Entrepreneurship

With more than 205,000 alumni from 145 countries, our community has a real impact on the world.

Here are five young alumni who have taken their careers to the next level, disrupting industries and practices across the globe. Read on to meet these global game changers.

Fred Ngan (BMath ’07) and Michael Chan (BMath ’08)

Three Waterloo Engineering students have come up with a unique solution they feel may solve the housing crisis in Atlantic Canada’s Indigenous communities and possibly take a top award in Australia at the Hult Prize challenge, the world’s largest student social entrepreneurship competition.

A team of Management Engineering students at the University of Waterloo made the most of a second chance this week to become the big winners at an annual pitch contest for startups.

Thevany Narayanamoorthy, Dhruv Gupta, Garvita Rai, Rhea Philip and Sam Villaluz just missed the cut during a preliminary process to pick 15 finalists from over 50 applicants for the Norman Esch Entrepreneurship Awards for Capstone Design.

Graduate students at Waterloo are all working on solving important problems. But finding the right person, solving the right problem, at the right time has the special potential to become a business that can change people’s lives. 

At Waterloo, success is not always defined by job title or pay grade. See how four Waterloo alumni question common “good career advice” and are carving out a new set of rules.

The winners will receive, for the first time in the competition’s history, direct equity investments worth $50,000 each – 

I often get asked how I find the time to manage my projects. I think the answer is pretty simple — I make the time.

Every day, I dedicate myself to working towards initiatives that inspire hope and help break down barriers, around the globe and right here at home in Canada. The opportunity to impact lives through sports and languages is something I have been tremendously lucky to experience first-hand, and it all goes back to my time at UWaterloo.

Thinking about the challenges we face as a society can be overwhelming — almost paralyzing. When so much needs to be done, where do you start?

The United Nations (UN) believes you’ll start here on campus and where you live. They’ve identified our most urgent challenges and laid them out in a roadmap of 17 goals we can all work to achieve by 2030. The Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, cover everything from No Poverty (SDG 1) to Quality Education (SDG 4) and Life Below Water (SDG 14).