Management Education Inc. congratulates the winners of its 2018 James Ham Safe Design Award Competition. The annual award challenges Canadian university engineering students and college students in technology programs to make an original contribution toward integrating safety into engineering design.

The team of Hannah Arthurs, Elise Huet, Jessie Leith, Erika Ziraldo, engineering undergraduate students at the University of Guelph, clinched the top prize for their design of a risk assessment tool and device (ErgoLift) to enable automated monitoring of lifting activities and, in so doing, help prevent low back injuries and work related musculoskeletal disorders. The tool is very practical and easy to implement.   

The team of Mingzhi Zheng, Hylann Ma, Wingshan Tam, Wejun Xia, Daniel Tran and Zachary Napora,

engineering undergraduate students at the University of Alberta, took second prize for their design submission, that proposed an ion exchange resin to recover trace concentrations of metals and reduce personnel exposure to hydrogen sulphide. The reaction mechanism is also proven to be more efficient and less energy and material intensive. 

The winning team was awarded the first prize of $3,500 while the runner-up winner received $1,500. Lynn Brownell, CEO of the Workplace Safety & Prevention Services together with Ron Kelusky, Ontario Chief Prevention Officer and Minerva Canada President and CEO Tony Pasteris presented the awards at the WSPS Partners in Prevention Conference in Mississauga, Ontario on May 2nd.

The award honours James Milton Ham whose Royal Commission Report on Health and Safety led to the creation of Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act in 1979 and to the adoption of the Internal Responsibility System in Ontario workplaces. James Ham trained as an engineer with a secondary field of study in sociology; his writings emphasized ‘society and human needs’. He was awarded the Order of Canada in 1980 and died in 1997.

Minerva Canada’s James Ham Safe Design Awards:

• Encourage students and engineering, college faculty members to integrate safety into all designs.
• Produce safer designs of devices, processes and systems.
• Raise awareness of Process Safety Management (PSM) and Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) in engineering schools and colleges.

Through the Minerva Awards program, students in Canadian engineering schools and colleges are being challenged to:

• Suggest ways to create or improve the existing design of devices, processes or systems.
• Envision new, innovative designs that will eliminate or reduce potential hazards.
• Create tools to help manufacturers and workplaces integrate safety into new or retrofit designs.

Students interested in entering the 2019 competition should visit www.safetymanagementeducation.com for more information about contest rules and regulations. .

About Minerva Canada Safety Management Education Inc.:

Minerva Canada, a non-profit volunteer-run organization, aims to be a global leader in health and safety management education by influencing the curriculum of post-secondary institutions to ensure that future business leaders create healthier and safer workplaces. The only organization of its kind, it advocates for increased inclusion of health and safety concepts in curricula; educates the educators by providing business and engineering professors and instructors in universities and colleges with practical, curriculum-ready tools and initiatives; forges partnerships with governments, associations and accreditation boards; and connects educators with Canada’s business enterprises to learn what industry seeks from new graduates entering the workforce and how health and safety management concepts are being applied in the workplace.

All resources and activities are provided free of charge to educators, financially supported by our roster of blue chip corporate, organizational and government sponsors. Key sponsors include the Ontario Ministry of Labour, WorkSafeBC, the Nova Scotia Department of Labour, the Ontario Workplace Safety and Prevention Services, the Board of Canadian Registered Safety Professionals, the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering, the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada, Mirarco, Imperial Oil Limited, General Motors of Canada, DuPont Canada, Nova Chemicals, Bruce Power, Erco Worldwide, Glencore, CF Industries, Canada Post, Methanex, Chemtrade Logistics, H.L.Blachford, PCL Constructors Westcoast, Shell Canada, Nexen, BASF, Trimac, Mitacs, Ontario Society of Professional Engineers.

Visit www.safetymanagementeducation.com.

Tony Pasteris, President & CEO
Minerva Canada
905.479.0010
Minerva@safetymanagementeducation.com