Here at West Lothian Chamber there is a focus on building strong business links within education by encouraging schools to be more pro-active in their approach to business. This is led through various employability projects in West Lothian such as DYW- West Lothian, Erasmus + programme and local business competitions like the Chamber’s collaboration with Mitsubishi Electric for the Pump It Up Challenge.
Pump It Up now in its third year, aims to further integrate industry and schools to support young people in developing skills beneficial to their future career choice. After a hugely successful pilot competition with Armadale Academy back in 2014 who have been encouraging a collaboration like this in schools, Armadale has continued to be a leader in creating business links within schools. Armadale Primary have recently won the National Social Enterprise Academy Award for their entrepreneurial skills. The school has set up an international exhibition to learn about different countries and their languages alongside a social enterprise consisting of a café and shop which they hope will help raise awareness around mental health while Armadale Academy continue to be involved in the Pump It up Challenge . Now the joint venture between Mitsubishi Electric and the West Lothian Chamber of Commerce has extended to 11 schools across the area.
This year more than 1600 pupils from the schools competed for a spot in the final of ‘Pump It Up’ held at Howden Park Centre in Livingston. Each team was tasked with creating a future use idea for an energy efficient heat pump design primarily used for domestic heating and hot water.
After a series of preliminary rounds, the competition was whittled down to a final, featuring one team from each school, with Bathgate Academy emerging as the overall winners. A team from Linlithgow Academy were runners-up with Inveralmond Community High School finishing third.
Bathgate Academy focused their design on recycling hot air from a gymnasium that could transfer the energy to heat a swimming pool. The team concluded that sports activities held in a gym created the right environment to capture heat and transfer this energy in an efficient way to heat the pool. The judges were further impressed by the team’s detailed research on their heat pump application and importantly, to ensure that re-useable was an integral part of their design.
At the final pupils pitched their heat pump ideas to a special panel of judges, including Mr Daisuke Matsunaga, Consul General of Japan in Edinburgh and Mr Yoshihiro Sumida, President of Mitsubishi Electric Air Conditioning Systems Europe and other senior representatives from the public and private sector, who collectively decided on the overall winner of the competition.
Mr Yoshiro Sumida, President and CEO of Mitsubishi Electric air conditioning systems Europe Ltd commented that, “The team work, learning and skills needed to decide on the future use of an air source heat pump will support the young people in their future move into the world of work and a design and development engineer was extremely impressed with the ideas generated by all the schools.”
Linda Scott, Chief Executive of West Lothian Chamber of Commerce, commented;“The aim of ‘Pump It Up’ is to support young people in creating skills required for their future development. There are innumerable benefits for a young person taking part in an industry-led competition like this one. These are derived from the experience of team-work, leadership, planning and strategy skills – all the ingredients they will need to take forward into the work place.”
West Lothian Chamber of Commerce wants to continue to play a pivotal role in supporting the future employment for young people through partnerships with business and education across the region.
