The founding fathers of the University of Waterloo truly embodied the entrepreneurial spirit of this region – setting out to establish a university where the world’s greatest challenges could be solved, with education at the core of this mission. Over 50 years later, thanks in large part to Waterloo’s innovative creator-owned intellectual property policy, UW continues to lead the way. This time, it’s in entrepreneurship education and the fostering and building of technology companies.
Entrepreneurship is a key foundational pillar in Waterloo’s strategic plan, and the Faculty of Engineering is leading the way in entrepreneurship education at the Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre. Housed in the David Johnston Research and Technology Park in North campus, the Conrad Centre runs programs for entrepreneurs at the undergraduate and graduate level. Our Enterprise Co-op program gives students the opportunity to start their own business on their co-op term with mentorship from the Conrad Centre. Our Bridging Entrepreneurs to Students program (BETS) connects first year engineering students with local start-up companies for short work placements similar to a co-op term. Conrad is probably best known for our Masters of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET), a graduate program that prepares students for careers as start-up founders, consultants at major technology companies, or small business owners. All programs at Conrad take experiential learning to the next level: you don’t learn about building companies at Conrad – you actually build them.
The entrepreneurial options at Waterloo don’t stop there. All across campus, students have been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and are participating in different clubs, societies, programs, and award competitions. Here is just a sampling of these options.
The University of Waterloo Entrepreneurship Society: brings entrepreneurial students together through various events throughout the year.
The Norman Esch Entrepreneurship Award for Capstone Design: provides a minimum of six awards, ranging in value from $5,000 – $10,000 each, for student teams enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering’s Fourth-Year Capstone Design Project. The awards are open to student teams from all departments within the Faculty of Engineering.
VeloCity: students can participate in the VeloCity Campus, live in the Residence, or build their business in the Garage. With varying levels of engagement, entrepreneurially inclined students can meet like-minded peers to develop new companies, work together on innovative ideas, or brainstorm the next big thing! Once a term, VeloCity holds a pitch-competition called “Demo Day,” in which student teams pitch their startup companies for a chance to win up to $1,000 in prize money, or one of four coveted VeloCity Venture Fund (VVF) prizes of $25,000.
St. Paul’s Greenhouse: a new venture on campus launching in the fall, 2013. Greenhouse, like the VeloCity residence, is a residence for social entrepreneurs, where they can live and work with like-minded peers throughout the school year.
The University of Waterloo’s Stratford Campus: entrepreneurship is baked into Stratford’s programs, such as the Bachelors in Global Business and Digital Arts, and the Master of Digital Experience Innovation. Moreover, The Stratford Accelerator Centre was recently launched in partnership with Waterloo and The Accelerator Program. The program operates on the same principles as the Waterloo Accelerator Centre, providing infrastructure and mentorship for start-ups and early stage companies.
With an enhanced focus on entrepreneurship, Waterloo is poised to churn out the next round of highly successful technology companies to join the ranks of Blackberry, Desire2Learn, Dalsa, Certicom, Maplesoft, and more recently Kik, BufferBox, Thalmic Labs, Clearpath Robotics, and Pebble Technology. For budding entrepreneurs, there is no better place to study and live entrepreneurship than in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo!
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