Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Register for faculty and graduate student Pivot-RP training on July 26

A message from the Office of Research.

The next virtual Pivot-RP workshop for Faculty and graduate students is scheduled for Tuesday, July 26 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.

In this workshop the facilitator will discuss the key functionality of Pivot-RP for researchers. In a few slides they will describe what Pivot-RP is then move into a live demo, covering topics such as claiming your profile, searching for funding, tracking, sharing and exporting funding opportunities, and highlighting available resources. The virtual workshop will end with a Q & A.

Please register to take part in this session and to receive a link for the workshop.

If you are not available for the webinar, helpful training videos and other resources can be found on the Pivot-RP webpage. You can also visit Pivot-RP’s support page to access additional resources.

Please direct any Pivot-RP questions to or-pivot-rp@uwaterloo.ca. 

Accelerating an idea into a social commerce platform

By Angelica Marie Sanchez. This article originally appeared on Waterloo News.

The University of Waterloo offers many on-campus resources for students to work on their startup ideas in a supportive environment, and the unique Enterprise Co-op program allows students to start their own business while also earning a co-op credit.

So, when Engineering student Ayush Bhargava met Mathematics student Samuel Minkov-Temis during their Enterprise Co-op term, they not only started working together to complete the credit, but they also started a new journey as business partners with an idea catering to the fast-growing digital space of content creators.

“Our main vision was to launch shops for creators on social media without all the re-directs that current creators’ struggle with,” Minkov-Temis says. “These creators miss out on a lot of potential sales because they are losing that authenticity when buyers have to go on another site to purchase.”

The co-founders created Sway, a social commerce platform, to allow creators to sell brand-partnered products and custom merchandise directly to their audience on their Instagram, TikTok or any of their social media page.

“What separates our company is that we are built on top of current social media platforms,” Minkov-Temis says. “It’s completely different than every other way is that brands and creators can work together in one space.” Bhargava explains that having multiple platforms integrated in Sway’s Shopify app allows people to buy directly from the influencer instead of the brand which adds an element of authenticity to the sale.

Celebrating a milestone after working through challenges

Soon after creating the technology and tools they needed to launch Sway, the co-founders discovered a few challenges that they needed to overcome before solidifying their current setup process on Sway’s Shopify app.

“The first four months was the ideation stage where we had a lot of challenges,” Bhargava says. “We thought our customers were the creators and we spent a lot of time reaching out to these people. But creators are going to keep their armour closed and so it was hard to reach them via e-mail address.”

The co-founders pivoted their strategy and started onboarding brands that can bring in their own brand ambassadors onto the Sway platform. It was beneficial for the startup business to develop a strong network of brands to further their relationship with current and prospective creators.

“We are still a creator economy company, but we do not need to work directly with creators right now. We can work with brands who are already working in the creator space.” Bhargava says.

As the co-founders approach the one-year mark since the launch of Sway, they continue to recruit brands across the United States to help them find existing and new creators to sell brand-partnered products and custom merchandise directly on the creators’ social media accounts.

“Based on the challenges we faced, we hope to build out a simple dashboard that would let creators’ type in their handle or their email which will then connect their social media accounts onto the Sway platform.” Minkov-Temis says.

Joining the Velocity Incubator

During the pandemic, Velocity launched the Cornerstone program to support Waterloo students in helping refine their startup ideas into a career in entrepreneurship. After winning a Concept $5K Grant in Fall 2020, at the time called ChangeRoom, the Sway team joined the Cornerstone program where they pivoted to address a larger market and validate their solution. Their progress helped Sway get accepted into the Velocity incubator, along with six other early-stage teams as part of a new Velocity program designed to help students test out entrepreneurship after graduation.

During their time in the Velocity incubator, Bhargava and Minkov-Temis will receive support from Velocity business advisors and product development team as they refine their initial startup idea, business model and proof of concept over the next several months.

“The overall support from the Velocity community is really good to have when you sometimes feel isolated as an entrepreneur doing something yourself all the time,” Minkov-Temis says. “It was great working with our advisor from Velocity. His support is super beneficial for being available when we have a question over text, and we would also meet every two weeks to introduce us to his network of entrepreneurs who give really good feedback from an outside point of view.”

Both Sway co-founders acknowledge the University for being a supportive community that helped them grow their idea into a startup business.

While Bhargava started his entrepreneurship dreams in high school, Minkov-Temis did not see himself becoming an entrepreneur until the opportunity presented itself during his first year at Waterloo. The co-founders hope to expand their team in Los Angeles — home of the largest content creator economy — as they set their sights to become a fast-growing social commerce platform.

New map shows where fracking-induced earthquakes could hit in Canada

Scientists from the University of Waterloo have developed a map showing which regions and population centres of Western Canada are likely to experience earthquakes induced by underground energy extraction.

Hydraulic fracturing is used to produce cracks in the rock formation to enhance energy extraction from geothermal and unconventional resources. This process is typically accompanied by seismicity, or induced earthquakes, because injection changes pore pressures and temperatures, facilitating slippage of fractures and faults. 

