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Submission guidelines
Provost provides update on storm closings in the age of lockdown
Jim Rush, vice-president, academic & provost has sent an update to campus on pandemic-related changes to the University's weather closing guidelines.
"In general, the plans in our current weather closing guidelines remain in place," the provost wrote in a memo circulated to employees last week. "Our guideline on weather closing incidents says:
“The University of Waterloo (and the Affiliated and Federated Institutions of Waterloo [AFIW]) will "close" because of severe weather when normal operation would pose a significant danger to students and employees, or would prevent large numbers of them from coming to campus or returning safely to their homes.”
"Though the pandemic conditions mean that the effects of a campus closure may be different this year, our decision-making has not changed. We will continue to assess whether the weather conditions make it safe to come to campus, move around and leave again."
Remote learning and working will continue during a severe weather campus closure
"Ordinarily, our decision to close a campus in the event of severe weather means that classes are not held, meetings are cancelled and so on. Recognizing that the pandemic means that the majority of our work and learning is now happening remotely, these activities will continue."
"To be clear: a campus closure for severe weather relates only to the physical location and does not mean that all University business is suspended for the day. Work that can be done remotely should continue."
Only essential personnel come to campus during severe weather closures
"If we do close a campus for severe weather, it means only people designated as essential for operations during a severe weather-related campus closure should come to campus."
"Essential roles during a severe weather closure are different than those identified as “essential” during the pandemic. You must check with your supervisor who will let you know whether you must attend the campus or not during a severe weather closure."
"The guidelines define essential services during a severe weather-related campus closure as:
- food service in the residences
- policing
- the central plant
- residence life staff
- health services
- snow removal
- emergency repair and maintenance, and
- animal care.
"During the pandemic, this list of essential services will also include custodial services to maintain our cleaning and sanitization of any areas that operate during the closure."
"As is normal in the event of a closure due to severe weather, department heads are responsible for assigning duties and making reasonable arrangements for the protection of such staff."
"I recognize that the pandemic means we may have circumstances where in-person activities may happen on campuses when the majority of others are working remotely," the provost's memo continues. "This could include classes or lab operations that cannot be delivered remotely. In the event of a weather-related closure these activities will be suspended until the next safe working day, as defined in the weather closure guideline."
"Decisions for campuses in Kitchener, Cambridge and Stratford will continue to be made in line with the current guideline and subject to the variations I have described above."
"As is normal, if we decide to close a campus in severe weather, we will communicate it online and on social media normally by 6 a.m."
If you have questions or concerns, please email coronavirus@uwaterloo.ca and the team in University Relations will ensure that your questions are addressed.
African capital for African innovation
By Natalie Quinlan. This article was originally published on Waterloo News.
Iyinoluwa “E” Aboyeji (BA ’12) is a serial entrepreneur who doesn’t consider his ventures a success unless they improve society.
“That’s the ethos that guides my work,” says Aboyeji, co-founder of Future Africa — a company dedicated to providing African innovators with a community of coaches, capital investors and a network of business connections.
A graduate of Waterloo’s legal studies program, Aboyeji says the University’s co-operative education program originally drew him to Waterloo. But when he didn’t get accepted into the program, Aboyeji found his community in Velocity, the University’s flagship entrepreneurship program.
“Waterloo had a huge influence on my entrepreneurial career. I say this everywhere I go,” Aboyeji says. “I had a safe space for making tons of mistakes and I did make them all. That got me prepared for an entrepreneurial path when I graduated. If I didn’t go to Waterloo, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
Today, Aboyeji’s ventures have some of the best fund performances in the world, with 147 per cent in annual recurring revenue (ARR), growing $1.5 million of his own money into $14 million five years later.
Leveraging African capital to solve African problems
Like his other ventures, Andela and Flutterwave, Future Africa is built on a foundation of improving opportunities for Africans. With Aboyeji’s large social media presence of more than 100,000 followers on Twitter alone, Aboyeji regularly expresses his deep commitment to building an investment firm that explicitly leverages African capital to solve African problems.
