Tuesday, November 26, 2024

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• Announcing the Vice President, Innovation and Chief Health Innovation Officer
• Indigenous Speaker Series presents Greg Staats
• Rogers scholarships help make students' dreams come true
• Waterloo Indigenous Student Centre joins the Office of Indigenous Relations
• 2025 International Conference on Games and Narrative deadline extended

Announcing the Vice President, Innovation and Chief Health Innovation Officer

A message from Vivek Goel, President and Vice-Chancellor, Ron Gagnon, President and CEO, Grand River Hospital, and Mark Fam, President, St. Mary’s General Hospital.

After an extensive search process, we are pleased to announce Danina Kapetanovic will join our teams on January 13, 2025 as the inaugural Joint Vice President, Innovation and Chief Health Innovation Officer overseeing our Care Next Coalition.

Danina is a seasoned leader and strategist with a proven track record in innovation, transformation, policy development, and building impactful partnerships. For nearly 30 years, she has been dedicated to advancing social change, fostering innovation, and supporting entrepreneurship on local, regional, and global scales.

Currently, Danina serves as Chief Innovation Officer at the Integrated Health and Social Services University Network for West-Central Montreal (CIUSSS West-Central Montreal), a network of 34 facilities delivering comprehensive, patient-centered care to over 700,000 people annually. At CIUSSS and its central hub, the Jewish General Hospital, Danina envisioned and established the Connected Health Innovation Hub, OROT, which aims to make healthcare universally accessible through the “Care Everywhere” strategy. OROT has guided more than 50 projects through various stages of the innovation cycle. Before her role at CIUSSS, Danina was the Executive Director of Hacking Health, a global grassroots network of innovators committed to creating digital health solutions that benefit individuals, healthcare systems, and economies worldwide. The movement organized 160 hackathons across 63 cities, leading to over 1,500 innovative health projects. Danina also brings nearly two decades of global health leadership experience from her tenure with the United Nations, where she led groundbreaking initiatives that leveraged public-private partnerships to address urgent health and nutrition needs worldwide. Her accomplishments include establishing community care centres in conflict regions, developing maternal and child health strategies, and collaborating with industry to create innovative nutrition solutions to combat malnutrition.

Danina holds a Master of Science in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Hunter College, CUNY, a Bachelor of Arts, Honours in Neurolinguistics from McGill University, and several certificates in healthcare innovation, entrepreneurship, and start-up coaching from Duke University, Concordia University, and HEC Montreal. She also serves on the Board of the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation and Hacking Health.

In her new role, Danina will lead the Care Next Coalition, an innovative partnership between the two Hospitals and the University of Waterloo, focused on integrating transformative solutions into healthcare practice. Leveraging her deep expertise in strategic partnerships and innovation, Danina will position our institutions as leaders in healthcare advancement. Her role will be crucial in harnessing the collaborative power of the Care Next Coalition to enhance patient experiences, improve health outcomes, expand health-related research and teaching partnerships, and drive sustainable, innovation-centered transformation across our healthcare systems.

Please join us in warmly welcoming Danina to her new role, where her visionary leadership is expected to drive significant advancements in our collective pursuit of excellence in healthcare and education. We look forward to her contributions and are excited about the direction and momentum she will bring to our collective vision.

Indigenous Speaker Series presents Greg Staats

A message from the Faculty of Arts.

Please join the Indigenous Speakers Series on Thursday, November 28, at 1:30 p.m. when we are honoured to present Greg Staats, winner of the 2024 Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts and a 2024-25 Longhouse Labs Fellow here at UWaterloo. Greg is Tuscarora Hodinöhsö:ni whose lens-based work combines language, mnemonics, and the natural world as an ongoing process of visualizing a Hodinohso:ni restorative aesthetic. 

Register to join in-person or online.

Rogers scholarships help make students' dreams come true

By Claire Mastrangelo. This is an excerpt of an article originally published on Waterloo News.

More than 20 first-year students are pursuing their education at the University of Waterloo with support from Rogers. The University’s long-time partner delivers the Ted Rogers Scholarships, including the $100,000 Legacy Scholarship for students in STEM-focused programs and the $26,800 Future Leader Scholarship. The national awards program recognizes academic excellence and community leadership in students facing financial need, with preference on equity-deserving students.

