Toshiba to Support SkillFridge Competition

​Raising standards, rewarding excellence and encouraging more young engineers into the air conditioning, refrigeration and heat pump industry are perennial objectives.

​ The national SkillFRIDGE competition aims to achieve all those goals and it now has a main sponsor, thanks to Toshiba Air Conditioning. 

​Director and general manager of Toshiba Air Conditioning and CIAT Ozonair said:

​“SkillFRIDGE is a fantastic initiative that incentivises and rewards aspiring apprentices and trainees – the industry’s standard bearers and potential leaders of tomorrow – in pursuit of excellence. We are delighted to be involved and will be giving the events across this year and next our wholehearted support.”

​The competition consists of regional heats, the winners of which go forward to the finals at The Skills Show held at the NEC, Birmingham between 17th and 19th November. The SkillFRIDGE entrants take part in the Engineering and Technology section of the show. The winners at The Skills Show go forward to represent the UK at the international WorldSkills championships.

​Chris Bailie, from BL Refrigeration and Air Conditioning in Belfast, won a silver medal at the 2015 WorldSkills competition in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

​David Dunn said:

​“A key part of our role is to support and encourage the industry to improve the level of technical knowledge and skills. We as a company are committed to this cause, and have invested in a national network of air conditioning training centres to provide high quality technical and hands-on training for customers.”

​He added:

​“It is obviously in everyone’s interests to raise the bar, from the quality of design and installation through to commissioning and ongoing servicing throughout the equipment life-cycle.”