Check out our new courses for Winter 2025:
Posters and details here.
United College GreenHouse is excited and proud to be hosting the 32nd Social Impact Showcase. Join us in celebrating youth-led social innovation, entrepreneurship and impact on Wednesday, November 20th | 4:00-5:30 pm at United College (Alumni Hall). The Showcase creates a unique and valuable opportunity for our students to connect with community members who may support them on their journey in refining their ideas.
We hope to see you there. Please register for this event here. Kindly forward this invite to those in your network.
TAWAW is a design-research firm dedicated to advancing Indigenous architecture. Our current research centres on the meaning found in original structures – the tipi, hogan, longhouse or wigwam - which we have come to understand as a microcosm of a larger world. Each project we undertake, offers behavioural, social and ideological meanings, that we integrate into contemporary form. Our work is not about replicating traditional designs but about understanding the meanings they hold, to bring meanings forward, making culture visible, but also stable. Join us as we explore the work of encoding and decoding Indigenous environments.
Vinton G. Cerf, Internet pioneer and Vice President and "Chief Internet Evangelist" at Google, will speak about the history of the Internet, beginning with the Arpanet, then move along the terrestrial Internet trajectory. He will then present emerging policy and technical challenges and, finally, discuss the interplanetary Internet project.
His lecture is free, open to everyone, and takes place on Tuesday, June 11 at 2:30 p.m. in the University of Waterloo's Humanities Theatre.
Event info: https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/events/distinguished-public-lecture-vint-cerf-internet-past-present-future
Registration (free but required): https://www.ticketfi.com/event/5709/distinguished-public-lecture-internet-past-present-and-future
Join us to explore the impact of the Voluntary Code of Conduct on the Responsible Development and Management of Advanced Generative AI Systems. The code, introduced by the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Industry, aims to foster public trust in AI technologies, intending to accelerate adoption. This engaging panel discussion featuring education leaders, computer science researchers and industry experts will explore the broader implications of accelerating AI adoption beyond economic impacts. Speakers will share insights hopes and concerns about the potential societal changes, ethical considerations and regulatory challenges that come with AI.
Admission free. Register at the Critical Media Lab website.
The documentary Chasing Time will be screened with a following panel discussion, Friday in the E7 event space (2nd floor). The documentary is the visually stunning culmination of the Extreme Ice Survey project: an unprecedented 15-year photographic record of the melting glaciers around the world.
Admission is free. RSVP at the event site.
This event is part of the visit of David and Linda Cornfield to the Systems Design Engineering department. David Cornfield is a Waterloo Engineering graduate ('85), who went on to a successful career with Microsoft. David and Linda Cornfield turned their attention to philanthropy and environmentalism, choosing to support projects that will have great social and environmental impact.
Chatting Time is a follow-up to the documentary Chasing Ice (2012).
The students we support in our Social Innovators in Training program are building prototypes and are starting down the path of putting together their pitches for the social impact fund.
This Wednesday, we are hosting Demo Day in our GreenHouse space and it is open to all members of the community. Students will be showcasing their prototypes and would welcome members of the community to join them as they continue to test and iterate on their ideas.
All are welcome and you may drop-in as your schedule permits.
Join the Critical Tech Talk series to hear guest speaker Kari Zacharias discuss how engineers can work towards responsibility, sustainability, and equity in design by practicing humility as respect of other ways of knowing, doing, being, and making.
Join us for an urgent discussion on "surveillance capitalism", its threat to our information civilization, and how its trajectory undermines democratic norms and the centuries-long evolution of market capitalism.
Biotechnology and society affect each other in ways that increase in number and significance each year. The purpose of this course is to understand the developing relationship between biotechnology and society. A variety of areas are examined, including agriculture, human fertility, eugenics, medicine, social policy, crime, security, and so on. Our concern is with how biotechnology is (or will be) making the world better or worse, and for whom. Some emphasis is placed on materials pertinent to Canada.
Instructor: Cameron Shelley