Canada’s Launchpad for Future Innovators
For over 45 years, Shad has empowered high school students to stretch their potential and step into Canada’s future.
Founded in 1981, Shad has grown into the nation’s longest-running STEAM + entrepreneurship program, delivered in partnership with now more than 35 leading post-secondary institutions across the country. Along the way, over 25,000 alumni have carried Shad’s spirit of creativity, resilience, and leadership into science, technology, business, and community life.
What begins as one immersive summer month becomes a lifelong network and a call to impact, igniting youth potential and creating lasting impact for Canada and the world.
Shad prepares innovators ready to take on the world.
Shad provides transformational summer programs that equip high school students with the skills, mindset, and confidence to lead in a rapidly changing world.
Through immersive, hands-on experiences, students engage with real-world challenges in areas like artificial intelligence, energy, and food security. Combining STEAM-based learning with a deep focus on resilience, creativity, and entrepreneurship, Shad empowers young people to think boldly, take risks, and turn their ideas into action—preparing them not just for the future of work, but for the future of leadership.
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Why Shad?
Our Generous Supporters
Community Partners
We know diversity matters. That’s why we create purposeful community at Shad.
At Shad students collaborate and build meaningful relationships outside of their hometown. Each campus, and each design team, has a mix of rural and urban participants from diverse economic backgrounds. Students learn the value of their own perspective and the differing perspectives of those around them.
Community goes beyond diversity and requires inclusivity. We are purposeful about reaching students in Black, Indigenous and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities and students with disabilities that are traditionally underrepresented. We make sure there are multiple perspectives and diverse strengths in a learning environment like no other.
Partnership with Pathways to Education and Black Boys Code and connections with regional school boards, educators, guidance counsellors, community and social change organizations and STEM organizations help us recruit students from all parts of Canada.
Shad alumni across North America, and around the world, are leading businesses, making discoveries, innovating and using STEAM as a force for good.
Meet some of the alumni in our Network who are making a difference.
Opportunities to grow
“I chose Shad because I was looking for opportunities to grow beyond just what we were learning at high school or in my own home community…I saw Shad as the most significant and exciting opportunity I could have to explore what was out there.”
– Taylor Quinn, Shad Alumni, British Columbia
