This photo was taken at a previous 25toLife event, Pie Your Prof.

Last Tuesday, an SFU Beedie School of Business project management class held an event dubbed “Corporate Speed Networking,” which was designed as a fun and interactive way for business students to communicate with business professionals in a unique atmosphere.

The event was held at SFU Harbour Centre, and all proceeds were given to the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS).

Seven professionals from corporate giants Rogers Canada, World Financial Group, KPMG, and Affirmed Capital were stationed at tables, and approximately 20 students were individually rotated through each company for four-minute sessions.

“If only dating were this informative,” commented one SFU student participating in the event.

The event was the last of nine held by the project management class. This term, Beedie lecturer Kamal Masri, who taught the project management class, dedicated it to raising $25,000 for cancer research and to support individuals facing the disease. They dubbed the campaign 25toLife, a joint project between the class and the CCS.

“It’s an experiment,” said Masri, “It’s the first time I’ve run this kind of project, and the idea is to have 50 students working together rather than competing against each other, which is traditionally what we see in classes at university, including SFU.”

The challenge put before the students was to raise $25,000 dollars for the CCS, a goal that many students viewed as extremely difficult.

“Several of our teammates have already lost friends and grandfathers to this disease, while others have held the hand of aunts and mothers who courageously battled their way through,” stated the write up on the team’s website. “While each person’s story and relationship are different, we are all united by the same goal: to end cancer and celebrate the lives of all those it affects.

“It wasn’t the easy ‘A’ we were expecting.”

– Aliyah Ali, SFU Beedie student

In order to fulfill their goal, the class was split into nine groups, and each group had three months to plan a fundraising event. Previous events ranged from pub and club nights, to a pie-throwing contest involving SFU professors (aptly called “Pie Your Prof”), to a cancer-cut event where participants had their hair cut or shaved in the SFU Surrey Mezzanine.

“It wasn’t the easy ‘A’ we were expecting,” says Aliyah Ali, a student in the project management class. “It took us the entire semester to plan this.”

As it stands, the 25toLife campaign has raised $22,700 to date, and hopes to reach its anticipated goal of $25,000 by Nov. 26, just in time for the end of the semester.

“Right now they’re just working really hard to hit that target,” said Masri. As far as the success of the experimental class, Masri is pleased with the end result.

“In class, the semester was pretty much like a rollercoaster ride. Students were challenged, they were pushed, they pushed back, they lost motivation, then their motivation was back up again; in the end they picked it up.”