A modernist campus, a top Canadian apprentice, history-making hockey, and more

Catch up quarterly with NAIT’s online magazine

Throughout the year, techlifetoday shares well over 100 stories highlighting student and alumni success, innovative research, and other NAIT news. Each season, we collect the best so you never miss out.

Welcome to Volume 1, Issue 4 of the techlifetoday Anthology. You’ll find stories about an apprentice training for the world’s top skills competition, what made the original NAIT campus a marvel of modernist architecture in Edmonton, how the women’s Ooks hockey team is making history, and much more.

It’s just a sampling of the way NAIT students and staff make a difference with their passions and skills, be it past or present. For more, sign up for our monthly newsletter. Thanks for reading!

A modern marvel, circa 1963

When NAIT officially opened in the early 1960s, it helped usher in a design movement that would contribute to the city’s defining architectural aesthetic. "Modernism," with its clean lines and walls of glass, was a hallmark of some of North America’s fastest developing cities – and Main Campus was one of the finest examples in the capital.

Training for the “Olympics” of the skilled trades

Anika Jones is part of a family of car fanatics; she’s the first of them, however, to make her career in the field, as an auto body apprentice. Her passion has taken her beyond trailblazing. In September, Jones will represent Canada in Shanghai, China in the car painting category at WorldSkills, the world’s top international skills competition. Here’s what that takes.

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The “temporary” 50-year-old campus

In a 1976 issue of the Nugget student newspaper, then-NAIT president G.W. Carter mentioned Patricia Campus in passing as a “satellite” campus. It had been recently opened to host select trades until expansions happened at Main Campus. Fifty years and tens of thousands of apprentices later, here’s a look at how Patricia Campus grew too important to be temporary.

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Women’s Ooks hockey history in the making

While the men’s Ooks hockey team could once vie for a spot in a national tournament (which they often won), women were never given the same chance – until now. Here’s how the team may be on track to establishing a Canadian collegiate championship of their own.

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Paris-bound bakers

Can a group of Canadian bakers show France how to bake a baguette? This month – for the first time ever – they’ll get a chance to try at the 2026 Coupe de Monde de la Boulangerie following a successful qualifying event last September. Here’s how the team, which includes one NAIT grad and is coached by another, could rise above the world’s best bakers.

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Them’s the brakes

As part of a class project before finishing at NAIT, double grad Nubal Minhas started work on an innovation to make rolling walkers safer for those with mobility issues. Now, as a staff member, he’s been given the chance to continue to develop his automated braking system. Here’s how he’s combining sensors and electronics with the help of a national funding program.