Thursday, August 11, 2022

Investing in a 'uniquely human' future of work

By Beth Gallagher. This article was originally published in the Spring 2022 issue of Waterloo Magazine.

Brigette Lau (BASc ’99) is the co-founder of a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, a poker player and mother to three children. She’s also a self-described introvert with deep expertise investing in early-stage technology. As a teenager in the mid-1990s, Lau was thrilled to get a job at a big-box store and doubted that she ever needed to go to university. Her parents, however, had other ideas: “I grew up as an immigrant in Canada” Lau says.

“It was very much about working hard and keeping your head down. Education was very important to my family.” After graduating from the University of Waterloo as a computer engineer, she had her sight set on Silicon Valley. Lau was attracted to the passion and innovation at many start-ups and wanted to be a part of it.

Everything in Lau’s education and career culminates in founding Firework Ventures, a firm with an ambitious vision to transform the future of work by investing in founders committed to closing the ever-widening gaps in society.

Finding the human in a digital future

“We believe that economic and social mobility are among the most important challenges of our time,” Lau says. “There is so much talent out there, so many hard workers who are incredibly capable but don’t have a network or access to opportunities.” Lau notes that venture funds often focus narrowly on investing in knowledge workers, when there is a much bigger opportunity for the rest of the workforce.

Lau and her team are focusing on what is “uniquely human” during this time of increasing automation, digitization and acceleration. “For the first time in history, technological advancement has become a driver of inequality, rather than opportunity,” she says.

Previously, Lau invested in the early stages of some of the companies that are, in her view, leaders in the future of work such as BetterUp, which democratizes access to coaching and Guild, which provides front-line workers with education benefits.

Multi-trillion-dollar market opportunity

Firework Ventures invests horizontally rather than taking a traditional approach by investing in verticals like education or health care. “We look at our investments through the lens of human potential, which is an emerging multi-trillion-dollar market opportunity” says Lau. For example, Lau led the Series A and joined the boards of Tilt, a company that is revolutionizing employee leave in the workplace, and Stride Funding, which provides much needed capital to students to help them pursue educational opportunities that lead to better job outcomes.

“What I am most excited about is that all of these companies exceed billion-dollar valuations, (or are on their way), while also positively impacting the lives of so many,” Lau says.

Lau also believes in doing venture differently. This extends beyond her investment thesis. She believes in investing in both her team and her founders. Lau, her teammates, and founders have access to ongoing coaching to help everyone reach their full potential. The firm also connects its founders with an expert on talent strategy to help founders meet the needs of their rapidly growing teams.

Lau’s vision and inspiration is grounded in her own story: “I was blessed with the opportunity to pursue my education at Waterloo, work as a computer engineer in Silicon Valley and invest in multiple, billion-dollar startups – all the while becoming a mom and raising a family.”

Support for women-led startups

Lau, who admits starting a new firm is “not for the faint of heart,” was also supporting her young children’s learning at home during the pandemic.

At a time when only seven per cent of venture capital raised is managed by women-founded funds and just two per cent of venture capital funding went to women-led startups in 2020, Lau knows first-hand the challenges women engineers and mothers face in the workforce.

“I want to be an example for my children. I want my daughter and two sons to see a woman founding and leading her own company.”

Lau reflects on the teenager she was – a young woman with talent but no plan – and knows there are many people who just need the right support and connections to realize their full potential. She remembers seeing a few of her peers starting their own companies while still at school and wondered: “Am I allowed to do that?”

So now, Lau wants to use her platform to make connections for others and help increase the number of diverse voices at the table. “I believe it is my responsibility to show the next generation that they can pursue their ambitions,” she says. “I believe that everything that has happened in my life has brought me to this point. I see so much possibility … I’m super excited about the future.” 

Hear Brigette's story in her own words. Listen to our alumni podcast on  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Soundcloud.

CTE announces latest LITE seed grant recipients

The Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) has announced the latest recipients of the Learning Innovation and Teaching Enhancement (LITE) Seed Grants.

Elena Neiterman, Jennifer Yessis, Natalie Chow, Josh Edmondstone, Zara Rafferty - Capturing student and instructor insights from the pandemic to develop guidelines on best teaching practices for post-pandemic course design and delivery in the Faculty of Health: A community-based approach

Stacy Denton & Barb Bloemhof - Pedagogical Partnerships in the Arts First Classroom

Mariam Mufti, Wayne Chang, Katherine Lithgow, Tracy Hilpert, Narveen Jandu, Elena Neiterman, Mary Robinson, Steffanie Scott, Diane Williams, Brendan Wylie-Toal, Jennifer Yessis - Creating, testing, and assessing a toolkit to help instructors integrate the Student-Led Independently Created Courses (SLICCs) framework

Steffanie Scott - Learning from the Land: Developing Capacity for Place-Based Learning at the University of Waterloo

Karen Cummings, Robert Hill, Steve Pfisterer - Connecting Collaborative Group Work and EDI Goals in Introductory Science Courses

Mathieu Feagan, Marta Berbes, Elizabeth Cook, Mercy Borbor-Cordova, Maria Del Pilar Cornejo-Rodriguez, Nancy Grimm - Pedagogies for the Anthropocene: How can Self-Assessment Help Build Capacity for Transdisciplinary Teams-Based Approaches?

"Congratulations to the latest recipients of the LITE Seed grants!" says the CTE announcement.

Paul Parker receives sustainable aviation society award

This article was originally published on the Faculty of Environment's website.

The International Sustainable Aviation and Energy Research Society (SARES) has given the 2022 Science Award to Paul Parker, professor at the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) and Geography and Environmental Management (GEM) for his outstanding research and invaluable contributions to sustainable aviation globally.

SARES gives six important scientific awards every year. The awards are given in four categories (Lifetime Achievement Award, Science Award, Young Scientist Award, and Young Researcher Award) to scientists and researchers who work on Sustainable Aviation and two more additional awards (Gratitude Award and a Company Award).

Parker is a sustainability researcher with a passion for solar powered flight. As a professor in the Faculty of Environment SEED and GEM, he has pursued both passions: sustainability and aviation. At 18, he obtained his private pilot license. He understood the teenage dream to fly and was the Chair of Geography when the Geography and Aviation program was created in 2007 with Waterloo Wellington Flight Centre (WWFC) as a partner.

But Parker did not like using an engine to fly so he turned to gliding where he could soar for hundreds of kilometers using nature’s solar power to create thermals. He was a gliding instructor in Australia, England and Canada where he also won the 2018 National Championship and was a member of Canada’s national 2019 PanAm team.

As an energy system researcher, he focused on improved efficiency and renewable sources of energy. Parker and his team have surveyed the different stakeholder groups and found a strong desire to try electric flight among students, instructors and manager/owners.

Parker’s next project is to compare the performance of an electric plane to conventional ones for flight training under Canadian conditions.

He received the award with other recipients on August 5, 2022 at the online ceremony of the International Symposium on Sustainable Aviation (ISSA) 2022.