Entrepreneurship

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.

The path to commercialization is long and winding and its twists and turns necessitate mentors along the way, attendees heard at the symposium Demystifying Commercialization, which explored how to best succeed on the path from research to commercialization.

Graduate students, research fellows and faculty attended the half-day event hosted by Velocity, Waterloo Commercialization Office (WatCo) and the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC).

Primary care physicians are sending referrals with a keyhole view of the network of specialists available — at great cost to patients — and RelayMD founders Dhvani Patel and Dr. Ali Qamar are pioneering a way to improve the process.

RelayMD was one of four finalists to receive $5,000 at Velocity’s $5K Pitch Competition in November. Patel and Qamar said winning the competition is one stop on the journey to solve this “perpetual and recurring issue” in the Canadian health-care system.

With technology ranging from saltwater batteries, autonomous on-wire robots, and voice-activated monitoring devices, six early-stage companies are joining Velocity full-time through Venture Ready, a program for full-time founders to assess their company’s market preparedness.

A day where a veterinary professional can spend two fewer hours on administrative work means more meaningful care for pets. Risk assessment engines powered by robots translate to a future without power outages.

Past and present students, donors, faculty and staff gathered to celebrate the exceptional achievements of eight alumni and a long-time supporter of the Faculty.