Students admitted to Global Business and Digital Arts are invited to this special event!
Students who have received an Offer of Admission to Waterloo, and their families, are invited to join us on this special visit day to meet with current students, speak with professors, and tour the residences.
Our lives are increasingly dependent on the digital technologies on which we find ourselves progressively dependent. Join faculty members Philip Boyle and Christine McWebb from the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business for a discussion on what it means to be living in an age of digital innovations – advances that both enhance and disrupt established ways of doing business, scientific enterprise, and everyday life. We will explore key topics such as privacy, the generational divide, and the benefits and challenges of using online platforms to communicate.
As members of the TELUS Service Design team, when we were given the opportunity to focus on retail accessibility, we were nervous and excited. The experience of this project was transformative and pushed us to become better and more inclusive designers. The lessons learned and insights gained from this work have continued to inform our approach to design and evolved our practice.
Konrad Group is hosting this live Q and A.
Interviewing as an incoming grad can be daunting especially during the COVID pandemic. What makes an application stand out? What do you need to prepare? Hear from designers who made their way through this transition and are now transforming industries with design thinking. We have advice for different types of design interviews and will walk you through how to navigate them effectively. This talk is designed to prepare you for your job hunt and empower you to make the most of your opportunities!
There's no doubt that 2020 was a crazy and challenging year. A large chunk of that year was spent in lockdown. The experience of being confined to our houses during a pandemic has led us to seek some sort of escape. And for many students at the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business, that escape was unlocked by art.
"The Creator's Collective annual gallery, Spectra, is live now! For those who may be unaware, the Creator's Collective Gallery hosts a yearly exhibition for artists to showcase their creative work or recent artistic activities. Given the uncertainties of Covid-19, we will be holding Spectra online through a VR museum curation platform called ArtSteps.
Indigenous Speakers Series: Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan
You’re invited to Research Talks, a public event and panel discussion featuring guest speakers Kesha Bodawala - P & P Optica, Evan Jones - Stitch Media, and Sirisha Rambhatla and Will Zhao - University of Waterloo.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), the study of machines and software that exhibit intelligence, is transforming every aspect of society, from financial services, technology, healthcare, manufacturing, and more. AI is dependent on data, that is, AI uses data to make predictions so humans can make data-driven decisions. With the explosion of data over the past two decades, there is an AI tsunami on our threshold. So, we are left with the question, “Where will AI take us?”
Will Zhao is an Assistant Professor at the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business, University of Waterloo. He earned his Ph.D. from the French Grande Ecole EM Lyon Business school and pursued his postdoctoral research at Stanford University. He is an interdisciplinary researcher interested in studying innovation from organizational, educational, and engineering perspectives, particularly using multimodal methods that draw on semiotics and/or artificial intelligence techniques. His most recent research on artificial intelligence has been published in leading journals such as IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics.
Kesha Bodawala is the Model Development Lead at P&P Optica (PPO), based in Waterloo, ON. At PPO, she oversees the Machine Learning Team. She works with the team to develop models to assess the quality of meat products. Kesha has a Master's degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering with a focus on machine learning and a Bachelor's degree in Electronics Engineering.
Evan Jones is the founder of Stitch Media, an interactive media production services company which tells stories using new technology and timeless techniques. A two-time Emmy Award winner, Evan’s work combines web, mobile and games with TV, film, radio, and the real world. He has been recognized as a 'Top 10 New Media Groundbreaker' by the Bell Fund and chosen as one of the ‘most innovative and influential minds in McMaster history’ by his alma mater. His interactive documentary work has won ‘Best in Electronic Culture’ at the UNESCO World Summit and his experience with branded entertainment has won ‘Best in Digital Marketing’ by the Digi Awards. Evan has guest lectured on the art & business of interactive story internationally at the Canadian Film Centre, the Australian Film, Television & Radio School and the University of Southern California. He has consulted for the Smithsonian, Greenpeace, Microsoft, Disney, NBC, Universal, Nickelodeon, and 20th Century Fox on the future of entertainment.
Sirisha Rambhatla is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo, where she leads the Critical ML Lab as the director. Her research focusses on developing deep learning-based reliable artificial intelligence (AI) models for critical real-world decision making in surgery and healthcare, covid spread, climate change, and intelligent manufacturing and aviation using spatiotemporal modelling, representation learning, and explainable AI. Her inter-disciplinary work spans both theory and practice of machine learning (ML), has been published at top ML venues such as NeurIPS, ICLR, KDD, IJCAI, AAAI, and clinical venues such as AMIA, Surgery, American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. Recipient of the 2021 Merit Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Research at the University of Southern California, Dr. Rambhatla received her Ph.D. (EE) from the University of Minnesota -- Twin Cities in 2019.
Pizza and non-alcoholic beverages will be provided.
Donations of non-perishable food items for the Salvation Army - Stratford Food Bank will be accepted.