News

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.

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.

NERv Technology, a Kitchener-Waterloo-based startup offering a sensory platform designed for the healthtech sector, has closed a $3.32 million CAD ($2.65 million USD) seed round of funding.

The seed round was led by returning investor SOSV, with participation from Graphene Ventures, OneValley, Northspring Capital Partners, Boutique Venture Partners, and Threshold Impact. A number of additional undisclosed strategic investors, angels, and physicians also invested in the round.

For graduating master’s students, convocation is an important recognition of their hard work and dedication. Some will move on to professional roles, while others plan to continue the research that has captured their imagination.

As they celebrate their accomplishments with their families and supporters, Waterloo recognizes the commitment and success of our master’s students, including these six graduands.

The Hult Prize @ Waterloo competition energizes and activates socially-conscious entrepreneurs at Waterloo and beyond, and this year will no doubt be one of the most exciting yet! Food is a universal need and source of comfort. The theme for this year’s Hult Prize challenge, dubbed “The Nobel Prize for Students”, is Food for Good. The mission? To create jobs, stimulate economies, reimagining supply chains, and improving outcomes of 10 million people by 2030.

Ten student venture teams will have the opportunity to win one of four $5,000 grants at the Concept $5K finals today. Six out of ten ventures have founders that are current or former students of the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business.

Rachel Bartholomew (MBET '14) took home $25,000 for her startup, HyIvy Health, at Communitech's Fierce Founders Finale, last week. HyIvy is making a difference in sexual rehabilitation for women with pelvic diseases and cancers. The suite of sexual rehabilitation products that HyIvy Health helps women's sexual recovery after diagnosis, treatment and/or surgery.

NERv Technology emerged victorious through three days of pitching against a group of 100 finalists at the Entrepreneurship World Cup Global Finals.

NERv Technology is an innovative monitoring system for post-operative patients that strives to ensure that no patient loses their life because of an undetected post-operative complication, received a US$500,000 cash prize and a “Shenzen Prize” package to help the company expand into China and in-kind support and services from a collection of EWC partners.