News

The Conrad School is excited to share our students' successes in the fall 2022 term.

All four winning teams in the Velocity $5K pitch competition this term included student co-founders from the Conrad School. We are proud to celebrate with our undergraduate students who have either completed an Enterprise Co-op (E Co-op) term or the Bridging Entrepreneurs to Students (BETS) co-op program.

Among the finalists was also Penspyre, co-founded by former BETS student Roman Semin. Penspyre provides contextualized writing prompts that enable a book author to finish the first draft faster without writer’s block.

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 Ph.D. 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. 

This fall term, Enterprise Co-op students submitted five-minute video pitches for prizes of $5,000 at the Ignition Week pitch competition. Each student's video pitch was evaluated by a panel of judges. Meet the fall 2022 pitch winners!

The Overbeeke Family Award is awarded based on the development of an outstanding presentation, business model and plan review, clarity of business description and preparedness to lead a venture or social enterprise.

Out of a total of 72 applications received at the Fall 2022 Velocity $5K competition, 23 student ventures were selected as semifinalists, then eight teams pitched during this week's finals.

The finals included five team members who are or were Conrad School students from both the Enterprise Co-op (E Co-op) or Bridging Entrepreneurs to Students (BETS) programs. Four of these student teams brought home $5,000 each at the end of the afternoon.

Last month, the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business celebrated its 20-year anniversary.

In 2002, we opened our doors to welcome the first cohort of the Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) program, with a mission to expand on Waterloo’s culture of entrepreneurship.

Two decades later, our ­­graduates have launched successful start-ups and innovated in companies globally. They’ve raised millions in series funding, taking top prizes in national and international pitch competitions, and ranked among the best and brightest of the world’s talent.

She's a star performer, known for her vocal skills and stage presence. Now this Ghanaian celebrity has walked a different kind of stage in Waterloo, after graduating with a master’s degree.

The artist known as “Yaa Yaa” won the reality singing show, “Stars of the Future,” in Ghana in 2009 under her legal name Bertha. The show is similar to American or Canadian Idol and is very popular in West Africa.

A new study reveals that inexperienced entrepreneurial women in Canada still see more success when partnering with experienced men than when partnering with experienced women or going it alone.

That is the key finding from research coming out of the University of Waterloo and Statistics Canada based on an analysis of 183,358 unique Canadian business ventures from 2006 to 2017 and the impact of co-ownership by women and men.

A recent Waterloo Engineering graduate is now a local politician after winning a council seat for the City of Kitchener.

Ayo Owodunni, who graduated from the Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology program in 2021, topped a field of five candidates Monday to become the councillor for ward five on the 11-member council.

A senior manager at Black Professionals in Tech, Owodunni has been involved with numerous community organizations since coming to Canada several years ago.

Growing the material for a construction project might soon become a reality thanks to a student team at the University of Waterloo that has been working to create bricks out of bacteria.

Created by two University of Waterloo students, Microbuild Masonry is looking to change the construction industry using its eco-friendly bricks.

"The current process of making bricks releases so much harmful particulates and chemicals like carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide, which not only harms the workers but other people as it's exposed in the air."

After 41 years of exemplary service to the University of Waterloo, Howard Armitage, the founding director of the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business (previously known as the Centre for Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology or CBET), retired on July 1^st, 2022.

Howard’s University of Waterloo journey began in 1981 when he was appointed as an Associate Professor in the School of Accounting and Finance. He was later appointed as the Director of Waterloo’s School of Accounting and Finance in 1996.