Sinequa Sponsors World-First Female Sit-Ski Antarctic Expedition

Paris, France – New York, USA – June 28 2022 – Leading enterprise search provider Sinequa today proudly announces its sponsorship of The Pole of Possibility, a world-first journey across Antarctica in which Paralympic gold medallist and speaker Karen Darke will sit-ski to the South Pole.

Karen will be accompanied by adventurer Iona Somerville, a survivor of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing and recent graduate of the Polar Academy which is an organisation that supports teenagers and gives them an opportunity to redefine their physical and mental limits.

The sponsorship aligns with Sinequa’s core values of innovation, excellence, integrity, and teamwork. The Pole of Possibility focuses on how to discover your inner gold — a message that resonates with Sinequa’s goals of empowering employees and enabling customers to discover and unleash the value of their data, insights, and institutional knowledge.

Scheduled for December 2022, the expedition will begin in Antarctica at the 79th meridian west at Union Glacier Camp. The team will ski across the Antarctic plateau, traveling around 220 km along the 79th meridian to the South Pole. This meridian has been chosen in particular as 79 is the atomic number of gold, bearing reference to Karen’s connection to gold as a geologist, Paralympic athlete, and her goal to help people find inner gold through the Quest79 Project.

A journey of firsts

Karen Darke, with the support of Iona Summerville, will attempt to be the first female to sit-ski to the South Pole, as well as establishing the World Record for the furthest distance ever taken to the Pole by sit-ski.

The adventurers will be joined by film-maker Mike Webster of Spiral Out Pictures and Professor Mike Christie of Aberystwyth University, who will conduct scientific research on how polar regions affect people’s lives, and how climate change and the melting of icecaps impact people around the world. The expedition will, for the first time, collect ice samples along the last two degrees of Antarctica, which will then be analysed by scientists at Aberystwyth University for their microbial content. This mapping exercise will increase understanding of the microbes found in polar regions.

Karen’s life is committed to exploring what is possible when the right mindsets and good people come together. An adventurer, athlete, speaker, coach and author, a life-changing accident led Karen to paralysis from the chest-down. She found new ways to access the wilderness and has since hand-cycled widely, sit-skied across the Greenland icecap and climbed El Capitan. A decade of Paralympic handcycling led Karen to a gold medal in the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

Karen Darke explained: “The expedition is about so much more than just breaking records. It’s about inspiring through exploration a reminder of what is possible when we seek the growth in difficult challenges and keep ourselves and our planet in a state of health and wellness. I’m incredibly grateful for Sinequa’s sponsorship and support and look forward to this challenge.”

Mark Williams, CFO at Sinequa commented: “We are proud to be sponsoring Karen’s voyage for the Pole of Possibility, as it resonates closely to our core values at Sinequa. Like Karen, we are continuously challenging ourselves to become better, and we are always looking to enable businesses to find their own inner gold. Karen’s mission is to create an inspirational legacy, to inspire others to find opportunity in adversity, and to learn that through the toughest events of life surprising things become possible.”

To donate to the Pole of Possibility project, visit the Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign athttps://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-pole-of-possibility–2#/

For more information about the project, visit https://www.karendarke.com/the-pole-of-possibility/

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