Two incoming Waterloo Engineering students who have already ventured into the business world will start their studies backed by $100,000 each from the Schulich Leader Scholarships program.
David Gu of Richmond Hill and Atif Mahmud of Waterloo, both software engineering students, are among four campus-wide winners of the prestigious entrance scholarships for high school graduates pursuing interests in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.
David Gu, left, and Atif Mahmud are coming to Waterloo Engineering with Schulich Leaders scholarships worth $100,000 each.
Gu, a student at the TMS School, founded a startup company to teach other students how to develop applications for virtual reality and augmented reality.
Mahmud, who attends Waterloo Collegiate Institute, is CEO and lead developer at Flowi, an advertising startup that uses wireless communications to tell consumers about deals at nearby stores in city centres.
Across the country, 50 Schulich Leaders – 25 in engineering and 25 in the other STEM disciplines – were selected from 1,400 nominees and a potential pool of 350,000 eligible students.
“These students will make great contributions to society, both on a national and global scale,” said Seymour Schulich, a Canadian business leader and philanthropist who established the $100-million scholarship fund in 2012 to encourage the best and brightest students to become pioneers of global scientific research and innovation.
The other 2018 winners at the University of Waterloo are Advait Maybhate of Waterloo in science and Robin Wen of Saskatoon in mathematics. They will each receive $80,000 scholarships.