Awards, Honours and Rankings

It was an event well-attended, although presented entirely virtually for the first time ever.

Within the initial 12 hours, Velocity’s virtual Fund Pitch Competition (VFPC) garnered more than one thousand pageviews through its new VFPC video portal — a page designed specifically for this term’s competing entrepreneurs. Eleven companies went head-to-head in hopes of receiving up to $400,000 in pre-seed investments.

Although graduates cannot be together to celebrate their spring convocation on campus, the University of Waterloo hopes to make their achievement a more memorable experience with a personalized video.

The videos were made using a product created by Vidyard, a video platform for business based in Kitchener, that was founded by two Waterloo alumni. Michael Litt (BASc ’11) and Devon Galloway (BASc ’10) founded Vidyard in 2010.

When Hurricane Harvey slammed into the Texas gulf coast in 2017, it reminded many of the fatal devastation of hurricane Katrina a decade earlier. For some, mostly the Black community from New Orleans who rebuilt their lives in Houston suburbs, Harvey was like a recurring nightmare.

When he was an undergraduate in Winnipeg, Harrison Oakes (MA ’16) witnessed the difficulty of promoting change for marginalized groups when he sat in on hearings for Manitoba’s proposed Bill 18. People argued that they couldn’t see how the legislation for anti-bullying to protect LGBTQ+ youth applied to all kids.

The University of Waterloo is proud to announce that two of its students will receive one of Canada’s highest honours in academia — the Governor General’s Gold Medal.

The Accelerator Centre (AC) recently announced their new COVID-19 Support and Recovery Cohort of its AC JumpStart program, and two Waterloo students, Jaden Pereira and Aaron Paul, were selected to receive $30,000 in seed funding and $10,000 in-kind business supports to accelerate the launch of their startup TyltGo.

Mark Giesbrecht will become the 12th dean of the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Mathematics. He will commence his five-year appointment on July 1, 2020.

The distinguished computer scientist has nearly 20 years’ experience at Waterloo and will leverage his abilities as an administrator, teacher, and researcher to lead the Faculty of Mathematics.

University students who have been anticipating their graduation — complete with celebrations, final recitals and capstone project presentations — are struggling with the abrupt end to campus activity as a result of COVID-19 closures. 

The setback prompted Mykayla Turner, who has called Conrad Grebel University College a second home during her time studying health studies and music at the University of Waterloo, to record her year-end recital in the Grebel Chapel.