Thursday, July 11, 2019

Faculty of Science remembers Allan Fleming

Science Computing is very sad to announce the passing of Allan Fleming, who died quietly in his sleep last Thursday night, July 4, a scant five months after his retirement this past February. Allan’s quiet, humble friendliness and love of laughter belied his status as a huge asset to the Faculty computing support and server management team.

He worked his magic on many machines, always focused on the positive and served as a great contributor to the morale of his unit as well as his clients’ service experience. We will miss him greatly.

Services will be held on Friday, July 12 at noon at Memory Gardens on Highway 7. More information is available on the Arbor Memorial website.

Introducing the 2019-2020 HeForShe Advocates

The 2019-2020 HeForShe Faculty Advocates have been named. The advocates are:

• Applied Health Sciences – James Wallace;
• Engineering – Chris Bachmann;
• Environment – Jennifer Dean;
• Arts – Reimer Faber;
• Science – Marcel Pinheiro;
• Math – Joel Dubin;
• St. Paul’s – Richard Myers;
• St. Jerome’s – David Seljak;
• Renison – Krisitna Llewellyn; and
• Conrad Grebel – Paul Heidebrecht.

The main role of the faculty advocate is to engage with students, faculty, staff and alumni regarding faculty-specific gender equity issues, work to address problematic areas, and foster a gender-equitable faculty and campus.

The focus is on faculty-specific issues and advocates will engage with their stakeholders to hear what issues emerge and need to be addressed. 

Advocates will facilitate initiatives, organize events, provide direction for student groups, and/or provide financial assistance for various initiatives linked to the goals of the HeForShe IMPACT 10x10x10 framework.

For more information on the HeForShe IMPACT 10X10X10 framework and the role of the Faculty Advocates, please visit the Waterloo HeForShe website.

Finding value in waste: $25,000 worth

Team members Sylvia Bogdanowicz, Amirah Mahomed, Cindy Le, Kristen Fajardo, and Laura Kraehling at the World Vision Social Innovation Challenge.

This article was originally published on the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business website.

How might we find value in waste? The World Vision Social Innovation Challenge had students focus on the waste problem in the Filipino Island of Iloilo. The Philippines is ranked as the third worst plastic polluter in the world. 

A team of Global Business and Digital Arts students developed Virtuous Waste, an alternative to plastic packaging made of seaweed that they pitched before a panel of industry experts and social entrepreneurs on June 19 in Toronto. Their winning solution will receive $25,000 in funding for implementation during a 12-month incubation period. Virtuous Waste was selected from over 60 different teams from across Canada who competed in the challenge.

The Virtuous Waste team, comprised of Sylvia Bogdanowicz, Amirah Mahomed, Cindy Le, Kristen Fajardo, and Laura Kraehling developed a proactive solution focused on eliminating plastic permanently but didn't force residents to change their habits. Their research indicated that residents buy single-use plastic sachets for their toiletries and due to lack of proper waste management infrastructure, throw their garbage into the nearby river. They landed on using seaweed in their solution as it is water-soluble, edible, grows abundantly in the Philippines, and has nutrients that restore biodiversity. Their solution has the potential to help the environment and the economy by partnering with local seaweed farmers.

"Being raised in a Filipino household, I have always heard about the struggles of growing up in a place where environmental issues are so visible. I'm happy and thankful to hopefully make a positive change in these affected communities, and one day, around the world," said Fajardo.

Knowing that it will take more than fancy packaging to solve this, "we also need a significant change in our culture around waste, and I believe that our team can make a positive difference in making that change." said Mahomed.

The Virtuous Waste team described how the Global Business and Digital Arts program supported them, and their excitement to partner with World Vision. "In our classes, we've all learned a lot about social change and how to design solutions with purpose... We're really happy to be working on a project with an organization that gives students like us a platform to share innovative ideas for social good. As GBDA students, we're fortunate enough to be exposed to such a wide array of skills. Our classes push us to learn about business, marketing, research, design and more. Especially our project classes like GBDA 302 - Global Media Project, force us to apply those skills in a real context and combine everything we learn to develop, strong creative solutions."

"I couldn't be any prouder of these five Global Business and Digital Arts students, they showed true grit over the last few months, worked tirelessly on this despite busy internships to get to the final pitch event in Toronto last night. An amazing project will now see the light of day. Congratulations Amirah, Cindy, Sylvia, Kris and Laura you made us all very proud," said Professor Karin Schmidlin, Lecturer, User Experience Research and Design at the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business.