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Hi everyone, my name is Jenni Lien and I’m part of the Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) 2023 cohort.

When I tell pastors and ministry leaders that I’m building a Christian business in a secular business school, I often get surprised responses. But for me, it’s been a very natural process. I was clear that I wanted to build a business targeted at Christian women in my MBET application, and also in class introductions, projects, and in my application for other on-campus opportunities. All I’ve felt is respect and support from my professors and peers.

I come from India, a country with a vast population, 48% of our population consists of women. However, I have always sensed inequality between genders. I am a humanist, and I believe in equality for all.

I decided to further my education in the field and opted for my master's program at the University of Waterloo. I have been in love with Canada since the first time I visited. I knew I had a connection with the country; it felt like home. I transferred to the University of Waterloo after completing my Bachelors in Business Administration from a leading institute in India to meet the education requirements for me to be eligible to apply for MBET.

My name is Edmond H. and I am in my second year of the Math/CPA program and am currently on my first co-op work term through the Bridging Entrepreneurs to Students (BETS) program.

“What is the BETS program?”, you might ask. Well, the BETS program is a specialized co-op program offered through the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business that allows engineering, mathematics, and School of Accounting and Finance (SAF) students to gain experience working for startup companies. The program pairs teams of two entrepreneurial co-op students with companies for a 12-week project placement.

Entrepreneurship, to put it simply, is the act of building a business. Naively, I believed being an entrepreneur was essentially about creating a financially stable company from the bottom up, establishing yourself in the industry similar to the likes of some current influential minds - Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple), Elon Musk (Paypal, Tesla).

Jackson Mills saw a problem with student feedback. Originally, he thought that students were falling behind in some of his classes because of a translation error due to the use of jargon. He and another classmate thought that if they translated lectures into more visual metaphors it would eliminate the use of jargon.

The skills taught in the traditional learning system are unfortunatelynot enough to help individuals with cognitive disability gain independence. This is a problem that millions of families agonize over, and most of them are forced to cut down or quit work to ensure their loved ones gain the skills that they need. These cutbacks cost families an average of 20 thousand dollars in lost wages and therapy fees. The problem lies on the lack of affordable, effective, and easy to access educational resources.

Better Bail For America (BB4A), a team of four fourth-year Mechanical and Mechatronics engineering students, competed in and won the Hult Prize Regional Finals in Mexico in March 2019.

This team is focusing on improving the criminal justice system in the United States. They aim to help prevent youth unemployment in the USA by enabling young, employed, first-time offenders to access crowdfunded, interest-free bail.

Young entrepreneurs often seek a Mentor, but what they should be looking for is a Tormentor.Anyone going through the rigors of entrepreneurship needs to have an experienced individual that will guide them through the ups and downs of trying to start a successful business. They need someone that will cheer them on and keep them going, and draw on their own knowledge and experience to help guide the entrepreneur to success.

However, for most entrepreneurs, whose business idea may be the worst thing since the one-touch pizza ordering fridge magnet, having a Tormentor is much more important.

When SWIRVE transitioned from a Capstone design project into a full-time startup as Vena Medical, there was an endless amount of work to do. Between product development, contractor and vendor management, business planning and grant applications, the founding team—two mechanical engineering graduates—knew they needed co-op students to get the job done. When their Conrad mentors Wayne Chang and Emily Peat approached them about the BETS program, they decided to take a chance on it.

Vena Medical could not be happier with how well the BETS program worked out.

Chris Thiele wrote his last exam of the spring term in the middle of August, and by the first week of September, he began his second Enterprise Co-op (E Co-op) term on a plane to Hong Kong.

Balancing the roles of student and startup founder has become routine for the 4A electrical and computer engineering student. He has been working on the smart gardening system Grobo since spring 2014, when he met his co-founder Bjorn Dawson in Conrad’s BET 300: Foundations of Venture Creation class.

With four months to focus solely on building Grobo, Chris charted an ambitious course that took him from Hong Kong, to the manufacturing ​centres of China, to California, and back to Waterloo in time for the E Co-op end-of-term presentations—with many lessons learned along the way.