Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Reflections on the World Economic Forum from a distance

This is an excerpt of the latest post on President Feridun Hamdullahpur's blog.

The past year has been framed around one thing: the COVID-19 pandemic. It has shaped and reshaped virtually everything we’ve done as a society, and rightly so. This disruption was certainly felt at the recent World Economic Forum (WEF).

I’ve had the opportunity to participate in this global event in the past. My time there has certainly offered lessons and insights through meetings, talks and participating in panel events. This year, as you can imagine, it was all virtual. While the same energy of the event was lost due to the virtual nature of the event, the insights from where governments, global industry leaders and researchers see our society heading in a post-COVID world will have significant effects on our University, the higher education sector and Canada.

The future of work

Unsurprisingly, the ongoing pandemic was a common thread throughout the discussions, but it wasn’t strictly about COVID-19’s impacts on our way of life. The sense amongst those in attendance was that this was a moment that, yes is filled with challenges but also holds opportunities for positive change as well.

For example, the future of work was an important topic. Work from home and remote work in general were trends before 2020. The question moving forward post-COVID is how much will organizations move back to a primary office setting?

While each organization and employee are different, the overarching belief is that a majority of both will start to make their way back to the office when it is safe to do so. There will likely be more flexibility around a work from home policy at those organizations, but leaders stressed that while productivity still remained high for most teams, company culture and the mental health of many employees have suffered in the shift to remote settings.

Reimagining education

Education has gone through a significant shift over the past year. Even at the highest levels of government and business, this was a priority topic of discussion. It was stressed, and I agree, that now is a time to reimagine what education looks like in a post-COVID world. We’ve made the shift to primarily remote learning for the majority of students across Canada and in most nations. We did this out of necessity. We’ve been able to do this through the sheer ingenuity and strength of our talented instructors, support staff and our resilient students.

What was talked about at the WEF was not whether we would revert back to pre-COVID instruction, but how can we take some of the positive aspects of our remote learning experience and apply them to our education model moving forward. There was agreement that there is no replacing in-person learning. The question is, how can our learnings from delivering a quality education amidst a pandemic be used to enhance education for all?

A reskilling revolution

In addition to changes to how we educate, business leaders stressed an ever-increasing need for a fundamental strategy at creating a reskilling revolution. What was most noteworthy in the discussions was the reoccurring theme of a skills gap crisis, not simply from those new to the talent pool, but more importantly, seasoned employees.

Digital literacy was the most prominent gap discussed. Not simply specialists within the digital field, such as computer science, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, but an understanding of digital principles and skills that can be applied to existing disciplinary depth. For example, Canada has exceptional construction, finance and health care skills, how can people who have depth in these fields learn and adapt digital strengths to their existing work? This is the crux of the challenge and a significant opportunity for higher ed to work with industry to meet this developing need.

The consensus was that in regard to the future of work, reimagining education and reskilling, COVID-19 was not a fundamental driver of change. These disruptive trends have been formulating for more than a decade. The pandemic simply accelerated these challenges.

Read the rest of the article on the President's blog.

From the Bomber stage to the world stage

By Carol Truemner. This article was originally published on Waterloo News.

Entertaining students with his band at University of Waterloo’s on-campus pub helped launch the career of an engineering alumnus who is the musical director and lead guitarist for Canadian rock musician Shawn Mendes.   

Zubin Thakkar, now a platinum-selling producer, recording engineer and songwriter, formed Prize Fighter about 15 years ago with several other Waterloo students.

A fan-favourite at The Bombshelter, better known as The Bomber, Prize Fighter released its first CD at the pub, which closed its doors in 2018.    

“People were lined up all the way down Ring Road to get into the release party,” recalls Thakkar.

His love of music began in the mid-1990s when he started watching MuchMusic with his sister in the family room of their Kitchener home.

It was the “mind-blowing” guitar playing by bands like the Smashing Pumpkins that led him to convince his parents to buy him a guitar for his birthday when he was in Grade 7.

Thakkar says he became obsessed with his electric six-string, a Yamaha Pacifica.

“I’d take it to school every day, put it in my locker and play it at lunch unplugged in the hallway,” he says. “I didn’t necessarily realize it would lead to something – it was just this awesome thing I was into.”

Mainly self-taught, he began writing and playing his own songs shortly after he received his birthday gift.  

High school directorial debut 

His musical interests expanded when he attended Kitchener’s Forest Heights Collegiate and became involved in Journey, the school’s annual talent show.

Thakkar, who performed a song in the production during his first year of high school, became the student-led show’s director starting in Grade 11.

He says his role as a director was similar to the one he has today with Mendes and many of the other artists he has directed musically.

“It’s obviously on a different scale but the core idea of seeing a production through from start to finish is very much the same,” he says.

After high school, Thakkar decided to pursue systems design engineering at Waterloo where he developed a strong work ethic and the ability to solve difficult problems quickly, qualities, he says, that have served him well with his musical career. 

