Entrepreneurship

Four first-year students finding their way to campus this September will be doing so with an extra spring in their step — one worth between $80,000 and $100,000.

The four students are winners of Schulich Leader Scholarships, the largest scholarships for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs in Canada.  The incoming Schulich Leaders distinguished themselves with high grades, leadership roles in their communities, and participation in entrepreneurial ventures.

Ten researchers from the University of Waterloo received more than $15.6 million from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to fund two networks and eight projects that will further research efforts through academic and industry collaborations.

Velocity, which will on September 28 officially celebrate its 10 year anniversary, is a comprehensive entrepreneurship program at Waterloo providing the resources and mentorship to help founders initiate and incubate high-growth startups.

Sam Pasupalak was studying computer science at the University of Waterloo in 2008 when he found out that Bill Gates was delivering a talk on campus. Pasupalak didn’t have a ticket to the Microsoft chairman’s talk — but that didn’t stop him.

Pasupalak pulled off the first of many hustles that day by carrying T-shirts and bags so that he looked like a volunteer. He got past the event security to sit in the last remaining seat in the house.

A new study from the University of Waterloo highlights a low level of awareness among youth around the proper precautions they need to take when it comes to handling food.

The study measured 32 different food-handling behaviours among Ontario high school students in grades 10 to 12. It found that fewer than 50 per cent of the recommended practices were followed by students, including basic hand hygiene and procedures to prevent cross-contamination.

Ten years ago, Velocity began as a simple experiment to bring students interested in entrepreneurship together.  Since then, it has helped shape the creation of hundreds of companies that would play a major role in Waterloo region’s startup ecosystem and beyond.

Today, Velocity has worked with more than 300 startups, employing 2,250+ people and raising more than $750 million in funding to develop exciting technologies.

More than two years after graduating, David Au-Yeung (BASc '04), Matthew Cheung (BASc '04), David Meyers (BASc '04) and Wehuns Tan (BASc '04) were all putting their engineering degrees to good use at good jobs in the working world.

But that wasn’t what they really wanted.

Close friends since their first year of Waterloo’s computer engineering program, the foursome from the Toronto area still had their sights set on becoming entrepreneurs.

It’s official!  Monday, October 29, 2018 is the Grand Opening of Engineering 7.

Attached to both E5 and E6, this seven-storey, 242,000-square-foot building will be a new vibrant home for students, faculty, research facilities and staff.

As a student of the inaugural Waterloo management engineering class, Kynan Gallagher (BASc '12) credits the program’s curriculum, his co-op work experience and classroom connections for landing the customer success lead position at a Kitchener educational platform company in 2014.