Waterloo’s “culture of doing”

The University of Waterloo is “definitely pretty special” because of its “spirit of getting stuff done,” says Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of the social media website, reddit.

“I’ve seen so many great companies come out of Waterloo, says Ohanian, who was on campus to speak to students on Friday. “It’s obviously something about your great engineering school, combined with the resources and encouragement to start building and creating stuff while you’re still in school, that positions Waterloo founders so well to be starting companies.”

Ohanian, a startup investor and ambassador for the Y Combinator incubator in Silicon Valley, will be at the University on Fri. Nov. 22 to promote his new book, Without Their Permission. He’s using his book tour to encourage students to be internet entrepreneurs. Waterloo is the first Canadian university on his tour of more than 70 universities.

Experiential education supports entrepreneurship

In an interview, Ohanian said Waterloo’s cooperative education program – the largest in the world – supports its “culture of doing” and is likely a reason for the high level of entrepreneurial activity on its campus.

“It seems like 21^st century education is going to have to involve a lot more of this doing, this hands-on experience,” says Ohanian. “That’s what employers and investors are looking for. It’s not so much your GPA . . . it’s what are you capable of doing?”

The Brooklyn-based entrepreneur co-founded reddit after graduating from the University of Virginia in 2005. Now a reddit board member, Ohanian focuses on social enterprise Breadpig, which donates profits to worthy causes.

He invests in more than 90 startups including Thalmic Labs, the makers of the MYO gesture control band. Founders Stephen Lake, Aaron Grant, and Matthew Bailey are Waterloo alumni and former residents of the VeloCity Garage.

Ohanian also helped launch hipmunk and ran marketing, public relations and community outreach before becoming an advisor and joining the fight against the US Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect I.P. Act.

Ohanian says the internet startup landscape is for all kinds of creative people: “Business used to be around organizing labor or money sources to make something happen. But today you don’t need a factory. Today you need a laptop…It’s just a matter of having ideas and doing them.”