Entrepreneurship

As of January 1, 2023, the pharmacists’ scope of practice has expanded across Ontario with the ability for pharmacists to assess and autonomously prescribe medications for 13 minor ailments.

While new to Ontario, this process is not a novelty, as pharmacists in other countries and Canadian provinces have been improving patient care through pharmacist-led prescribing for years.

The entrepreneurship ecosystem at Waterloo Engineering nurtures promising ideas into thriving enterprises. In our weekly Founder Fuel series, we look at new ventures and how they have benefited from that crucial early support.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — commonly known as drones — have huge potential, according to Matt McRoberts (BASc ’15, mechanical engineering).

The entrepreneurship ecosystem at Waterloo Engineering nurtures promising ideas into thriving enterprises. In our weekly Founder Fuel series, we look at new ventures and how they have benefited from that crucial early support.

In 2010, Tommy Chan and Jason Yeung (both BASc ’12, systems design engineering) were sitting in the Student Life Centre, brainstorming ideas for their fourth-year design project.

The entrepreneurship ecosystem at Waterloo Engineering nurtures promising ideas into thriving enterprises. In our weekly Founder Fuel series, we look at new ventures and how they have benefited from that crucial early support.

Nicole Howard, Rachel Blanchard, Steven Vilcacundo Molina and Kris Ma (all BASc ’22, chemical engineering) set out to develop a Capstone project that could improve the world.

“I know that sounds cheesy,” says Howard. “But we did want to make a difference.”

The Pharmasave Business Competition awards a third-year Waterloo School of Pharmacy student team a $5,000 prize for an innovative business model in the field of pharmacy.

“Every year, the Pharmasave Business Competition proves pharmacists can be entrepreneurs. Our course and the competition are unique to the School and provide students with the opportunity to practice the skills of entrepreneurship while interacting with the robust start-up ecosystem in our community,” says Dean Pacey, adjunct lecturer at the School of Pharmacy.

As an environmental engineering undergraduate nearly a decade ago, Robert Chlumsky, now a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Engineering, forged a professional relationship with his professors, Dr. James Craig and Dr. Bryan Tolson.

It was fostering that relationship and the research it produced that resulted in the trio receiving funding for Blackbird, a software and a new method for floodplain mapping that could potentially impact flood mitigation and response.

A University of Waterloo teaching lab is helping the medtech community in southwestern Ontario make great strides in their medical research. The Faculty of Health’s Human Anatomy Laboratory, which is housed in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Sciences, offers the perfect location for surgeons to test procedures on cadaver donors.