Tuesday, April 11, 2017

AC JumpStart applications due May 11

A Dunlop Motorsport engineer uses HH Timing during the 6 Hours of Spa race in Belgium.

Andrew Hall has two passions – racing and entrepreneurship. With some help from a $60,000 AC JumpStart-University of Waterloo award, he combined both and turned an innovation into a business.  

Andrew’s software tool, HH Timing, uses machine learning to analyze data like competitor performance, ambient conditions, tire pressure, and driver condition to provide recommendations to race teams in real time. Almost 20 teams in World Endurance Championship races around the world use HH Timing, including 24 Hours of Le Mans, 24 Hours of Daytona, and FIA Formula One World Championship circuits.

Andrew is one of 25 AC JumpStart – University of Waterloo recipients, and applications are now open for the next round of funding. Alumni who earned their last Waterloo degree within five years and are passionate about commercializing an innovation and starting a business can apply for AC JumpStart by May 11.

Funded by FedDev Ontario and the University of Waterloo, AC JumpStart is delivered through the Accelerator Centre and provides early stage technology startups with the seed capital, mentorship, and market-readiness tools needed to build a business in today’s knowledge economy.

MFA Thesis exhibition opens April 13

The University of Waterloo Art Gallery (UWAG) is staging an exhibition of the MFA thesis work of two students from April 13 to 29.

In Gallery One is Jess Lincoln's "An Interior."

"What if I painted wallpaper?" says Lincoln's artist statement. "This proposition relates to my interest in the psychological and social function of décor and decorative labour. An Interior is an investigation through the lens of my body and experience, and the installation serves to emphasize this line of inquiry. The paintings that cover the walls alternate between large and narrow panels. The imagery is domestic. The large panels are structured by a repeated geometric quilt pattern and each contains one large central ‘figure’, which might be my body or a substitute—a mass of flowers, a heap of clothing. The narrow panels consist of smaller paintings where the images are more varied: a pair of boxed pantyhose, the guts of a miniature pumpkin, an empty photo frame. A figure wearing a bedsheet, like a child’s Halloween ghost costume, appears as a gesturing guide. Floral patterns repeat throughout. Desaturated purples, peaches, blues and beiges are punctuated by patterns of metallic gold and black. The overall effect is of being engulfed in a complex and claustrophobic domestic space."

Lincoln received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from NSCAD University in 2012, and completed an exchange program in painting at Kookmin University in Seoul, South Korea. In 2016, she travelled to England to work with painter Sigrid Holmwood as a recipient of the Keith and Win Shantz Fellowship, and was awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant.

In Gallery Two is Alexis Grey Hildreth's "9 Sum Sorcery."

"9 Sum Sorcery is a free-form game system; a single-player occultural study; a ritualized re-negotiation of post-consumer packaging and retail detritus—cardboard backing, foam packing, clamshell casing, box inserts, rubber bands, and tagging barbs," says the artist's statement. "'The Player' pursues alchemical goals, across, beneath, and within the deconstructed space of vintage board gamesChaos and Merlin. These archaic modes of entertainment are seized upon by the imagination of The Player in an exasperated attempt at the regeneration and renewal of self and world through intuitive play. The Player's desire to simultaneously project narrative onto, and remove narrative from the components in play further complicates the game. Combining multidisciplinary sculptural elements and video, 9 Sum Sorcery encourages engagement in a spiritual ordeal, where the potential for transformation through obsessive gameplay can readily become an eerily paralyzing psychosis."

Hildreth is a multidisciplinary artist. He received a BFA from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2014 and is currently pursing an MFA from the University of Waterloo where he is a recipient of the Keith and Win Shantz Fellowship. 

"Please join us in celebrating the work of these promising artists," says the UWAG. These exhibitions are free and open to the public.

An opening reception will take place on Thursday, April 13 from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Take a snap for sustainability with photo contest

If you’re looking for a simple way to participate in Earth Month, why not submit a photo to the Sustainability Office’s Photo Contest by April 21? 

All you have to do is send a sustainability-related photo taken on campus to sustainability.coop@uwaterloo.ca, which can include a pic of you taking sustainable transportation, consuming local or fair trade food, and more.

For full details and terms of reference, please visit the contest page.