To some people, a TV set is an object associated with wasting time. For Mike Volker, video terminals represented an opportunity to boost the productivity of computer science students and technology professionals around the world.
A robot designed to safely defuse landmines without an explosion was one of six major winners at the 2016 Norman Esch Capstone Design Awards competition for University of Waterloo engineering students.
Landmine Boys’ five founders are mechanical engineering students who will graduate this spring. Their impressive pitch won them $10,000 to help cover startup and other costs.
Velocity is an entrepreneurship program at Waterloo, providing the knowledge, space, community, and funding that startups need to thrive. In addition to receiving a share of today’s $125,000 in funding, today’s winners will be admitted to the Velocity Garage, the largest free startup incubator in North America.
The 15 finalists competing in the third-annual Norman Esch Entrepreneurship Awards for Capstone Design have 90 seconds make the case for their projects. Judges selected them from a field of applicants who participated in the Capstone Design symposia recently held at Waterloo. More than 700 senior engineering students spent months designing and building the more than 150 projects showcased at that event.
Date: Wednesday, March 30, 2016
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.