Meet the 7 recipients of the first Entrepreneurial PhD Fellowship

Chao Yu (third from left) is an Entrepreneurial PhD Fellowship recipient, slated to graduate from the MBET program in 2025. He co-founded LoopX Innovation Inc., who recently won the OVIN and Rogers 5G Transportation Challenge Fund.

This fall, the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business welcomed seven University of Waterloo PhD students to the Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) classroom through the inaugural Entrepreneurial PhD Fellowship program.

The fellowships were awarded to support outstanding, business-minded Waterloo doctoral students who are interested in commercializing their research. The following recipients will complete the three-year part-time program alongside their regular doctoral studies, tuition-free. 

Venture Name, Idea or Focus?

Social and health service delivery innovation, performance, and economic sustainability.

Why MBET?

My interest in the Entrepreneurial PhD Fellowship stems from a desire, within the construct of socially responsible business models, to be well prepared to translate research and my knowledge of the health sector into novel implementable solutions in our technology-enabled world. The health sector has lagged considerably in taking up technological interventions to enhance service delivery, and I believe the knowledge and network I am developing within the multidisciplinary fellowship cohort is equipping me to contribute to our health system at this critical time.

Venture Name, Idea or Focus?

Developing personalized medicine using induced pluripotent stem cells.

Why MBET?

I chose the MBET program because I felt it would teach me the business management and entrepreneurial skills I need to successfully bring my ideas to market.

Venture Name, Idea or Focus?

Develop wearable ultrasound technology for cardiovascular health monitoring.

Why MBET?

I have been considering starting a venture for most of my PhD but having no background in business made it hard to know where to begin. The MBET program was extremely appealing due to its focus on entrepreneurship instead of more established businesses like an MBA. The opportunity to pursue the MBET degree at the same time as my PhD was the perfect fit for me and will allow me to hit the ground running when I graduate.

Venture Name, Idea or Focus?

Development of a toolkit to address water quality concerns in coastal fishing communities.

Why MBET?

De-routing from engineering to environmental science, I want to bring creative ideas to explore and resolve water quality problems in the coastal context. People all across the world are developing and implementing creative, practical, and sustainable solutions to some of the most serious social and environmental concerns.

I applied for this Entrepreneurial PhD Fellowship to learn the current market, techniques, and tactics for developing a beneficial social entrepreneurship as part of my doctoral research. I want to focus on a non-profit sustainable social change instead of waiting for big businesses or the government to act on policy changes that impact the viability of coastal fisheries.

Venture Name, Idea or Focus?

Daneshbaz: Open Research, Open Problem, Open Ideas.

Publishing a paper takes a long time, and it can be challenging to collaborate with someone you don't know. Researchers encounter these issues throughout their careers, but it is even more critical for those in their early stages and newcomers, like graduate students. Their network of collaborators is much smaller, and they lack the experience and publications to facilitate such collaborations. Moreover, since the status quo freezes papers after publication, they will no longer be subject to revision. In addition to supporting the current approach, Daneshbaz gives you a chance to improve it. It makes collaboration accessible, efficient, and easier between researchers, and introduces the concept of living papers as an alternative to the status-quo dead papers. Daneshbaz is a revolution in research.

Why MBET?

Having specialized in Deep Learning/Machine Learning for a long time, I never explored the business side of entrepreneurship. The MBET program will bring me a great opportunity to explore novel directions of entrepreneurship and business modelling with hands-on learning that has been outside of my technical area of expertise.

Venture Name, Idea or Focus?

LoopX Innovation Inc. is a Waterloo-based startup developing autonomous driving software and mobile robots with a mission to better the world through autonomy. LoopX has developed Canada’s first all-weather autonomous delivery robot named GoosEx™ that has been deployed at the University of Waterloo campus for take-out food delivery. LoopX is a recipient of Accelerator Centre: Venture Studio Fund, OVIN and Rogers 5G Transportation Challenge Fund, NSERC Lab2Market Fund, and UW Engineer of The Future Fund.

Why MBET?

With 2 years of entrepreneurial experience at LoopX, I have realized that systematically learning entrepreneurial business skills will help me bring LoopX to the next level. I believe this part-time MBET program is the best chance to enhance my entrepreneurial mindset with access to Conrad School’s faculty and Waterloo’s unrivalled entrepreneurial ecosystem.