Entrepreneurship

Two entrepreneurs who got their start while students at the University of Waterloo have been named to the 2015 Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

Danny Yaroslavski, 23, founder of LightBot and William Zhou, 22, founder of Chalk.com, were named by Forbes in the education category for “rethinking learning with the three C’s: code, college readiness and community impact.”

When Bessma Momani teaches her students about past and current conflict in the Middle East, she tries to focus on one important point – the human side of struggle.

The Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association (APMA) Connected Vehicle Technology Demonstrator, also known as the Connected Lexus

The vehicles of tomorrow are taking shape today at the University of Waterloo — home to the largest concentration of automotive researchers at any Canadian university.

A startup working to bring eye exams to impoverished and remote communities globally was the big winner at the fall Velocity Fund Finals (VFF).

EyeCheck is one of four Waterloo-based startups that each won a $25,000 grant from Velocity, an entrepreneurship program at the University of Waterloo. EyeCheck also won an additional $10,000 as the top hardware startup in the competition.

Startup founder and investor Alexis Ohanian liked what he saw when he came to the University of Waterloo last year on his book tour. This year he’s back with his show, Small Empires, to find out why Waterloo is such a hub for entrepreneurship.

Vitamin D, known as the “sunshine vitamin,” is essential to human health and now a team of Waterloo entrepreneurs want to give you a way to test for it in the comfort of your home.

Vitameter, a startup founded by three University of Waterloo nanotechnology engineering students, is developing an at-home testing device that will give you results in minutes rather than going to a lab and waiting days.

Skin-friendly markers that use ultraviolet-responsive ink to signal when it’s time to reapply sunscreen earned University of Waterloo startup Suncayr a runner-up finish in a prestigious international design competition.

What would it be worth to be able to predict how a new movie will do at the box office before it’s ever released?

Waterloo math grad Jack Zhang says the information is gold for the film industry so he founded a startup, called BoxOfficePrediction. His company is based on a mathematical model he created that predicts the minimum amount of revenue a movie will generate in the first week it’s released.

Suncayr, a company formed by nanotechnology engineering students in Waterloo’s Velocity program was announced as an international runner up in James Dyson Awards on Thursday. The James Dyson Award, founded by the British industrial designer and inventor of the Dyson bagless vacuum, runs in 18 countries.

While working at a co-op job in Hong Kong, Waterloo student Robert Beamish’s boss asked him to organize a business pitch competition in Beijing.

Then she told Beamish he would be the first presenter to make a pitch.

“It was the push I needed,” says Beamish, a fourth-year economics and business student in the Faculty of Arts.