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Monday, April 19, 2021
By: Zahra Sakhi
A group of University Waterloo students and staff are being honoured this month by the Cooperative Education & Internship Association (CEIA).
Third-year Computing and Financial Management students Ayman and Ammar Kamran will be recognized as co-winners of the CEIA 2020 Peggy Jarvie International Experience Award.
Meanwhile, leaders in Waterloo’s co-op program, Domenica De Bilio and Ross Johnston have been elected as members of the 2021 board for CEIA. Johnston, director of Co-operative Education, is the president-elect, while De Bilio, director of employment relations, is filling Johnston’s former role, VP of Global Networks.
Twin brothers recognized for outstanding performance in international co-op term
Winning an award is always a special achievement – sharing it with a family member is even more meaningful.
Twin brothers Ayman and Ammar accomplished that feat.
They stood out for their significant impact during their work term at Dapi, a highly progressive Y Combinator financial technology (FinTech) startup based out of Silicon Valley, USA and United Arab Emirates. Dapi (Data Aggregation and Payment Initiation), enables companies to seamlessly integrate banking APIs into their applications.
Ayman (left) and Ammar (right) express their gratitude for the award and talk about what it's like working with a twin.
As software engineering interns, Ayman and Ammar focused on streamlining financial integration processes, engineering APIs for transaction sourcing, identity-fetching and payment initiation across FinTech applications globally.
“The co-op experience at Dapi was very stimulating professionally”, says Ayman. “We’re very grateful to the entire team. The complex, intricate engineering projects we worked on offered an opportunity to learn immensely and give back within the larger FinTech ecosystem.”
CEIA will honour the Kamran’s at a virtual award ceremony, part of CEIA’s April 19-21 virtual conference.
“Despite navigating a challenging and unpredictable year, Ayman and Ammar performed exceptionally during their work terms at Dapi,” says Johnston. “I’d like to extend my sincerest congratulations to both of them for winning this award.”
Usually, CEIA honours only one student with the award. However, an exceptional and unique performance by the twin brothers earned them joint recognition.
“Working in the real world with [a twin] means you almost always have a perfect team member that you can trust and rely on,” says Ammar. “At the same time, that means every other person, who is not identical to you; you have an amazing appreciation for their strengths and personality.”
Ammar adds that combining professional experiences with a family bond was an opportunity for significant growth for the brothers.
“We learned a lot from the inspiring team at Dapi – both professionally and personally – and this will stay with us for a long time.” Ammar says. “We are beyond thankful, humbled, and grateful to the countless people who have strengthened and supported us over the years: our parents and family, our friends across all corners of the globe, our classmates, our professors, and our colleagues. This award is not for us, it’s for them and it is for all.”
Waterloo leaders also honoured by CEIA
Domenica De Bilio
Director, Employment Relations
University of Waterloo
De Bilio leads a diverse team across Canada responsible for developing new employer relationships as well as retaining and growing existing ones. Her team also supports students in their recruitment and work terms.
“As an advocate for co-operative education, I’m looking forward to joining CEIA’s community of educators, employers, researchers, students and partner agencies,” says De Bilio. “It’ll be exciting to collaborate with this group to enable students to have the best possible work-integrated learning experiences, wherever they may be located.”
Prior to joining Waterloo, De Bilio worked for 30 years in the government, not- for- profit and private sectors. She is also a member of Co-operative Education and Work Integrated Learning (Canada) and a member of the Professional Development Committee for Experiential and Work-Integrated Learning Ontario (EWO).
Ross Johnston
Executive Director,
Co-operative Education
University of Waterloo
Overseeing the world’s largest co-operative education program, Johnston helps facilitate the continuous improvement of co-op experience for students and employers. Johnston has been a regular presenter at CEIA conferences and served as VP of Global Networks since 2017. In June 2019, he was named president of EWO. He is also a past board member of CEWIL.
“Having the opportunity to contribute and lead the discussions on trends and the future of co-op, work-integrated learning and experiential education, south of our border in the U.S., enables us to continue to demonstrate Waterloo’s global leadership," says Johnston. "We also get to continue to future-proof ourselves by learning from others, which impacts our evolving program offerings for students.”