Hardent, an electronic design services company, will join CAE, Bombardier, and Bell as a sponsor of a non-profit engineering program for secondary school students
Hardent Electronic Design Services is teaming up with ISPAJES (Ingénierie Simultanée Présentée Aux Jeunes du Secondaire) to bring engineering programs into local high schools. The ISPAJES organization is a non-profit organization that helps secondary school students develop problem-solving capabilities and engineer solutions to reach their goals through an applied concurrent engineering approach.
“We’re very happy to have Hardent sponsor this exciting program,” said Patrick Fernet, head of ISPAJES. “Our program goes well beyond traditional education to provide hands-on stages of innovative engineering product development of a new product, mirroring the kind of work Hardent does with its corporate clients.” ISPAJES has three distinct goals: to increase the rate of students graduating successfully from high school, which according to recent research is being accomplished; to develop 12 areas of competency that student can apply in studies and in life; and to develop maturity and foster innovation, which will ultimately bring social well-being. In the engineering field, ISPAJES focuses on real products that require unique innovation, and in the past have included helping secondary kids engineer a new teleconferencing system, design a new Smart Grid for electricity, and even create a vehicle propelled entirely by steam, electricity, and air, which was featured in the Montreal Science Center. ISPAJES focuses on concurrent engineering: a process of task parallelization which helps students learn a comprehensive approach to project management, and a technique that has been shown to increase design efficiency by up to 40%. ISPAJES programs also include in-field industrial and university visits and teacher training sessions.
Founded in 1995, the program has already involved 4,000 students. Simon Robin, Founder and President of Hardent, says it’s a project that is just beginning. For Robin, Hardent’s participation is in line with the company’s philosophy. “We’re very proud to be involved with ISPAJES, and the way it can foster and encourage interest in science and engineering. Our cutting-edge engineers are where they are because they never lost that drive for engineering when they were young,” said Robin. “Hopefully, we can help pass on a little of that passion.”
About Hardent
Hardent provides Electronic Design Services, serving as an extension of companies’ electronic design and engineering departments to achieve faster time-to-market and high electronic innovation. With unique capabilities to rapidly understand companies’ requirements, Hardent’s problem-solving skills and cutting-edge design expertise produce creative electronic solutions. The company offers transparent communication, high project visibility and never-ending support. Hardent is also a highly experienced training house and the exclusive Xilinx Authorized Training Provider for Canada, New England and Southeastern United States. Besides its digital signal processing (DSP) training courses, Hardent also offers FPGA courses, SystemVerilog programming training, embedded software course training, and a range of other courses targeted to HDL design experts. For further information about Hardent’s electronic design services, consult the Hardent website.
About ISPEJES
The ISPAJES (Ingénierie Simultanée Présentée Aux JEunes du Secondaire) Program is an educational, non-profit organization founded in 1995, which aims to combine the necessary elements to foster entrepreneurship among high school science students. The program is based on an environment of collaboration, not competition, and aims to create a new generation of innovation in technology. The Quebec-based program aims to nurture an interest in science through an integrated, hands-on course that will teach students about the real development cycle of engineering. At the end of each year, students have presented a fully-functioning consumer product. Throughout, ISPAJES takes care to provide full training for teachers, as well as immerse students in real-life engineering firms and allow them to experience the engineering profession first-hand. In 2002, the ISPAJES program won the Michael Smith Award from the Council of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for its “outstanding work” to increase interest and accessibility in science for all Canadians. For more information on how to support ISPAJES, please visit the website at ispajes.qc.ca or see videos of the project in action.