Tuesday, July 30, 2024

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• Velocity winners named
• New internship pilot helps master's students make a positive climate impact
• Notes as the term comes to a close

Velocity winners named

A message from Velocity.

The early-stage venture ideas presented at the Spring 2024 Velocity Pitch Competition show promise and potential to impact multiple sectors aiming to save professionals time and money, and safeguarding the health of end users. The winning pitches, delivered by University of Waterloo students working in deep tech, software and health tech, were Brewtrack, from Faculty of Mathematics, PyroGuard and Automax AI from Faculty of Engineering, and MyPharmacist, from School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Science.

The university and entrepreneurship community showed up to cheer on all finalists and hear from Rachel Bartholomew, CEO and founder of Hyivy, and founder of Femtech Canada and Femtech Across Borders, who left the audience with great takeaways about her experiences as entrepreneur working in the femtech space.

Learn more about the Velocity Pitch Competition and the teams who participated check out the full story on Waterloo News.  

New internship pilot helps master's students make a positive climate impact

By Matthew King. This article was originally posted on the Faculty of Environment's news site.

The Master of Climate Change (MCC) internship program is levelling up to provide additional support to students, staff and faculty. MCC is piloting a graduate work-integrated learning (WIL) internship in partnership with Co-operative and Experiential Education (CEE) and Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs (GSPA).

The MCC program is 12 months long and typically consists of three full-time terms. In the final four months of the program, students will now participate in a WIL experience through an internship. Unlike traditional co-op programs, the work must be related to their field of study. Before the new GradWIL pilot, professors and program staff were responsible for providing professional development and career support for students.  

This new program is launching at a critical time. With the increasing climate impacts and the transition to a low-carbon economy underway, developing new talent with the knowledge and relevant experience to help tackle climate change is more important than ever.  

Now, CEE staff provide specialized student support and resources including tips for career planning and securing a job. As part of the pilot, the Centre for WIL team has established processes and provided dedicated staff. Chantal Godin, faculty relations manager for GradWIL, is working to help effectively guide students through the process.

“As the faculty relations manager, I work with program staff to ensure that we’re helping students earn the best WIL opportunities at the graduate level,” says Godin. "We offer personalized guidance that is informed by industry knowledge. At the same, this programming reflects the diverse backgrounds of graduate students. Ultimately, this combination prepares them for the labour market.”

Godin collaborates with program coordinators and staff to provide a seamless process for MCC students to find and complete the program's internship component. Her work includes supporting students as they navigate WaterlooWorks, Waterloo’s online job board. She also helps students with other strategies to find internship-specific positions.

Successfully integrating work-integrated learning 

The MCC program first featured the new WIL internship support in the spring 2024 term.  Having CEE staff available to support MCC students and staff through the WIL process has been beneficial.

"Having GradWIL as a new partner has been wonderful,” says Daniel Scott, professor in the Faculty of Environment and director of Climate Change programs. “For me, it's wonderful to have the help, in terms of not just the logistics of things like WaterlooWorks, but the expertise of people who work with experiential learning and career development on a day-to-day basis.”

Scott believes that working closely with CEE staff will help other graduate programs integrate WIL experiences into existing offerings. He also aims to leverage the power of CEE beyond co-op.

“The value added to the students has been incredible,” says Scott. “Both in terms of helping them navigate finding internship-applicable jobs, but also the supports at that front end with things like WIL 601; a course that gives students tools, strategies and resources to prepare for their upcoming WIL experiences. Then when they're in internships, they'll get additional support from Chantal.”

Internal and external partnerships like this one are the foundation for unlocking creative approaches for real world impact. This new pilot is the latest example at the Faculty of Environment that shows how meaningful experiential education opportunities inspire solutions for our sustainable future. 

Notes as the term comes to a close

Lectures and classes end today, and to paraphrase a famous poem, in the spring term, a young student's fancy turns to thoughts of exams. Pre-examination study days are set for Wednesday, July 31 and Thursday, August 1, with the final examination period kicking off the holiday weekend in style on Friday, August 2.

With the coming of the final examination period comes an increased degree of stress for students cramming for exams, so WUSA is putting the paws on stress with a Destress with Dogs event on Wednesday, July 31 in the Student Life Centre multipurpose room. This event, intended for Waterloo undergraduates (they'll be checking your WatCard), is being held in collaboration with National Service Dogs (NSD).

The canine counsellors will be on call from 12 noon to 1:00 p.m.

The Chemistry department is hosting a seminar today entitled Polymer under confinement featuring Héloïse Thérien-Aubin,Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

"Polymer chains can be confined within, on, or around nanocolloids, and the confinement effect generated by nanocolloidal systems can influence polymer materials at different stages, from their synthesis to their final behaviour," says the talk's abstract. "We have used the confinement of polymer precursors to promote the synthesis of polymer materials in miniemulsion. Confinement increases the reaction kinetics and forms polymer with higher degrees of polymerization in common monomer systems. We used this increase in reactivity to convert industrial wastes, such as sulfur produced during crude oil processing, to prepare a family of new functional polymers. Furthermore, using model systems of polymer-functionalized polymer nanoparticles, we developed a deeper understanding of how the degree of confinement and the chemical composition affects the local behavior (dynamics, conformation) of the polymers and how this relates to the global material properties." 

The seminar takes place at 10:30 a.m. in QNC 1501.

Looking ahead to the fall term, the People, Process and Projects (P3) community of practice has announced that the P3 showcase will return on September 25. "You are invited to submit a proposal to present!" says a note from P3. "Proposals are due August 9."