The map shows earthquakes related to hydraulic fracture. Major earthquakes are represented with red and white graphics.

“We are trying to better understand and therefore better predict the phenomenon of induced seismicity during subsurface engineering processes,” said Maurice Dusseault, a professor of engineering geology at Waterloo. “Using Western Canada’s Montney Formation as a case study is important as the 130,000 km2 area of western Alberta and northeast British Columbia is home to some of the world's largest petroleum and natural gas reserves.”

The report concluded induced earthquakes in this region continue to threaten communities that have already experienced of the largest fracking-caused earthquakes reported worldwide. This includes a magnitude 4.6 near Fort St. John, British Columbia on November 29, 2018, and a magnitude 4.1 near Fox Creek, Alberta on January 12, 2015.

“The majority of injection-induced seismicity occurred near Fort St. John, British Columbia—close to the border of Alberta,” said Ali Yaghoubi, the study's lead author and PhD candidate in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Waterloo. “When I compare the seismicity map with the population density map of Canada, some earthquake-prone areas are indeed populated. However, the majority of seismogenic areas aren’t populated.”

They also found that the area south of Grande Prairie, Alberta is far less prone to significant levels of induced seismicity, despite the fact that the Montney and Duverney formations in the region have been subjected to more than 700 multistage hydraulic fracturing operations.  “This is particularly important considering that the area is home to Alberta's No.1 geothermal project,” said Yaghoubi.

Their map can serve as a baseline for future fluid injection projects or underground energy extraction in the region including wastewater disposal, hydraulic fracture stimulation, carbon sequestration, as well as geothermal energy extraction.

The study, Injection-induced fault slip assessment in Montney Formation in Western Canada was recently published in the academic journal Scientific Reports, a Nature Group publication.

Getting his due after decades

By Brian Caldwell. This article originally appeared on Waterloo News.

More than three decades after leaving to make his mark on the world, an alumnus of Waterloo Engineering has been formally honoured by his Ontario hometown for his athletic achievements.

A mural of Taly Williams (BASc ’94, civil engineering), who played for the Waterloo Warriors before suiting up in the Canadian Football League (CFL), was unveiled recently on the wall of the local arena along with other successful athletes from Haliburton.

An effort to recognize Williams and his sister, Lesley Tashlin, who represented Canada as a sprinter and a hurdler at the 1996 Olympics, was spearheaded by a class of Grade 7 and 8 students at J. Douglas Hodgson Elementary School who discovered they had been overlooked and set out to right a wrong.

Taly Williams (centre) with Waterloo Warriors teammates Darren Danylyshen (left) and Alan Rydman.

Williams, now a co-founder and managing partner at AQORA Capital, an investment firm in Los Angeles focused on water infrastructure, technology and services, recalled in a speech at the mural unveiling being a member of one of the few Black families in town.

“I don’t know if Haliburton was proud of me,” he said. “It didn’t feel like it. I felt unaccepted in many places. I felt stared at a lot. I felt that people were nervous when I came into a store. I felt watched.”

Williams has been an enthusiastic supporter of the grassroots campaign since it began last year, saying he’s thrilled to serve as an example of what young people in disadvantaged and minority groups can achieve.

Joined by friends and family, he thanked a long list of people in Haliburton, including local families who did accept and encourage him, but said he has learned from local minorities that “there is still a lot of work to do here in town.”

Murals of Taly Williams and his sister Lesley Tashlin on the arena wall in their hometown of Haliburton, Ontario.

Williams urged people everywhere to make an effort to include and acknowledge others, especially those who seem different.

“The point being is that if you see someone in the minority here in town, even a little head nod or a ‘hello’ can go a long way to making someone feel welcome,” he said. “And maybe someone is doing the same for your family member in another city.”

Williams - the first local player to make it to the CFL as a defensive back with the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger Cats - and Tashlin both excelled in sports at Haliburton Highlands Secondary School, where some of their records still stand.

In addition to being honoured with murals at A.J. LaRue Arena, both were also inducted into the new Haliburton Hall of Fame.

Wednesday's notes

Faculty members at the University have been invited to submit applications to the 2022 Wharton-QS Reimagine Education Awards. "Just as the rankings are designed to illuminate – among other things – outstanding research, employability outcomes, and internationalisation, so are the Reimagine Education Awards designed to offer universities a chance to shine a light upon their outstanding teaching initiatives," says a note from QS. 

"Now in its 9^th year, and contested by 1,400 applicants in 2021, the Awards scheme is again offering USD $50,000 in funding and worldwide visibility via QS channels to faculty teams that can offer an outstanding example of pedagogical innovation," says QS. "We are also offering Regional Awards, Discipline Awards – for outstanding teaching in our five broad Faculty Areas – and 18 Category Awards."

All applications can be made free of charge until September 16.

Doreen White of the Office of Research took this photo of EC5's resident hawk keeping a bird's eye on things on the University's east campus. Squirrels beware.

Employers hosting Virtual Employer Information Sessions (VEIS) next week include NimbleRx. Make sure to register through WaterlooWorks and check the calendar for any updates.