CEO of Energy Aware Shares Her Story to First-Year Students
by Di (Dina) Lu ~ November 9th, 2012. Filed under: Uncategorized.
In my Business Fundamentals class yesterday, Janice Cheam, founder and CEO of Energy Aware, spoke about how she sped along the road to entrepreneurship.
It was very inspiring to hear that it all began with an entrepreneurial course in her fourth year at the Sauder School of Business. Working with a few other students, Cheam wanted to develop a product that would help people become aware of the wasteful amounts of energy used in daily life. Today, Energy Aware has grown and works with various parties, such as the Village on False Creek for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, to encourage energy efficiency.
Out of the hundreds of students that graduate with a Bachelors of Commerce degree each year, few become successful entrepreneurs. I think what made Cheam make it was her passion to really enforce the idea of energy awareness. She was very persistent with her idea; she struggled with funding the project, and in the end, the company began with the winning money prize of a competition. I admire how she never gave up. It is always the first steps that are the largest leaps, and Cheam managed to succeed in overcoming the difficult barriers of starting up a company.