“We are proud to invest millions each year to deliver scholarships with university partners across Canada like the University of Waterloo, and to help youth pursue their post-secondary dreams,” said Navdeep Bains, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Rogers Communications. “An investment in our country’s youth is an investment in Canada’s future.”

The Legacy and Future Leader Scholarships are awarded in partnership with six Canadian universities, including Waterloo. Waterloo has awarded the scholarships with a focus on underrepresented students in STEM and other fields.

“Diversity fuels the innovation we need to solve our most complex problems,” says Vivek Goel, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Waterloo. “I’m grateful to Rogers for their partnership with Waterloo, and for this generous contribution to support the leaders of tomorrow. By fostering inclusion across our University community, we will empower our students to create brighter futures for humanity and the planet.”

This significant investment by Rogers builds on more than four decades of support for the University of Waterloo, including the recent renewal of the Rogers 5G partnership and the creation of the Rogers Research Chair in Network Automation. Rogers has also hired hundreds of alumni and students from the University’s renowned co-op program – the largest of its kind at a research-intensive university in the world with over 70 per cent of students gaining up to two years of experience during their studies.

Read the full story on Waterloo News.

Waterloo Indigenous Student Centre joins the Office of Indigenous Relations

A message from the Office of Indigenous Relations.

In a move designed to enhance support and foster a cohesive environment for Indigenous students across campus, the Office of Indigenous Relations (OIR) and the Waterloo Indigenous Student Centre (WISC) would like to jointly announce the unification of our offices.

“We are delighted to welcome WISC into the broader campus network within OIR,” said Jean Becker, Associate Vice-President, Indigenous Relations. “This integration will enable collaborative planning and co-creation of programs with Indigenous students and will aid in eliminating disconnects between services and improving advocacy alignment.” 

Making this change enhances Waterloo’s ability to address specific student needs and support WISC’s development while strengthening our commitment to an inclusive environment that acknowledges and celebrates Indigenous identities and perspectives. 

“With a dedicated team that includes experienced Indigenous leaders, OIR can better support Indigenous students in a holistic and culturally relevant way, ensuring that the services provided are inclusive and readily available,” said Becker. 

The transition to integrate allows for improved coordination of resources and support for Indigenous students and the potential for expanded funding through university and donor channels. The aim is to centralize resources, improve accountability, and provide Indigenous students with improved access to services under a unified, Indigenous-led framework.

“While we recognize the 20 years of hard work from WISC, we are excited to see the potential for further support and wrap-around care that can directly impact and uplift Indigenous students,” said Emma Rain Smith, interim director, WISC.

“This transition is more than just structural; it represents a long-term commitment to creating a nexus of inclusive spaces, where Indigenous students feel supported and valued,” said James Rush, Vice-President, Academic and Provost. “The University recognizes that Indigenous students are vital to its diverse campus community and is committed to providing the resources, oversight, and culturally relevant support needed for their success.” 

Moving forward OIR will now oversee and support Indigenous student initiatives effectively and provide more transparent accountability for their impact.  

As the University moves forward with this change, the OIR will engage students, faculty, and community members to ensure that services align with their evolving needs. The university will soon announce a new centralized space on campus to house WISC and will be launching a survey geared to Indigenous students to help co-create and guide future programming and space needs. 

OIR and WISC will be offering circles to hear from students about the impacts of this change and to hear feedback around the coming changes.  

For more information, please visit the OIR webpage. 

2025 International Conference on Games and Narrative deadline extended

A message from the Games Institute.

The 2025 International Conference on Games and Narrative (ICGaN) has extended the deadline for abstracts until November 30. Managed by the Games Institute, ICGaN’25 is open to everyone regardless of academic background, industry, or discipline. We encourage industry professionals, developers, independent scholars, artists, and anyone interested in the topic beyond academia to submit. 

The 2025 conference theme is “Adapt, Adopt, Adjust: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Adaptation, Storytelling, and Simulation.” Learn more about the theme, access the full call for participation, check out the submission guidelines on the Games Institute website. We are also accepting expressions of interest for abstract reviewers. Those interested can submit this form.