Toronto District School Board high school students gained practical insight into the automotive industry through a collaboration between Accelerate Auto and Georgian College’s Automotive Business School of Canada earlier this week at the Canadian International AutoShow.
Accelerate Auto and Georgian College annually bring TDSB students to the AutoShow to encourage them to consider careers in the industry. This year, however, the program expanded to include dealer and product case studies in areas such as customer service, operations, branding, and marketing.
The students were divided into seven teams and mentored by ABSC students. Two to three TDSB students represented each team with presentations before judges from BMO, Georgian College, Ontario Tech, Nissan, Taq Automotive Intelligence, and Quantuity Analytics.
“This year we’re shifting away from just awareness and getting excited about the sector, and more toward skill development,” said Shannon Miller, Accelerate Auto’s Executive Director. She said the team introduced a case study competition broken down into different job functions.
“Now they are really able to build their business skills as it pertains to the automotive sector. We’re grateful for the partnership with Georgian College’s Automotive Business School of Canada as it presents a unique opportunity to work with both secondary and post secondary to develop the next generation of Automotive Business talent,” she said.
Miller said the new format worked well thanks to Accelerate Auto’s team, the participating school boards, and the ABSC. “We adapted from our typical model of awareness-raising for the sector to incorporate more skill-building activities for the students. The goal here is increasing job-readiness and post-secondary readiness from the high school level. We are excited to continue evolving this model in the coming years,” she said.
Accelerate Auto is a non-profit organization focused on increasing Black representation and career access within Canada’s automotive industry.
ABSC Executive Director Jason Dale agreed the practical case study approach benefited both groups of students.
“It was the first opportunity to get our students here with the Accelerate Auto students to help mentor them,” said Dale. “It was a fantastic experience. There was a lot more engagement this year for both our students and the high school students.”
He said the goal is to help younger students find areas of interest within the industry and potentially pursue post-secondary education in the field.
“The idea is to hopefully find a passion within the industry and get them to come to the Automotive Business School of Canada,” said Dale. “Their presentations were phenomenal, and it makes me very happy to see how comfortable they were speaking in front of all these people.”
He added it was also a valuable experience for ABSC students to participate as mentors.
The winning team received additional AutoShow tickets, along with access to a special activation in partnership with taq Automotive Intelligence. Taq also provided tickets for students to attend the AutoShow.
