Over the past one year, the Science and Business program has continued to grow and flourish through student and alumni achievements, in-person events and activities, and additions to our program resources. To celebrate the end of the term, we are excited to share our recent program highlights and developments with you in the newsletter below.
The following topics will be covered in detail in the remainder of this newsletter:
The Science and Business program is working in collaboration with the School of Pharmacy on the launch of a brand-new master’s program, and we want your feedback. Please fill out this survey and be entered in a draw for a chance to win a gift card of your choice!
The Science and Business Advisory Council was formed about one year ago in April 2022 for the purpose of supporting the activities of the program through the provision of industry knowledge and expertise. Our council is comprised of 6 total members across a variety of industries as follows:
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Amir Alinaghian, Product Manager at Kijiji: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amiralinaghian/
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Michelle Liu, Clinical Trial Coordinator at UHN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mtliu3/
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Pablo Eder, Cofounder at Makeship: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pabloeder/
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Jonathan Shepherd, Head of Fintech Corporate Development at RBC: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-shepherd-51b9b124/
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Nicola Blue, Vice President and General Manager of Inhouse Creative Agency at American Express: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicola-blue-773572/
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Joe Han, Vice President at QUDOOR Technologies Ltd.: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hanjoe/
It was our pleasure to have invited the members of the advisory council back to the University of Waterloo on January 27th for a Science and Business Advisory Council Fireside Chat, in which the returning members took the opportunity to network and share their career journeys with the students of our program. We’re looking forward to continuing our collaboration with the advisory council and providing them with further opportunities to own personal projects that will support program activities for the remainder of their term with the council.
In September 2022, an exclusive mentorship platform was launched for Science & Business students and alumni, providing them with opportunities to build relationships through mentorship and networking. The platform was developed in collaboration with Ten Thousand Coffees and has 550+ members to date. For more information and to register, please visit this website. Thank you to everyone who participated; we appreciate your support. If you have any questions, concerns and/or feedback, please contact us at sabprogr@uwaterloo.ca.
This year, we began the process of implementing a scholarship for our program called the Science and Business Future Horizons Scholarship. This scholarship is valued at $2,000 will be provided annually to a full-time undergraduate student enrolled in year two, three or four in the Science and Business program. During the 2022 Giving Tuesday campaign, our alumni community and extended networks supported us in surpassing our goal of 15 donors to bring us a total of $4610 in scholarship contributions across 20 donors.
As we continue to build up the scholarship financially, we encourage and appreciate your donations to the Science and Business Future Horizons Scholarship at this website.
At the beginning of the Winter 2023 term, our program launched a new extra-curricular platform called the Founders’ Circle, which aims to connect Science and business students and alumni who are founders of their own businesses (whether that be start-up or pro-bono consulting) to other Science and Business students who are interested in this space, and connect them to the entrepreneurial resources that are available to them on campus as well.
To learn more about the Founders’ Circle and how to get involved, please visit this website.
As a reminder, we have created a program email for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and relevant stakeholders to use as a first point of contact. Going forward, for all program-related inquiries, please reach out to scienceandbusinessprogram@uwaterloo.ca or sabprogr@uwaterloo.ca (same inbox).
Science and Business students continue to thrive and succeed in the program even outside of an academic context. It is an honour to highlight the achievements of the following students that have been brought to our attention in the past year:
Darren Baine runs two charity organizations in Uganda focused on the social growth and development of youth-based institutions across the country, for which he made Uganda’s Top 40 under 40. This is a wonderful achievement for Darren and everything he represents, including our program. Congratulations, Darren!
Earlier this year, the Science and Business program collaborated with Bisman Kaur’s company, Kaurtino, an environmentally conscious e-commerce company that manufactures and sells luxurious handmade scrunchies made from high quality and repurposed fabrics. Bisman worked with the Science and Business program over the course of the Fall term to create limited edition Science and Business scrunchies which were made available for sale at the W Store. Thank you for supporting the development of our brand, Bisman!
We are equally excited to celebrate the ways in which the alumni of our program have been making us proud out in the world with the following stories:
The Science and Business program was so proud to be able to nominate 3 strong program alumni for the the WXN Canada’s Top 100 Women competition including Mona Shah, the Chief and Legal Officer at Kellogg Canada, Olga Shmaidenko, the founder of WOW Women, and Sophia Dhrolia, the Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Interac Corporation. One of the winners of the competition was Simone Harrington, a 2006 Science and Business graduate who currently holds the position of Vice President at the Institute for Better Health at Trillium Health Partners. Congratulations to these ladies for embodying success and being recognized for it on a national scale!
Next, we have Helen Huang; a Science and Business alumna who founded an online school that helps provide non-traditional tech talent with a space for learning by collaborating with an online community, called Co.Lab. Helen and her co-founder Sefunmi were recently published in the Forbes 30 under 30 list in Education, which is a huge step in their entrepreneurial careers. Congratulations to both Helen and Sefunmi on this recent achievement!
Finally, we wanted to spotlight our alumnus Soham Suvarnkar, who represented Canada and Deloitte at the 2022 SAS Hackathon where the goal was to tackle some of the most challenging business and humanitarian issues by using SAS Analytics, AI, and Microsoft Azure. Soham’s solution of Disaster Response AI aimed to provide government and relevant organizations with vulnerability checks and disaster insights for better resource allocation, insurance modelling, and disaster response planning, and was a winner across the 1300 individuals that participated over 75 countries. Congratulations Soham on this big win!
As another group of graduating students from the 2023 cohort prepare to cross the stage in June and October, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank some of our graduating student leaders for their contributions to the program as follows:
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Adiba Ali, 2022 Fusion Conference President
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Ali Paiwand, WatSolve Group Managing Consultant
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Monika Molka, WatSolve Managing Consultant
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Anoushka Tyagi, Founders’ Circle Program Coordinator
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Ayesha Asif, SBAT Co-Lead
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Joieta Choudhury, Strategic Initiatives Coordinator
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Jennifer Ha, 2019 Fusion Conference President
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Ludshiya Manivannan, 2022 SBAT Co-Lead
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Souhail Aboulhoda, 2022 SBSA President
These leaders have tirelessly put their valuable time and effort into the development of our program and have contributed to strengthening the Science and Business program landscape for years to come. We could not be more grateful for your commitment and hard work, and only expect the best from the futures that await you.
On behalf of the program, congratulations to the entire graduating class of 2023, and best of luck to each of you on your future endeavours. We have no doubt that you will continue to make our program proud.
