News

Adedayo Adefarakan already had a successful ice production company back home in Nigeria before he came to the Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) program. You can find his ice products - like dry ice, packaged ice tubes and ice blocks - in commercial locations all over the federal capital territory.  

Having nailed the domestic space, Adedayo wanted to scale his operation internationally but also wanted to explore more education before scaling his operation internationally. He looked at the Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology program.

February marks the start of Black History Month. It’s a time to highlight Black Excellence, which is a term used to describe the individual achievements and successes, contributions and perseverance of the Black community.

Here at the Conrad school, we have many examples of Black Excellence to celebrate. We have combed through our archives to highlight some of the recent achievements from Black alumni, graduate and undergraduate students.

1Mentor’s recent acquisition by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the world’s largest global higher education network, underscores the urgent need for their platform and the data it provides higher education institutions.

Their artificial intelligence (AI) enabledtechnology sifts through employers’ job postings to provide insights into employers' needs and identify skills required for success. It also equips higher education institutions with the information they need to adjust programming to address the skills gap.

1Mentor co-founder Esteban Veintimilla's entrepreneurial journey started at the Conrad School. Tapping into the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Waterloo helped launch 1Mentor towards success.

This past September, the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business welcomed a new set of University of Waterloo PhD students to the Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) classroom through the highly successful 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. 

When she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2019, Rachel Bartholemew (MBET '14) learned the surgery and radiation would affect her pelvic health for the rest of her life. She began researching rehabilitation options and discovered women were still using devices known as dilators, which were invented in 1938. So, she founded Hyivy Health, a startup that is developing a rehabilitation system to help women recover from everything from cervical cancer and gender-affirming surgery to childbirth.

Kelly Zheng has a lot on her plate. She’s a doctoral student building a startup while also working towards a graduate business degree. The Entrepreneurial PhD Fellowship has allowed Kelly to gain the business knowledge, skills and experience to commercialize her research. Using her PhD research in artificial intelligence, Kelly's venture, Coastal Carbon uses AI and machine learning technology to help create a sustainable future for our oceans.

Andrew Martinko (BASc ’15, MBET ’16) is the co-founder of Suncayr and its hero product, SpotMyUV, a UV detection sticker that tells you when to reapply sunscreen. It works by placing a small, round sticker on your skin that’s purple when it goes on and turns clear when you apply sunscreen, absorbing the product just as your skin does. When the sticker turns purple again, it’s time to reapply.

Tapping into the entrepreneurial ecosystem at the University of Waterloo, Martinko and his engineering Capstone team leveraged the entrepreneurial opportunities available to them at UWaterloo to turn an idea into a viable product.

Sushan Shetty (MBET ' 22) works for Mastercard as an Associate Managing Consultant. He takes customer data and creates personalized, real-time communications for his clients. These new tactics reshape marketing techniques that have been used by credit card companies for decades. Read on to learn about how entrepreneurship becomes intrepreneurship. This different take on innovation within a company is exactly what Shetty is doing in his current role. Learn about how his experience in the MBET program has allowed him to stand out.

Despite the challenges faced in 2021, students, staff and alumni at the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business continued to demonstrate resilience and accomplished many achievements. Here are a few highlights from the past year.

A startup founded by second-year Waterloo Engineering students just five years ago would have a market capitalization of US $5.16 billion under a proposed merger to make it a publicly traded company.

Embark Trucks, which is based in San Francisco, was launched by former mechatronics engineering students Alex Rodrigues and Brandon Moak to bring autonomous technology to the trucking industry.