Two North Bay students have made the grade when it comes to entry into a prestigious national program.

SHAD is all about developing innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership among Canada’s best and brightest youth.

701 students from across the country are taking part.

President Barry Bisson says the intense one month program takes place at 12 universities across Canada and is focused on STEAM: science, technology, engineering, arts and math to help these students see and reach their full potential.

When looking at applicants, “We’re really looking for that very bright, well-rounded student who has enormous upside potential and, not surprisingly, we have 30 Rhodes Scholars amongst our alumni, so it’s really that calibre of student we look for.”

Bisson points out when completing the program the students will gain access to their powerful peer-to-peer network of some 15,000 SHAD alumni.

He says that can help the students in a number of ways, “looking for an internship, or looking for venture capital for their start-up, or talent for their company, or their thinking of doing a PhD in nanotechnology they can reach out to the alumni community and get advice and help on whatever their need is.”

Grade 11 student at St Joseph-Scollard Hall Temitope Akintola and Chippewa Grade 10 student Victoria Zhou have both been accepted into the program, which runs July 3rd to 29th.

Akintola is going to the SHAD Program at Carleton University in Ottawa while Zhou will be attending the University of New Brunswick session.