Henriëtta van Niekerk and her startup Skrimp.ai secured the E-Launch Award of $5,000 from the University of Waterloo's Enterprise Co-op program.
Naimah Venezia (BGBDA ’25) began her entrepreneurial journey at age seven, inspired by her brother and the book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad.” She founded CoinWa, a gamified financial literacy app for teens, to make financial education fun and accessible. The Global Business and Digital Arts (GBDA) program at the University of Waterloo equipped her with essential skills in business, technology, and design. Through the E-Co-op program, Naimah developed CoinWa with support from mentors and employed fellow students. As she graduates, Naimah aims to enhance financial literacy among young people, preparing them for future financial success.
Presented by Co-operators, the uXperience Design Jam for Spring 2025 is all about Omnichannel Opportunities. Help reimagine how we can spark leads and build trust—online, offline, and everywhere in between.
This Design Jam runs from June 13th - 20th, starting asynchronously from June 13th - 19th, then in-person on June 20th for final prep and presentations to the Co-operator judging team.
Congratulations to Dr. Noorin Manji for receiving the Arts Award for Excellence in Teaching! Dean Alexie Tcheuyap and the Arts Honours and Awards committee are pleased to announce the results of the 2025 Arts Awards for Excellence in Service, Teaching, and Research. The awards recognize outstanding contributions from faculty and staff, with Dr. Manji being honored for her exemplary teaching over the past five years. The awards will be presented this Fall at the annual Celebration of Arts event.
Researchers at the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business challenge the belief that Virtual Reality (VR) inherently fosters perspective-taking in their article, “Seeing Is Not Thinking: Testing capabilities of VR to Promote Perspective-Taking.” They argue that VR's potential as an "empathy machine" relies on intentional design that promotes active cognitive engagement. Through experiments, they found that perspective-taking is enhanced when users are prompted with specific tasks, encouraging them to consider the character's viewpoint. This study, which received the Best Paper Award at IEEE VR, underscores the importance of purposeful VR design to effectively harness its empathetic capabilities.
Ten years of preparing students for new roles, new industries and new horizons, Alum and Virtuous Waste award-winning team member reflects on how GBDA set her up with the skills for a career in UX Design.
Students will showcase their work and discuss their approach to the 2025 Service Design Challenge, an international competition focused on service design for global issues. This year, they collaborated with IBM mentors to create innovative products and services that support sustainable development and equitable progress. Join us on April 4 to see firsthand the skills and knowledge our students have developed.
BLEND: What to expect
At Blend, you'll connect with like-minded professionals, hear stories of designers and leaders facing the future and redefining realities, and participate in workshops that will help you in your industry.
This year features keynotes and workshops from industry leaders and the BLEND after-party. And the best part? You'll be surrounded by people who are just as passionate about breaking boundaries as you are. We're talking about entrepreneurs, creatives, and boundary-pushing thinkers who will inspire you to think bigger and bolder than ever before.
Over the day, you'll be inspired as we hear inspiring stories of people in our community of designers breaking boundaries and overcoming obstacles to redefine our world.
We'd love for you to be part of the conversation. We promise it'll be worth the investment.
Join us on March 1, 2025 at the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business. This event includes refreshments, lunch, and light appetizers at our networking social evening.
For more information including schedule and speaker line up please check out the Blend website.
Three student projects from the University of Waterloo Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business will be showcased at the Lights On Stratford festival, running until January 19, 2025. These projects, part of the GBDA 412 – Special Topics in Media Architecture course, highlight the students' ability to merge technology and the arts.
Under the guidance of David Han, students created interactive installations reflecting on local, non-human activity. The top three projects selected are:
The course emphasizes thorough research and iterative feedback, culminating in a final presentation to a panel of community representatives.
Three student projects from GBDA 412 – Special Topics in Media Architecture will be featured in Lights On Stratford, an annual city-wide festival, starting December 13. The course, designed and taught by David Han, a media artist and PhD candidate in Cinema & Media Arts at York University, reflects the students’ ability to bring technology and the arts together.
Earlier this term, student teams presented their installations to a panel consisting of representatives from Lights On, the City of Stratford, and the Stratford School. The selections are: