Monday, November 15, 2021

How Waterloo donors are creating a healthier world

This is the second in a series of articles published in support of National Philanthropy Day.

Today is National Philanthropy Day – a time to celebrate the impact of charitable giving and volunteerism on our community and our world.

At Waterloo, donors who create student awards and scholarships touch not only the lives of the promising students who benefit from their generosity. As those students go on to create and innovate, they build a spiral of positive change that benefits countless others.

In this special National Philanthropy Day story, read how three Waterloo students are leveraging the support of generous donors to help build healthier futures for us all.

International Education Week will showcase internationalization at Waterloo

A message from Waterloo International.

The University of Waterloo is thrilled to be celebrating International Education Week (IEW) this week with several events that promote the value of international education and collaboration at home and abroad. This campus-wide initiative taking place starting today to Friday, November 19, is intended to showcase internationalization at Waterloo through a variety of events and activities hosted by various community members across the university.

Though events this year will be hosted virtually, hosts are providing an exciting range of experiences to generate passion for internationalization. Events and activities can be found on the International Education Week events page and we encourage you to show us how you’re celebrating international education by sharing your participation on social media using the hashtag #IEW2021.

IEW will feature several week-long events such as the “Where in the World” Co-op Photo Contest, “Around the World in 5 Days LITerally” which allows participants to embark on a global literary adventure featuring an interactive map, and the “International Education Week Exchange Art Gallery”, which will be exhibiting 16 of the best photos that were submitted during the pre-pandemic exchange photo contest. This year’s “Exchange Photo Contest” will also be running all week, with the winner to be announced in December.

In addition, a number of other events will take place throughout the week include the “iCapstone: Integrated, Interdisciplinary, Immersed Capstone Design with Oscar Napoli” providing a review of the successful pilot programming of interdisciplinary teams of students working in international practice settings. “iCapstone” will be occurring on Tuesday, November 16 in addition to the “CQ Cultural Intelligence Session” with students discussing future problems that require global solutions from intercultural teams, and the “WPL Lecture Series “The Future of Public Education” presented in partnership with Renison University College. Mid-week on Wednesday November 17, treat yourself to a delicious meal at home with cooking instructions brought to you by Renison’s Chef Tim Farley via Instagram Live, who will be demonstrating an international dish in “Spark Your Palette with Chef Tim Farley”. Also on Wednesday is the “Virtual Cross Cultural Plane Trip” where participants can learn about students’ hometowns around the globe, and the University of Waterloo International Development Group (IDG)’s event “AI and Socioeconomic Development: Friend or Foe”.

There are many fantastic opportunities to celebrate the University of Waterloo’s diversity, culture, and internationalization this week, so be sure to get involved and stay tuned for more updates.

'Just build things'

Alex Rodrigues, left, and Brandon Moak are co-founders of Embark Technology Inc.

By Brian Caldwell. This article was originally featured on Waterloo News.

Alex Rodrigues and Brandon Moak, the 20-something founders of an autonomous trucking company now valued at approximately US $5 billion, don’t have to look far for a reminder of their roots.

Hanging inside the front doors of their San Francisco office, a photograph shows a teenaged Rodrigues giving Feridun Hamdullahpur, then president and vice-chancellor of the University of Waterloo, a ride around the Ring Road in a self-driving golf cart.

It was 2015. Rodrigues and Moak, his undergraduate classmate in the mechatronics engineering program, had built the cart – the first autonomous vehicle in Canada – in his parents’ garage.

“It’s the first thing you see once you get in our office – where it all began,” Moak said.

Alex Rodrigues, right, drives Feridun Hamdullahpur around the Ring Road in a self-driving golf cart in 2015. This photo now hangs in the headquarters of Embark Technology Inc. in San Francisco.

Just six years after that photo was taken, Moak and Rodrigues have built newly named Embark Technology Inc. into a company with more than 200 employees and plans for a network of autonomous transport trucks hauling goods faster, cheaper, safer and with less environmental impact.

Embark took a huge step in that direction today when it announced the completion of a merger with Northern Genesis 2, a special purpose acquisition company headed by Waterloo Engineering alumnus Ian Robertson (BASc ’82), to become a public company. It will begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange Thursday with an estimated $5-billion valuation.

Shares held by Rodrigues and Moak, who remain the chief executive and chief technology officers, respectively, make them both worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The deal also backs the company - founded in 2016 after Rodrigues and Moak left during their second year at Waterloo and hit the road for Silicon Valley with their golf cart in the back of a pickup truck – with about US $300 million to fund commercialization of its software by 2024.

“To be honest, I haven’t really processed that angle of it,” Moak said of his new wealth.

“What we aspire to is a network deployed across the United States hauling freight autonomously every single day and we’ve got a lot of work to do between now and that being a reality. Maybe my day-to-day will change slightly, but I still expect to be head-down working on Embark for quite some time.”

The partners, both 26, say an early decision to focus solely on autonomous trucking, as opposed to autonomous driving in general, was key to their rapid progress as young entrepreneurs.

Embark’s business model envisions large fleets paying per-mile fees for proprietary software enabling their trucks to autonomously drive long distances on major highways. To move trailers into cities via secondary roads, human drivers would still be needed.

'This is transformational technology'

The company has already logged well over a million miles in autonomous mode - with backup drivers on board for safety - with its own development fleet and has more than 14,000 reservations for its self-driving software when it becomes commercially available starting in the US sunbelt.

“I think this is transformational technology,” Rodrigues, who built his first robot as an 11-year-old boy growing up in Calgary, told a recent webinar. “It’s what I have dedicated my life to and I want to see it having the maximum impact it can.”

Although the duo didn’t stay in Waterloo long, Moak credits its hands-on lessons and entrepreneurial emphasis with giving him an invaluable foundation to build on.

Drawn by co-op program

He was drawn to Waterloo from his hometown of Halifax by its co-op program, and connected with Rodrigues over a mutual passion for “building cool things” when they both lived in a dedicated residence for the Velocity startup incubator.

“I think very, very highly of the model of education Waterloo employs,” Moak said. “Going to Waterloo, doing my first co-op, being in an atmosphere where everyone just wanted to get their hands dirty and build stuff all the time, really accelerated my trajectory.

“My general advice to all Waterloo students is to just build things – big, small, stupid, fun, intelligent. Whatever it is, you learn a lot from it.”

Waterloo Staff Conference issues call for proposals

A message from the Waterloo Staff Conference organizers.

We are hard at work planning for the 14^th annual Waterloo Staff Conference. As the University moves towards resuming more on-campus activity, and with transparent safety protocols in place, we invite you to save the date for a blended offering of the conference on April 6 and 7, 2022. This year’s conference is an opportunity for all of us to reconnect with campus colleagues through a combination of in-person, virtual, and hyflex offerings. More exciting details to follow, including the return of the Speaker Series which will help lead up to the conference with featured keynote speakers in early February and March.

An important cornerstone to the conference is the concurrent workshops that feature the expertise and talent of our Waterloo colleagues. We are pleased to open our Call for Proposals by inviting you to submit your expression of interest to present at the 2022 conference. As more employees continue to transition back, or anticipate transitioning back, we have built in a process to help. Whether you have a fully formed session idea, or know you are interested in getting involved but don’t know all the details yet, we want to hear from you! Please fill out the Expression of Interest form by Wednesday, December 8 at 12:00 noon and an OHD member will reach out to you between mid-December and early January to support you.

Senate meets today and other notes

The University's Senate meets today at 3:30 p.m. on Microsoft Teams. Among the agenda items:

• A motion to approve the addition of technical electives lists to the Systems Design Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, academic calendars, effective September 2022;
• A motion to approve changes to the Honours Planning average requirements, effective September 2022;
• A motion to approve the administration/ownership change to the minor in tourism from the Faculty of Environment to the Faculty of Health, effective 1 September 2022;
• A motion to approve academic plan changes to the diploma in gerontology, effective September 2022;
• A motion to approve an updated list of mutually exclusive plans in the Faculty of Arts, effective September 2022;
• A motion to approve changes to the Bachelor of Arts Breadth Requirements, effective September 2022, as a BLKST (Black Studies) subject code has been created for corresponding new courses, and is a fitting addition to the Transdisciplinary Studies section of the BA Breadth Requirements;
• A motion to approve the list of courses fulfilling the undergraduate communication requirement for all Engineering degree programs, effective September 2022;
• A motion to approve updated co-operative education requirements and regulations in the Faculty of Health, effective September 2022;
• A motion to approve revisions to academic standing regulations in the Faculty of Health, effective September 2022;
• A motion to approve revisions to Health’s foundation term regulations, effective September 2022;
• A motion to approve revisions to the undergraduate communication requirement in the Faculty of Science, effective September 2022;
• A motion to formally approve the dissolution of Waterloo Research Institute in Insurance, Securities and Quantitative Finance (WatRISQ);
• A motion to approve the 2022-2023 academic calendar dates and calendar guidelines for establishing academic dates;
• A motion to approve the proposed new Diploma in Black Studies and the Diploma in Fundamentals of Anti-Racist Communication, effective September 2022;
• A motion to approve the proposed new Diploma in Fundamentals of Anti-Racist Communication, effective 1 September 2022;
• A motion to approve the proposed new Politics and Business Minor in the Faculty of Arts, effective September 2022;
• A motion to approve the proposed new Diploma in Future Cities in the Faculty of Environment, effective 1 September 2022;
• A motion to approve changes to the mechatronics option in the Faculty of Engineering, effective September 2022; and
• A motion to approve the inactivation of the Honours Tourism Development academic plan in the Faculty of Health, effective September 2022.

In addition, Vice-President, Research and International Charmaine Dean will provide Senate with the Research Annual Report.

As temperatures drop and snow and ice move in, the risk of serious injury due to slips, trips and falls increases. Each year the Safety Office receives a large number of incident reports for outdoor slips, trips and falls that occur at the same elevation and involve snow or ice. According to the Safety Office, many of these incidents are related to inappropriate footwear, inattention to weather conditions and not using maintained pathways. 

"Please plan and ensure you have proper footwear and enough time to reach your destination safely based on the weather and surface conditions," says a note from the Safety Office. "Always use maintained roads and pathways and if you encounter unsafe walking conditions, immediately report them to Plant Operations by calling ext. 43793 (24 hours a day). The green/yellow salt or sand bins that are placed throughout campus during the winter months can be also used to aid with traction on slippery areas."

"Indoor workplaces must also be kept free of slip, trip and fall hazards. Ensure good housekeeping practices are adhered to, inspect your work area and notify your supervisor about any hazards. See the Slips Trips and Falls program for more information and please ensure the Get a Grip Don’t Slip and Fall poster is posted in your work area."