Blog

Since high school, I knew I had a knack for social causes and wanted to make a career out of advocating for environmental and social justice. While I thought I was going to end up working in environmental advocacy, this summer I picked up the skills to attain this goal as a businesswoman and entrepreneur.

During my spring 2015 Enterprise Co-op (E Co-op) term with the Conrad Centre, I launched my venture, whyVOTE – a social media platform where young Canadians can learn about current policy issues and compare their views with friends. While the aim of whyVOTE is to motivate young people to vote, it also collects data on the youth opinion which can impact high-level decisions.

I would like to introduce you to Danny Yaroslavski, who is the founder of Lightbot, a startup dedicated to teaching kids to code through gaming. This alumnus worked full-time on Lightbot during his Spring 2013 Enterprise Co-op term and further developed his business in Conrad's BET 300: Foundations of Venture Creation course.

Lightbot was featured prominently in Hour of Code 2014, an international initiative to introduce millions of young students to one hour of computer science and programming. Lightbot is used by students worldwide and is available to play in 29 languages.

Danny has received considerable recognition for his innovative work, winning a Velocity Fund Finals award of $25,000 and being named to Forbes Top 30 Under 30 in the education category.

The Tech Leadership Conference was a flashy affair which gave an impressive snapshot of the future of tech in the Waterloo Region. To me as a fresh-faced entrepreneur, the confidence in the room was intimidating, but inspiring.

I was pleasantly surprised that two of the three keynote speakers were women and found it interesting that the focus of presentations was non-technical (e.g. management skills and idea fostering) but still told through the lens of innovation.

Susan Cain’s talk about the power of introverts made me question the extrovert title I was clinging to all these years and relieved a lot of pressure I hadn’t realized I had put on myself to do so.

The pressure to find the perfect gifts for friends and family during the holiday season can be intense. It's easy to go to the closest shopping centre or the biggest online retailer for super-saver discounts, but you never really know where the money from your purchase will end up. The dollars that you spend during the holidays can add up quickly, and can have an impact that extends far beyond the retailer's pocket—depending on where you choose to shop.

Here are four startups that are making the world a better place with every purchase.

Jim Robeson is a 2013 alumnus of the Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) program. While in MBET, Jim built his company, PiinPoint, an online platform that enables businesses to find the best location for expansion. Now, just over a year after graduating from the program, PiinPoint has proven to be a game-changer for business owners. Conrad's Marketing and Communication's Manager, Amanda Watkins, sat down with Jim to catch up, and to talk to him about his experiences as a student in the MBET program.

The month of November is usually cold and grey, and most Canadians are still in denial of winter's arrival. Thankfully, there is a month-long charitable event keeps spirits lifted: Movember.

Movember is an initiative that was started in 2003 by two Australian men and a group of 30 friends, and has now grown to over 4 million participants around the world.

The goal is simple: help accelerate healthcare outcomes for men living with prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and mental health issues.

In September, I participated in Hack the North with my Suncayr co-founders, Derek Jouppi and Andrew Martinko, and our classmate Dave Badami. Hack the North is Canada's largest international hackathon, where students come together for 36 hours to collaboratively code a unique solution to a problem from scratch. For those familiar with Suncayr’s technology (a marker ink that tells you when to reapply sunscreen), you may be wondering what on earth we were doing at a hackathon. For us, it was all about networking. We found out that Sam Altman, the president of Y Combinator, was going to be there, so we knew that we had to go too.

Clinton Ball is a Master of Business, Entrepreneurship, and Technology (MBET) alumnus, and since graduating, his year has only become more exciting! We caught up with Clint, and he told us about his new job with the Accelerator Centre (AC), his trip to Japan, and new products from his company, Verse Software Lab Inc. 

While finishing MBET, Clint began working in a position at the Accelerator Centre as Manager, Client Services. Now working full time in the role, the position has provided him with an excellent opportunity to help out fellow entrepreneurs.

Master of Business, Entrepreneurship, and Technology (MBET) student, Dan Allison, reflects on Ignition Week activity at Innersee.

Each year, the new class of MBET students participates in Ignition Week before classes begin. Ignition Week is a week-long introductory program to MBET, where students get to know each other, and are familiarized with the fundamentals of the program and life at Conrad.

During Ignition Week, our group of MBET students did a lot of team building activities. Among all of them, Innersee was in my opinion the best activity of the week. Innersee’s program consists of challenges that inspire individuals explore new ways of working together as a team in order to be successful, and acts as a way to get people out of their normal environment and comfort zone.

When I started my Enterprise Co-op (E Co-op) term in May, Dominic Toselli and I were just a team of two co-founders looking to use technologies that we used at companies in Silicon Valley to optimize decision making in the oil and gas industry. Since then, we've added 4 others and effectively tripled the PetroPredict team. Over the past couple of months we were able to run a high performance team and enable our company to grow and scale.

Leading and building a high performance team was new to me, but as with any new skill, with effort, it is possible to learn.