“A lot of people think the solution to these problems is to demand equality, but my training teaches me that it’s not enough — you can’t demand equality from people who aren’t incentivized to give it to you, you actually have to take it,” Aboyeji says. “You have to organize and be able to create your own capital stack … because what happens when Black people don’t get funded is that they can’t solve the problems that matter to them.”
Learning and growing in Waterloo’s startup community
Aboyeji’s commitment to building community is grounded in his experience in the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Waterloo. It was through this community that he worked alongside other Velocity success stories including Vidyard’s Michael Litt (BASc ’11) and Devon Galloway (BASc ’10), Kik’s Ted Livingston and BufferBox’s Jay Shah (BASc ’11) and Mike McCauley (BASc ’11).
One of Aboyeji’s fondest memories during his time at Waterloo was when Google acquired the startup BufferBox in 2012. “I knew these guys — I used to sit like two seats away from them,” he says. “That was enough for me to keep going and think, ‘One day, I’ll get my BufferBox moment.’”
“Community gives you perspective. It’s very easy to get cooped up in a bubble when you’re building things, even after you’ve been successful,” Aboyeji says. “Community gives you something to be thankful for and something to strive for.”
Community creates impact
Aboyeji also learned to take calculated risks and when, earlier this year, the pandemic hit as he was launching Future Africa, his team had to think fast: How could they continue supporting entrepreneurs when pandemic restrictions made it difficult to raise institutional capital?
“We had been putting our own money in,” Aboyeji says. “We were going to go the traditional route and raise money from funds, but we couldn’t travel, and because we couldn’t travel, we couldn’t make trips out to pitch your institutional funders. We also realized that a lot of people, because of COVID-19, had a lot of disposable income. They weren’t spending money in restaurants or transporting themselves to work, so they had a lot of spare cash."
That spare cash turned into investments of $5,000 and above from co-investors who invested in startups Aboyeji considered high return and high impact. Admission to this community was $1,000 per year.
“We made close to $100,000 through the crisis just from selling memberships,” Aboyeji says. “And that’s how we started. That was instrumental to our existence in our current model as a company.”
With unemployment rates of 60 per cent in Africa, Aboyeji is committed to using his network to support the 300 million young people who need work between now and 2050. This communal formula that hasn’t failed him yet.
“We recognize that there’s a pattern with companies that are founding, backing or investing as angel investors,” Aboyeji says. “And that pattern is very simple — tackle the great challenges by turning them into global business opportunities.”
Goodbye Impact. Hello Barlow.
University Relations is introducing a new secondary or alternative font to express the Waterloo brand. While it’s true that every word conveys a message, the visual impact of our words is equally powerful. We’ve removed the Impact font from our brand guidelines and recommend that campus now use Barlow Condensed when creating Waterloo communications and when Bureau Grotesque is not available.
Our Presentation Templates, have been updated with Barlow Condensed and are now available online. We will continue to update the other downloadable templates during the winter term. Please check the Brand site’s downloads and resources page regularly for updates.
How do you say, “hello Barlow,” and download the new font?
Barlow Condensed is available for free and has been queued for installation on all IST-managed PC computers. If you use an IST-managed PC and are working from home, please be sure to regularly connect to Waterloo’s VPN to receive updates. If you use an unmanaged system or a Mac computer, please follow the instructions to install the font on our brand website.
Connect with the Brand team if you have any questions about branding, training or resources.
IST wishes Doris Tom well in retirement
A message from Information Systems & Technology (IST).
Doris Tom, a Client Support Assistant in the Service Desk team, is retiring. Doris’ last day of work with us will be the morning of February 5.
Doris joined the University of Waterloo in August of 1986, and started out working in Operations, within the Department of Computer Services, which later became IST. Doris is well known across campus, and has helped tens of thousands of people in her career here.
"I want to personally thank Doris for all of her very hard work, and for all of her contributions over the years to IST and the University of Waterloo, and for bringing fun and laughter into the office (and now, virtual office)," writes her manager Matt Harford. "Doris is looking forward to spending time in her garden, and when she is able, to do some traveling. Please join me in wishing Doris congratulations, and a very happy retirement."