Two Aboriginal students at the University of Saskatchewan are playing lead roles in organizing a major undergraduate business competition that will come to Saskatoon next year.

Twenty-four-year-old Brett Lendsay is in his third year and 18-year-old Emily Martell her first year at the Edwards School of Business.

Lendsay is the vice-president of corporate relations and Martell vice-president of events on the planning committee for the 2016 JDC West Business Competition.

The JDC West Competition will take place next January and is expected to bring in about 600 people from all over Western Canada to Saskatoon.

Lendsay says because of the size and scope of the competition, it takes several months to plan.

“This is a very big competition so there’s a lot of preparing,” he says. “It’s about a year in advance you have to get started. We have different positions ranging from marketing, events, gala, corporate relations, finance, athletics, debate, academic cases – so really there is an immense amount of work put into this, all run by students and recent alumni of the U of S.”

The four-day competition consists of four key components with challenges in the areas of academics, debate, athletics and social responsibility.

The academics component contains competition in 10 core areas including accounting, entrepreneurship, finance and not-for-profit business strategy.

The debate portion is based on a parliamentary style of debate where four students split into government and opposition teams and argue the merits or flaws of a specific proposal.

In athletics, students compete in one or more sports which for the 2016 competition will be ringette and dodgeball.

Martell says some consider the social component the most strenuous part of the competition.

“The social aspect of JDC West is definitely unique,” she says. “It’s about 48 hours of an intense competition testing your limits. There’s different types of competition with that, maybe they’ll have to eat some things that you wouldn’t normally want to eat – they’re tested physically, emotionally and mentally through 48 hours.”

JDC West also costs a significant amount of money to put on and requires the organizing committee to manage about $650,000.

As vice-president of corporate relations, this is where Lendsay comes in.

He says his job is to hit up corporations for sponsorships and convince them why it is a good idea to have their brand on display at the competition.

“We need an immense amount of money to rent out facilities and run the events, ensure we have hotel rooms for all of the 600 students, judges and corporate sponsors. So there’s a lot of great opportunities for the sponsors to come in and connect with tomorrow’s business leaders and young, driven passionate business students. So it’s a fantastic opportunity to for all these sponsors to meet, greet, recruit and get their brand out there.”

As vice-president of events, Martell’s job is to ensure all venues for the competition are booked and ready to go come next January.

She says her role also entails showing visitors from out of province what Saskatchewan, Saskatoon and the U of S have to offer including the province, city and university’s unique Aboriginal heritage.

“Just welcoming them to Saskatchewan as a whole. Lots of people have never been here and they don’t necessarily know what the U of S has to offer necessarily. So I think just showing them our passion as students and definitely welcoming them with open hands.”

Although helping to organize JDC West will require literally hundreds of volunteer hours between now and next January, both Lendsay and Martell say they have no hesitations about making the commitment because of the tremendous opportunities the competition provides.

The first JDC West Competition was held at the University of British Columbia in 2006.

Over roughly the past 10 years, the competition has raised about $1.2 million for charities.

The theme of the 2016 JDC West Competition is “Achieving Excellence” with the three basic pillars being connections, prosperity and technology.

The competition is expected to bring in about $1.5 million in direct and indirect economic impact benefits to both the province and Saskatoon.

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