Setting Students up for Success with new Programs: Future Ready and Leadership Training in Entrepreneurship

By Jane Karanassiou and Nela Maluckov, Curriculum Managers, School of Global Engagement and Education

Future Ready

This summer, the School of Global Engagement and Education (SGEE) launched the three-week Future Ready program for students aged 15 to 17. This initial session brought together 20 Canadian and international high school students from around the world to explore significant global challenges and experience first-hand the academic and innovative ecosystem of the University of Waterloo. Inspired by SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production, student teams were tasked with creating a waste reduction initiative aimed at helping the University of Waterloo achieve zero waste designation by 2035.

Classes at Renison centred upon guiding project teams through the design thinking cycle with a strong emphasis on themes of culture, innovation, and communication. In-class collaboration and student bonding were further solidified by a robust events calendar. Trips to Niagara Falls, St Jacobs Farmer’s Market and Toronto as well as activities such as Speed Friending and Karaoke provided opportunities to extend intercultural experiences. The program also offered a dynamic mix of integrated Waterloo lectures, tours, labs and hands-on workshops, providing students the opportunity to engage with all six Waterloo faculties and experience problem solving from diverse disciplinary perspectives.

Highlights for students (and instructors!) included a timely International Relations Simulation of the June Nato summit led by Political Science professor Veronica Kitchen with the follow-up opportunity to compare the success of our negotiating tactics with the actual outcomes of this Nato meeting. Trish Van Katwyk, the Director of Renison’s School of Social Work introduced us to Carewebs and Grassroots community organizing through the creation of personally meaningful zines or mini booklets, and Professor Erin O’Connell from the faculty of Environment highlighted wicked problems and the complexities of recycling. The final showcase event had teams introduce and present their social media videos of their sustainable initiatives to a panel of experts, including a representative from Waterloo’s Sustainability Office. Student-produced videos delivered a rich and eclectic blend of humor and empathy, effectively driving their messages home. As instructors more accustomed to traditional academic presentations, this was a refreshing and compelling display of creativity to engage and persuade.

As always, when looking at future sessions, feedback is instrumental to our planning and the positive response from these students has been encouraging. Planning a meaningful summer experience for young learners outside their routine academic school year is no small task, yet feedback like “this was one of the best things that happened to me” and reflections on the value of learning “something different from our normal subjects” clearly suggest we’re on the right track. Throughout the Future Ready program, students embraced the opportunity to explore new ideas, collaborate across disciplines, and engage in learning that felt fresh, relevant, and inspiring.

Leadership Training in Entrepreneurship

Another successful program launched at the end of July, welcoming 77 students from Mexico’s Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) for a 4-week Leadership Training in Entrepreneurship Program hosted by Renison and Waterloo’s Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business. Working in interdisciplinary teams, students progressed through the stages of problem identification, analysis, solutioning and venture creation with a culminating pitch competition on the final day of the program. The overarching focus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) encouraged creative approaches to addressing concerns impacting the lives of these students such as equitable access to affordable medication, reliable housing options in Mexico City, and food insecurity. The final pitches were excellent with the panel of expert judges ultimately awarding first prize to EnerChain, a venture for the real-time verification of energy sources using smart sensors and blockchain technology.

As instructors, what stood out as exceptional with this cohort of IPN students was their proactive attitude towards maximizing every learning opportunity and their consistently high levels of engagement throughout the program. Whether in classes at Renison, lectures at Conrad or visits to the SDG Ideas Factory, Velocity, Communitech or the Accelerator Centre, their openness to new experiences and ways of learning was very inspiring and we greatly valued the meaningful opportunities we had to learn from their insights and experiences.

In addition to all the hard work in class, there was of course plenty of free time to visit local attractions and even achieve the lifetime dream of visiting the Justin Bieber Museum in Stratford! Students valued learning about and immersing themselves in Waterloo and Canadian culture through the many planned excursions and events - so much so - that many of them hope to return one day for graduate studies.

Aside from a few groans about the walking distance between Renison and Engineering 7 and the unexpected heat of a Canadian summer (Why did I bring so many sweaters?), this program stands out as one where the intended outcomes were not only met but exceeded. Collaborative initiatives like this take a great deal of planning and the active involvement of multiple stakeholders. However, with feedback such as the following, we are strongly encouraged to continue and build upon this work.