Co-op job led to financial security while building music career

Thakkar spent one of his engineering co-op terms working on virtual piano modelling for Stephen Birkett, a Waterloo systems design engineering professor, and his final term at D2L, an online-learning software company founded by systems design engineering alumnus John Baker while he was still a Waterloo student.

After graduating from Waterloo in 2007, Thakkar worked part-time remotely for D2L while he pursued his musical career.

In 2009, the Canadian band Hello Operator contacted him when they needed a new guitar player for their cross-country tour. He continued to work for D2L between shows and afterward when he went on and played with different bands.

“I’d be working in the back of the van driving across Canada, in dressing rooms and in hotel rooms,” he says. “D2L was super supportive and let me make my own hours – it was really amazing.”

By 2012, he was earning enough from his music to quit working for D2L and focus solely on his passion.

Three years later, he received a phone call from former bandmate Dan Kanter, Justin Bieber’s musical director. That phone call led to a job as Mendes’ lead guitarist and musical director.

During the past six years, Thakkar has directed performances and played with Mendes and his band on the Grammy Awards, The Tonight Show: Starring Jimmy Fallon, 2 appearances on Saturday Night Live (SNL), the American Music Awards, the Ellen Show, X-Factor and the Much Music Video Awards.

He has also been part of sold-out shows at Madison Square Gardens, Staples Center, Wembley Stadium and Rogers Centre in Toronto and three sold-out world tours.

While playing with Mendes, Thakkar has also shared the stage with John Mayer, The Roots, Ed Sheeran, Miley Cyrus, Zedd, Khalid and John Legend. In addition to his live music direction, he has also worked on studio releases with Camila Cabello, Taylor Swift, Boyz II Men, Tyler Shaw and Kira Isabella.

He was a vocal engineer on the Grammy-nominated song “Señorita” by Cabello and Mendes, which was  No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

Bubbling up in LA

During the pandemic last summer, Thakkar travelled to Los Angeles where Mendes and his band filmed several television performances to promote Mendes’ new album “Wonder”, on which he co-wrote the song “Always Been You.”

“Normally when someone releases an album, they’ll do a full promo circuit around the world,” he says. “Obviously, no one can do that right now, so we bubbled up in LA and shot all the shows in one location.”

Most recently his musical direction and guitar playing were featured in two Netflix specials “Shawn Mendes: In Wonder” and “Shawn Mendes: Live In Concert”, the latter of which was filmed during the singer’s sold-out show at The Rogers Centre in Toronto. He also worked extensively on the audio post-production and provided additional original music for both films.

A composer for film and TV, Thakkar’s music has been featured on television shows and networks such as Netflix’s “Black Mirror”, CMT, MTV, Nickelodeon, Family Channel, CBC, and by the NFL, NBA, Nascar and Tim Hortons.

Quintessential Waterloo experience   

While the past six years have included a heavy touring and travel schedule, Thakkar spent most of 2020 at his Kitchener home with his wife Tushara, an elementary school music teacher, and their two young sons.

He met Tushara, a Waterloo environmental studies alumnus, at The Bomber where, as a student, she also played as part of a band.

“Our bands would open and close for each other at The Bomber,” he says. “That place was so quintessential to my experience at Waterloo and everything that’s happened since then.”

All story photos by Josiah Van Dien.

Test of the campus emergency communication system February 23

A message from Information Systems & Technology.

A test of the University’s emergency communication system is scheduled for Tuesday, February 23 at 2:00 p.m. Test activation and deactivation messages will be sent using the below channels: 

• Tweets to @UWaterloo and @WatSAFEapp
• WatSAFE mobile app
• The ‘WatSAFE Desktop Notification’ on-screen pop-up for desktops and laptops
• Portal alerts and push notifications

In the event of a real emergency during this test, please contact Police Services at 519-888-4911, or ext. 22222.

Be sure to install the WatSAFE app on your device and WatSAFE Desktop Notification tool on your desktop/laptop to receive this test message, and more importantly, to stay informed of campus emergency situations. Visit the WatSAFE website for more details. If you have not yet done so, please download the new WatSAFE Desktop Notification client.

Writing and Communication Centre releases annual report; other notes

"The 2019-2020 Writing and Communication Centre Annual Report is now available on our website," says a note from the WCC. "Find out what the WCC was up to in the 2019-2020 school year, read about how we're meeting our strategic plan goals and how we pivoted online, get updates on our programming, and so much more."

The Healthy Workplace Committee is inviting employees to register for an Employee Wellness Session: COVID-19 – Calming Your Mind in Challenging Times. The workshop, offered by Homewood Health and the Employee and Family Assistance Plan, will take place on Thursday, February 25 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon. Registration is open from February 16 through to February 22.

Nominations are open for regular faculty members and graduate students to fill upcoming vacancies on Senate. The call will be open until 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday 2 March 2021. Please see Nominations and Elections for more information, including nomination forms. Elections will be held in mid-March, if necessary. Contact Emily Schroeder with any questions.