"Spectacular year" reviewed at Town Hall

President Feridun Hamdullahpur spoke to a combined live and virtual audience of more than 500 people Thursday at the inaugural President's Town Hall Meeting.

In his opening remarks, Hamdullahpur spoke to the audience about the 2013-2014 academic year, outlining the University of Waterloo's progress and providing highlights of the year past.

"We had a fabulous year last year," Hamdullahpur said. "I’m so proud of your accomplishments. I will call it a spectacular year."

Hamdullahpur's review touched on everything from enrolment to entrepreneurship, to graduate students and research excellence.

Hamdullahpur also gave a sneak preview of a hard copy of "Defining Tomorrow," the first-of-its-kind state of the university report that is set to be published in the coming weeks.

"The title is so fitting," the president said. "This university is not sitting on the sidelines, so that others can participate, we are defining what tomorrow is going to look like."

The year ahead was also part of the discussion. Hamdullahpur highlighted multi-year budgeting, strategic enrolment management, and capital expenditures.

The president then took several questions from the floor, from email and from Twitter on a variety of subjects, from the impact of the University in the community, to how to make students more globally minded, to varsity sports, and ensuring teaching quality. There were also questions about mental health and counselling resources for students and staff, and Library resources. Senior university leaders also took part in the dialogue.

Asked about the current state of the hiring freeze on campus, Hamdullahpur said "We do not have a 'solid block of ice' hiring freeze but we are being strategic."

Vice-President, Academic & Provost Ian Orchard provided additional context, saying “There was a hiring freeze and we were judicious in our analysis, and people have been using ‘mission criticals’ to look at the various areas both on the academic side and the academic support unit side.”

“In practice, we have eased off the hiring freeze and have gone back to mission critical, whereby people can analyze internally what is important to them as it applies to the strategic plan.”

The town hall event was followed by a luncheon event in the School of Accounting and Finance's Don Craig Atrium.

The President's Town Hall Meeting has been recorded and can be watched online.

Photographs by Bruce Ladouceur.

 

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Two Waterloo inventions make Dyson's shortlist

With files from Carol Truemner.

Two Waterloo inventions are the only Canadian entries to make the final round of the 2014 James Dyson Award to be announced this week.

EyeCheck, an affordable way of diagnosing eye problems, and Suncayr, a sun protection solution, are up against 18 other projects in the last stage of the international competition that began with over 600 entries from 18 countries.

EyeCheck was developed by Ashutosh Syal and Daxal Desai as part of their 4th year Capstone Design project. EyeCheck solves the problem of providing prescriptions for millions of people in the developing world using a smartphone app, standalone camera and server-side image processing.

EyeCheck is billed as "an endeavour to provide low-cost vision care to millions of people currently underserved by care in their region."

"The EyeCheck team have managed to engineer an affordable way of diagnosing eye problems quickly," said Nick Schneider, Dyson design engineer and one of the competition judges. "Potentially improving quality of life for many."

Suncayr, developed by Derek Jouppi, Rachel Pautler, Andrew Martinko, Chad Sweeting and Hayden Soboleski, is a colour changing marker that can be drawn on skin and changes colour when sunscreen. The team, part of Velocity Science, describes itself as "five nanotechnology engineers who are fed up with getting sunburned."

Likening Suncayr to Dyson, Schneider said, “much like the way Dyson engineers approach every day problems, Suncayr is a simple solution for remaining protected in the sun. It is visual and intuitive, whilst also educating the user about the problem.”

Last year’s international winner was a team of four mechanical engineering students from the University of Pennsylvania who developed Titan Arm, a battery powered upper-body robotic arm which instantly increases human strength. The team used their prize money to continue to prototype and bring their design closer to commercialization.

Some 600 teams submitted problem-solving inventions in the competition, and the short-list consists of 20 teams. The winner will be announced on November 6.

 

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Staff asked to complete TravelWise survey

The University of Waterloo's partnership with the TravelWise program continues and it's time for employees to complete a survey for a chance to win prizes while informing the sustainable transportation group on how you get to work.

Prizes on offer include:

• BlackBerry Z30 smartphone, unlocked
• Fitbit Flex
• $100 King Street Cycles gift card
• $50 Milestones gift card
• 1 of 2 $25 Chapters gift cards
• 1 of 5 $20 Tim Horton’s gift cards

Click here to complete your survey and enter into the prize draw. 

The deadline to complete the survey is Friday, November 14.

 

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WatITis registration open and other notes

"On behalf of the WatITis Committee, we are pleased to announce that registration for the WatITis 2014 conference, taking place December 3rd in the Quantum-Nano Centre, will open November 4th, 2014 and close November 19th, 2014," writes Jenn Brewster. "To register, view session topics, rooms and times, please visit the WatITis site.

Registration is free. However, there is a $50 charge if you register for the conference but do not show up.

And now, a ghoulish gallery of Hallowe'en festivities from Friday:

The Dean of Science Office - Lisa Weber, Diana Kim, Kate Andrey, Maryann Gaspic, James Lamb, Priscila Carrara, Barb Moffatt, Melinda Meng, and Eva Ho.

"Civil & Environmental Engineering was not so "civil" today," wrote Lorraine Quast.

"Forget Sons of Anarchy – we had Quantum Anarchy at IQC," writes Jodi Szimanski. "Here's the Communications and Strategic Initiatives team."

And finally, Biology professor Josh Neufeld has kept his tradition of dressing up for Halloween lectures alive with his appearance as a Minion from the Despicable Me franchise. (Photograph by Courtney van Ballegooie).

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