Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Waterloo in NYC for HeForShe IMPACT Summit

President Feridun Hamdullahpur is in New York today for the 2018 HeForShe IMPACT Summit. The president will be taking part in the Summit in meeting and panel events, including the Spotlight Conversation on HeForShe Emerging Solutions panel discussion.

At the Summit, the UN will be convening world leaders, global CEOs, university presidents and public-sector leaders to share groundbreaking practices and concrete solutions towards the achievement of gender equality. 

The HeForShe Summit is being livestreamed.

President Hamdullahpur will join Global Managing Partner, McKinsey & Company Kevin Sneader, Chairman and CEO of Danone Emmanuel Faber, CEO of DeBeers Bruce Clever, Sciences Po President Frédéric Mion and panel moderator Anne Hathaway, in her role as UN Women Global Goodwill Ambassador, in a panel discussion entitled HeForShe Emerging Solutions at 10:20 a.m.

The Summit will also see the launch of the 2018 Emerging Solutions report, which features close to 100 emerging solutions for gender equality that are tied to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

The IMPACT 10x10x10 champions, drawn from post-secondary institutions, governments, and business, will be deliver updates that track the progress on the HeForShe commitments that are set to conclude in 2020.

The University of Waterloo made three commitments when it joined HeForShe:

• Increasing the number of girls and women in STEM outreach experiences and and activities to 33 percent by 2020 (Waterloo is at 32 percent as of 2017);
• Enhancing female faculty representation to 30 percent by 2020 (Waterloo was at 30.1 percent as of 2017); and
• Committing to advancing female leaders into senior academic and administrative university positions to 29 percent by 2020 (Waterloo exceeded this goal and is at 32 percent as of 2017).

Shining a spotlight on GreenHouse co-op

Last month, the most recent batch of GreenHouse co-op students wrapped up their first work terms and joined the ranks of almost 100 first work term students from across all six faculties whose co-op journey started with GreenHouse Co-op.

Referred to as “Social Entrepreneurs-in-Training,” participating first work term students undergo a week of career and skill development workshops before being paired up for three four-week placements, each with a different social purpose employer.

For GreenHouse co-op employers, these short-term placements mean cost-effective solutions that help drive their social projects forward, bit by bit. Though they might not have the capacity to employ a co-op student for a traditional 16-week work term, GreenHouse employers get four weeks of hard work from students who are eager, adaptable and ready to make a change.

Take Francis Coral Mellon, Waterloo alumnus and CEO of the tech startup Uprise. With Uprise, Coral Mellon aims to help others by revolutionizing the way video campaigns are created and spread. By tapping into artificial intelligence and what he calls “the science of going viral,” Coral Mellon believes he can encourage authentic storytelling and enable human potential on a mass scale.

“Originally, I wanted to use technology to make money that would then be used to help others. Now the aim is to do good with the technology by offering it to charities and social entrepreneurs for free,” he says. “The fact that the GreenHouse program focuses on social entrepreneurship completely aligns with me and what I want to do with my startup,” says Coral Mellon.  

To date, Coral Mellon has hired fourteen GreenHouse co-op students, including Olivia Muysson, an Environment, Resources and Sustainability student.

At Uprise, Muysson helped create a presentation to be used in pitch competitions. At her other two placements, she assisted with trade show planning, worked on business plans and helped an entrepreneur prepare for a Dragon’s Den audition. She appreciated being exposed to “the business side of things” and seeing how her skills could be applied across multiple sectors.

“It put me out of my comfort zone, which was good. I walked away from each placement with a new skill or better developed ones,” she says. Among those skills she counts juggling competing priorities, interacting with a variety of stakeholders and learning to adapt to constant change.

With each placement, GreenHouse co-op students like Muysson test-drive new environments, further develop their skills and offer fresh perspectives to employers like Coral Mellon who need short-term, cost-effective talent.

“I’ve had incredible results. It’s a win-win situation,” he says. “I wish I could have more time with each student, but I understand how valuable it is for them to go through three companies. I’m happy to contribute to their journey.”

The GreenHouse co-op program was founded as a pilot led by St. Paul’s GreenHouse, Canada’s first and only live-in campus-linked social innovation and entrepreneurship accelerator and the Waterloo Centre for the Advancement of Co-operative Education (WatCACE).

Thank you for welcoming new students

A note from Waterloo Orientation.

Today President Hamdullahpur thanked the campus community for helping to welcome our new students this fall.

More than 500 staff and faculty members, along with 1,100 student leaders, helped to make Orientation a success over the Labour Day weekend, throughout the week-long event, and during preparations over the summer. Many staff and faculty participated by wearing Here to Help buttons, volunteering at Canada House welcome centres during move-in days, with Warrior Welcome, or at other Orientation-related activities.

First-Year Orientation helps prepare all incoming first-year students with faculty-customized programming and campus-wide events to bring new students together. Approximately 87 percent of incoming first-year students, or 6,355 students, participated in 7 days of First-Year Orientation, which included more than 90 events.

Leading up to First-Year Orientation there was special Orientation programing offered for specific student audiences including Graduate Student Orientation, International Orientation, Transfer and Exchange Orientation and an Out-of-Province/American program.

2018 Orientation snapshot:

• International Orientation had 631 students participate in 3 days of programming
• Out-of-Province/American student program had 233 students attend
• Transfer and Exchange Orientation had 256 students participate
• Graduate Orientation, a conference-style event with 18 different sessions, had 863 students attend
• Over three days, there were five events for 600+ parents and family members including international-specific events.

“I want to personally thank you for supporting our incoming students as they begin their journey at the University of Waterloo,” said President Hamdullahpur in an email to staff and faculty today. “Whether you volunteered at a family welcome event, wore a Here to Help button, participated in an Orientation event, or simply offered a friendly smile and directions around campus to a new student - your efforts are appreciated.”

Watch this 60 second video for some quick feedback from first year students during Orientation and the first day of classes.

Go Abroad Fair and other notes

No matter where you go, there you are: Learn how undergraduate and graduate students can add international experience to their education on and off campus at the Go Abroad Fair from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m in the Davis Centre today. At the fair you can:

• Talk to current exchange students about their home country and institution
• Hear first-hand accounts from Waterloo students who have studied abroad or gone on an exchange
• Find out more about the Global Experience Certificate
• Talk to Student Success Office, Cooperative Education, faculty and department representatives about opportunities abroad

Employers on campus next week hosting employer information sessions include HubSpot, Credit Karma, Arista Networks, Fidelity Investments, Morneau Shepell, Lifion by ADP, Citadel and Citadel Securities, Great-West Life, Rubikloud Technologies Inc., Ceridian, Konrad Group, Embark Trucks Inc, Scotiabank, Communications Security Establishment, Qualcomm Canada, Protiviti, A9.com, DHL Supply Chain, Milliman, Yelp, Labatt, ConsenSys, Quantstamp. Visit the employer information sessions calendar for more details.