Premier's Award Nominees
Premier's Award Nominees 2024
Bhawana Subedi, Recent Graduate
Bhawana Subedi epitomizes the Colleges Ontario success story – and especially that of international students. After graduating from Computer Engineering in her home country of Nepal, Bhawana realized that she wanted to work with people, not code. She found the digital marketing program she needed in Ontario to specialize in ecommerce. During COVID, she helped 17 small companies pivot to ecommerce, saving their businesses. Today, she is the Ecommerce and Marketing Manager for TDS, an international IT supply company based in Kingston, Ont. Bhawana’s promising future includes her own ecommerce business to bring traditional Nepali food to Canada.
Ferg Devins, Community Service
Although Ferg Devins built his career with Molson Coors, community service is his raison d’être. As Chair of Bladder Cancer Canada, he helped raise money and awareness, taking both to all-time highs. Ferg’s The Devins Network coordinated the successful Hockey Canada’s “Heroes of Play”. He sat on various boards including Tourism Toronto, co-founded the Coney Island (Maybe Annual) Music Festival, and won the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his role on the True Patriot Love committee. Today, Ferg is Special Advisor to the Ontario Minister of Indigenous Affairs and First Nations Economic Reconciliation and Minister of Northern Development.
Neil Harris, Science, Technology and Engineering
Neil Harris is a First Officer with Westjet, flying the Boeing 787 all over the world from his home base of Calgary International Airport. But his passion is competition aerobatics. Neil compares aerobatics to figure skating, carving air instead of ice and earning marks based on technical ability. He is a two-time Canadian aerobatics champion and last year placed the highest in his plane class at the 2023 FAI World Advanced Aerobatic Championships (21st overall). Neil is also a tremendous ambassador of the sport and aviation in general, promoting aerobatics, aviation, and college aviation programs to future pilots and enthusiasts.
Wade Durham, Health Sciences
Wade Durham’s meteoric rise through Ornge, Ontario’s air ambulance service, is second only to what he accomplished along the way. Wade was promoted to COO just 16 years after graduating from his college program and became Deputy CEO in 2023. He guided the organization through difficult times, streamlining services and helping regain public trust. During COVID, Wade played a key role in Operation Remote Immunity, working out the logistics to bring 29,000 vaccinations to 31 remote fly-in First Nations across Northern Ontario, for which he received official recognitions. Wade is renowned within Ornge as a hands-on, visionary leader.