Community

The Optometry Clinic at the University of Waterloo’s School of Optometry and Vision Science, in collaboration with Essilor and Modern Optical, conducted an outreach event on August 14, 2023, to provide vision screening and eye examinations for more than 45 children and youth. The Clinic worked with the Youth Association for Academics, Athletics and Character Education (YAAACE), which is a Black-led community organization that seeks to engage children and youth from all communities, to organize this summer camp style event on campus.

Students and business leaders at the University of Waterloo are pushing back on the idea that there’s only one way to be a successful entrepreneur. It’s an idea that’s been growing in every part of the Waterloo entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Every day, we see headlines about natural disasters, political unrest, conflict and other difficult circumstances that disrupt lives around the world. For many, those disruptions impede their education. 

Velocity has launched a new program called Foundations to help students develop an innovative mindset, a skill which is becoming increasingly important.

Applicable to any career, learning how to ask great questions for a deeper understanding of a problem can be a professional lifeline, in particular due to the ubiquity of large language models like ChatGPT that is giving rise to questions about the future of job opportunities.

Across their professional activities as artist, theatre designer, and University professor, Jay Havens creates welcoming channels for indigenization, reconciliation, and decolonization.

Four and a half years ago, the VitalOne was an ambitious idea. Today, the desktop computer-sized blood diagnostics device can run comprehensive tests on comparatively small blood samples — in 20 minutes.

Made by Vital Bio, a company founded at Velocity, the VitalOne was unveiled to the public and scientific community at a conference held by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) last month, where Vital Bio also won the Disruptive Technology Award.

This past weekend, the University of Waterloo hosted its first BioBlitz, where more than 100 Waterloo community members participated as citizen scientists to record various plant and animal species across main campus. Waterloo students, staff, faculty and alumni experts led guided hike sessions and provided tips on how we can protect the University’s biodiversity.  

The road to building a company with advanced technology from the ground up can be winding. 

For those who choose to travel that road in good company, meeting a co-founder can be methodical: taking on extracurricular projects while in school, attending professional networking events, tapping into family and friendships, and networking. But whether that relationship formalizes into a solid foundation that works in the startup’s favour can depend on more nebulous components. 

Smart cities are moving towards the automation of many essential services. Quality of life for city residents relies on the safety of its buildings, roads, bridges and other infrastructures. Manual inspection of these infrastructures, besides being costly, is a tedious task that requires special skills and intense labour — especially when access to some sites, like bridges, is not easy. Due to the sheer number of bridges and inspection timelines, there is a critical backlog for inspecting bridges in Canada that requires an immediate solution.

Jack Farlow, a second-year engineering student at the University of Waterloo has achieved a remarkable feat by qualifying for the 2023 CrossFit Games. The games are a multi-day competition that brings together elite athletes from around the world to showcase their fitness and compete for the title of Fittest on Earth.

After two previous attempts, making it to the semifinals each time, Farlow secured his spot in to compete in this years’ finals taking place August 3 to 6 in Madison, Wisconsin.