Thursday, August 25, 2016

Report highlights the impact of generosity

By Ellen Perschbacher

It’s that time of year again: the 2015 - 2016 Report on Giving made its debut earlier this summer and is now available online

The report breaks down giving by the numbers:

• $26.4M from Waterloo students
• $4.1M from 5,025 alumni and honorary alumni
• $0.6M from 300 faculty, staff and retirees
• $26.6M from 433 organizations and foundations
• $2M from 2,437 parents and friends
• 39 bequest gifts

The story doesn’t stop there. Through a number of features documenting our more than 8,190 donors, this year’s report underlines the themes of community, generosity and interconnection while reporting on the transformative impact of our donors’ gifts.

Take the opportunity to read about the many ways in which philanthropy enriches our campus, from supporting student wellness to enhancing our facilities to providing funding for studies both at home and abroad.

More detail on each of the features in the Report on Giving are available online at https://uwaterloo.ca/report-on-giving/.

Startup makes a difference for bedridden patients

This article was originally published on the UWaterloo Life blog.

Pressure ulcers, better known as, bedsores, are the number one hospital-induced illness. The problem affects a quarter of all patients in North America, and contributes to nearly 60,000 deaths every year. Treating these ailments can get costly, too, bedsores have an average annual cost of approximately $40,000 per patient. That’s where Curiato comes in.

Curatio is composed of Zeid Etleb, a 4B Honours Science student, and two recent Honours Science graduates, Matthew Sefati and Moazam Khan. The three friends founded Curatio with the mission of enhancing people’s quality of life through innovative design solutions.

Their flagship product, Cloud9, was developed in the hopes of alleviating the impact of bedsores on the healthcare system, explains co-founder and CEO, Zeid.

Our goal is to provide an easy-to-use system that effectively prevents pressure injuries while keeping users comfortable, that’s why we named it Cloud9.

Cloud9 will be the first variable pressure redistribution mattress in the world. The design will help prevent bedsores through a mattress that could also communicate real-time patient data to health care providers, allowing doctors to remotely monitor the patient’s well-being.

Currently, Cloud9 is in the alpha testing stage for its prototype, but the team is working tirelessly to get their product to market. Despite their innovative idea,building and funding their solution was no easy task, says Matthew:

It’s easy to see the vision and possibilities from our end, but to have that vision shared with an investor is a totally different story. Keeping our research and development aligned with our budget (or lack of) requires us to be creative and find other alternatives when conducting research.

The team turned to St. Paul’s GreenHouse in an effort to help develop their business – a decision that ended up being a huge stepping stone for the startup. Matthew explained that without GreenHouse guidance, getting Curatio to its current stage would not have been possible.

Both the caliber of lessons taught and the support from the coordinators has really crafted Curiato into what it is today. Green House, has been a phenomenal experience.

As their last term in the GreenHouse is coming to an end, the team is getting ready to take Curiato to the next level. They’re actively establishing key partnerships with healthcare institutions, retirement homes, applied health faculty and manufacturers, as well as surveying patients and experts to improve their design.

The team has already secured expressions of interest for testing Cloud9 at both the Toronto Grace Hospital and at a Revera long-term care facility. They hope to have a prototype compression mattress ready for testing by March 2017.

To keep up with the day to day at Curiato, you can follow the team onTwitter, or check out their website.