Thanks to Waterloo community for a great day of activities and discussions.
We started our day at Velocity, a residence created by the University of Waterloo’s Sean Van Koughnett for entrepreneurially-minded students. We met Jesse Rodgers, the community manager, and Virginia McLellan, the recruiter for Velocity.
Velocity wants to become a mecca for entrepreneruship. They’re considering things such as opening the residence to any entrepreneurial-minded student across Canada. Students spend at least four months in residence to develop their ideas, meet other like-minded students, and get connected to the community to broaden their networks and increase their changes of success. Velocity’s students, David Wilkin andPaul Butler, showed off their projects including FroshPerks.
StartupCamp – “Serious Ediition” then took place at the Accelerator Centre, Waterloo’s premier incubator space. Thanks to Communitech and AC staff for helping StartupCamp Instigators Jesse Rodgers and Mic Berman pull off an impressive pitch session that featured 18 companies. Companies ranged from someone with an idea just emerging into alpha, university professors looking to commercialize their technology, and fully fledged in-market companies. Here is a sampling of those who presented.
Occasions Network
LinoWave
Enflick
DossierView
Bayalink
Bookfly
Allerta
Crez
We finished the day with dinner with a great group of community instigators, founders, and bloggers to discuss the opportunities to better support and enable the Waterloo innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Some of the key ideas mentioned were:
Talent is an issue, especially for senior staff – Iain had put in place a boomerang program, branding and awareness seems to be key
We need to get the word out that entrepreneurs are important and valuable to the Canadian economy. We need to help build this brand, the concept that it’s okay to choose this as a career path, and that it’s alright to fail.
Attracting young entrepreneurs is powerful thing, especially in Waterloo, which is looking to leverage the student community of co-ops and post-docs
A Great Day in Waterloo
Thanks to Waterloo community for a great day of activities and discussions.
We started our day at Velocity, a residence created by the University of Waterloo’s Sean Van Koughnett for entrepreneurially-minded students. We met Jesse Rodgers, the community manager, and Virginia McLellan, the recruiter for Velocity.
Velocity wants to become a mecca for entrepreneruship. They’re considering things such as opening the residence to any entrepreneurial-minded student across Canada. Students spend at least four months in residence to develop their ideas, meet other like-minded students, and get connected to the community to broaden their networks and increase their changes of success. Velocity’s students, David Wilkin andPaul Butler, showed off their projects including FroshPerks.
StartupCamp – “Serious Ediition” then took place at the Accelerator Centre, Waterloo’s premier incubator space. Thanks to Communitech and AC staff for helping StartupCamp Instigators Jesse Rodgers and Mic Berman pull off an impressive pitch session that featured 18 companies. Companies ranged from someone with an idea just emerging into alpha, university professors looking to commercialize their technology, and fully fledged in-market companies. Here is a sampling of those who presented.
We finished the day with dinner with a great group of community instigators, founders, and bloggers to discuss the opportunities to better support and enable the Waterloo innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Some of the key ideas mentioned were: