Current students

Naimah Venezia (GBDA’25), named one of Waterloo’s Top 10 Entrepreneurs to Watch during Global Entrepreneurship Week 2025, is redefining financial education with CoinWa—a gamified app that teaches teens essential money skills like budgeting, saving, and investing. Combining tech innovation with design thinking, Venezia is challenging norms in financial literacy and empowering the next generation through entrepreneurship.

Three student-designed installations will be featured within Destination Stratford’s Welcome Centre.

46 students from the course “GBDA 412 – Special Topics in Digital Culture” were challenged to create large-scale interactive media art pieces for the Lights On festival, inspired by the Thirteen Grandmother Moons stories, an Indigenous knowledge tradition. Students drew inspiration from this tradition to create installations that explore light as a symbol of knowledge, community, and continuity.

Dr. Ville Mäkelä and colleagues at Waterloo’s Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business are redefining education through Canada’s first large-scale VR-based 3D design course. Using tools like Gravity Sketch and immersive headsets, their innovative approach blends creativity and technology, preparing students for the future of digital design. This initiative sets new standards for interactive learning and showcases Waterloo’s leadership in VR education.

100 years after The Great Gatsby, GBDA alum Kristen Fajardo releases a speculative, queer cyberpunk reimagining of the American classic. Her background in UX and the tech industry shaped both the novel’s content and the entrepreneurial strategies behind its launch.

At the 2025 Celebration of Arts, Dr. Noorin Manji was honoured with the Arts Award for Excellence in Teaching for her outstanding contributions to pedagogy and mentorship.

The Stratford School is proud to share that Dr. Daniel Harley is among the 2024 Outstanding Performance Award recipients.