Surrey Board of Trade’s Top 25 Under 25 Event Acknowledges Exceptional Youth

Four KPU students received awards for their achievements

For the sixth consecutive year, the Surrey Board of Trade handed out their Top 25 Under 25 awards to some of the city’s youngest, brightest entrepreneurs, four of whom were students from Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Saghi Ahmadi, Taylor Byrom, Sukhjiven Gill, and Parabjot Kaur Singh each received certificates at the event for their accomplishments, along with graduates from SFU, BCIT, and other post-secondary institutions.

True to the nature of entrepreneurship, the evening began with an hour of networking, followed by presentations from sponsors and keynote speaker Leah Goldstein. Afterwards came the awards ceremony for the Top 25 winners before the event was concluded with more networking over hors d’oeuvres.

All of the winners from KPU were young women, and two of them are involved in the school’s business department. Ahmadi is a soon-to-be graduate of KPU’s Bachelor of Business Administration program in entrepreneurial leadership with professional experience in management and training. Byrom is the owner of Taylor Hart Designs—a clothing company “for little girls with complex care,” as written on the brand’s website—and graduate of KPU’s fashion and technology degree program.

Gill, an international student from India, is a recent graduate of the Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting program with extensive involvement in co-op programs, and plans to become a chartered professional accountant. Singh serves on the board of directors of the Punjabi Language Education Association, works as a co-host of a children’s radio show on RED 93.1FM, and is a member of both the Kwantlen Creative Writing Guild and the department of languages and cultures.

Saghi believes that it is KPU’s applied learning style that has allowed her to achieve many of her academic and professional goals.

“The great thing about Kwantlen being so applied is that you are given the opportunity to work with a lot of local businesses. Through that, and through a lot of the applied learning, I was able to sort of give back a bit to the community, specifically Surrey,” she says.

“I feel like, in the last year, I’ve grown a lot academically and even professionally in how I present ideas at work or recommendations for process improvements. None of that would have happened if I wasn’t given the experience in the classroom to sort of give that reassurance of like, ‘Okay, you’re able to present your ideas, now go apply it in the outside world.’”

As an international KPU student, Gill says she is grateful for the Top 25 Under 25 awards for providing her with “recognition for all [her] hard work.”

“Five years ago … I was in a new Canadian environment and I struggled a lot. Over the past five years, I have been working really hard, not just in school but also in volunteer activities and case competitions, so this was really good recognition coming from a third party,” she says.

CEO of the Surrey Board of Trade, Anita Huberman, feels that the event is critical to the health of the community in Surrey. She considers recognition of high-achieving youth important for the prosperity of the municipality’s future.

“A third of Surrey’s population is under the age of 19, and this is our opportunity to recognize and inspire and motivate our [young people] to be future entrepreneurs,” says Huberman, “While also ensuring that they have the right skillset for our future workplaces and connecting them with business leaders in the community.”