Entrepreneurship

Velocity is a comprehensive entrepreneurship program at Waterloo.

Ten companies will compete for four prizes of $25,000. Judges will present one winner with an additional $10,000 for the top hardware pitch. Another 10 startups will compete for one of three awards of $5,000.

Companies competing for the Winter 2016 Velocity Fund $25K are:

How can innovators and entrepreneurs create meaningful solutions to help people achieve their goals without roadblocks? Part of the answer is collaboration, saying yes, and lots of sticky notes, according to Karin Schmidlin of Waterloo’s Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship, and Technology Centre.

The world is full of problems, but not all problems are created equal - some have a much larger impact on people and businesses.

That’s why Larry Smith, an expert in entrepreneurship and adjunct associate professor at the University of Waterloo, wants to reveal the Top Ten commercial problems so entrepreneurs can focus on solving problems that matter. 

A Waterloo startup is staking out new ground in the increasingly connected business and security worlds of robots, drones, and machine-to-machine communication with an Internet of Things platform that monitors and tracks using 99.5 per cent less bandwidth and cloud resources.

Most parents are probably happy if their children graduate from university and get a job, but since Armen Bakirtzian (BASc ’08 Mechatronics) left the University of Waterloo’s mechatronics engineering department he has managed to co-found a company that could improve hip replacement surgery all over the world, helping untold numbers of surgeons — including his own father.

Two University of Waterloo alumni, who began developing their smart workout gear while still electrical engineering students, have landed on the 2016 Forbes Top 30 Under 30 list.

Before Tina Chan began her Health Studies degree at the University of Waterloo, she had never pictured herself as an entrepreneur.

“I had zero interest in entrepreneurship before I connected with the Waterloo community,” Chan laughs. “None at all!”

The Faculty of Applied Health Sciences student had a driving passion was for mental health, not business development. But Waterloo’s startup incubation ecosystem isn’t only about tech: it also fosters social change.

First major collaboration between Toronto and Waterloo innovation hubs will assist regional startups in global expansion

Students from the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University will put their coding skills to the test in order to design unique software solutions at the first-ever Waterloo Hacks hackathon challenge.

University of Waterloo students who want to learn about entrepreneurship and collaborate with like-minded people won’t have to go far to find a space to study, create, and access resources such as startup coaching and workshops.