On March 15, 2014, Waterloo hosted its third TEDxUW event in which Waterloo students and faculty independently organized a licensed TED conference. The similarities between uWaterloo’s motto, “Ideas Start Here,” and TED’s slogan, “Ideas Worth Spreading,” made the choice of taking TED back to its roots an even more appropriate theme which is familiar to any who have visited the TED website to watch a talk. The focus was to present ideas that started at uWaterloo, then sharing these innovations presented by influential members of the community. The QNC was considered the perfect venue last year due to its atmosphere of innovation and forward-thinking. That claim becomes questionable as the event did not take place at the university this year, but rather at the Communitech Hub in Kitchener’s historic Tannery District. Being in the center of start-ups, multinational companies, technology incubators, and an accelerator is the perfect environment to host the talks.
As always, the event was available for viewers at home (or on campus) to stream the talks live as if they were there. With this year’s line up of speakers, many must have set their alarms early to wake up on Saturday morning to stream the event. The featured speakers list included students, professors, founders, directors, and even CTOs, presenting to the viewer thought-provoking ideas from all perspectives. For those fortunate enough to attend the event, it is important to note that the catering was excellent and, needless to say, was taken advantage of to its fullest.
Between talks, attendees had an opportunity to visit booths and demonstrations from various Waterloo clubs and organizations including the Nanorobotics Group, UW Toastmasters, and many more. The UW Water boys opened and reopened (after breaks) the talks with their amazing acapella performance as always. Assad Habib was the first to speak, as he is the Chair of this year’s TEDxUW which would not have been possible without him. He made it clear that this was only possible because “execution is the key to success”; let’s just hope he never becomes a dictator.
The main highlights of the event were diverse but all influential, to begin, Mike Kirkup, the director of Velocity, Waterloo’s own start-up incubator spoke. Out of any talk, his focus on the restraint of time and how to truly be productive by demonstrating the tricks and decisions he makes, gave the listener many ideas that they can go home and implement right after the talk. It was something that we can use more of from some TED talks. Another unique speaker was associate professor and Canada Research Chair, Dr. Frank Gu of the University of Waterloo. His talk on the use of nanotechnology to create nanoparticles for cleaning water in areas lacking access to clean water truly demonstrated why the world needs nanotechnology. His video demonstrating how a simple magnet can be used to filter the nanoparticles back out of the water (which went from tinted to clear) displayed how close we are to actually implementing these ideas. Finally, it’s difficult to skip the CTO of Christie Digital, Dr. Paul Salvini, and his talk about what influenced him growing up to get to where he is now, reminding us that there’s nothing wrong with failing, as long as you learn from the experience.
TedxUW is an impressive and captivating experience every year, that should be viewed online if not in person by the students of uWaterloo. Do yourself a favour and be sure to watch the talks yourself if you missed them at www.tedxuw.com. Who knows, maybe you’ll have an idea worth sharing in the near future.
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