What's happening this fall? Plenty

The calendar for the fall term is filling up fast. Some major events have been inked in for months — Homecoming, for instance, on September 25, and the 101st Convocation, with two sessions on Saturday, October 23. A few other days got circled after it was announced that president David Johnston is leaving Waterloo to take on a national role; he’ll be honoured with a testimonial dinner next Tuesday and an on-campus ice cream social on Thursday the 16th. And the faculty of arts is in the process of announcing some special events to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Then there are the distinguished lectures and similar events sponsored by departments, faculties and colleges. St. Jerome’s University, for instance, announced this year’s lineup of Lectures in Catholic Experience just yesterday. Already pencilled in are the TD Canada Trust Walter Bean Lecture by physician and ocean explorer Joe MacInnis, “Oilstorm: Leadership Lessons from the Gulf of Mexico,” on September 30, and the drama department’s Silversides Theatre Artists Event with Matthew Jocelyn, artistic director of Canadian Stage, on October 12. The Stratford campus is also planning a lecture series this year, starting with words from Tim Kenyon of the philosophy department a week from today, September 16.

And more: there are plays (the drama department will begin its season November 11-20 with Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors”); concerts, starting with Marianas Trench live on September 17 as part of the Federation of Students’ Welcome Week; workshops (the library, counselling services, IST, English proficiency); seminars; meetings; and of course sports encounters, starting with the Black and Gold Day rugby matches Saturday afternoon on the north campus.

If  you or your organization is holding an event (on any of Waterloo’s campuses, or related to the university) you should make sure it’s listed in the online UW Events database, and you should also send details to the Daily Bulletin so it can be mentioned here on appropriate days.

And now (trumpet flourish!) here’s an announcement: invitations have been going out this week for a very special and very formal event, an extra Convocation ceremony that will be held Monday, September 27, in honour of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, space engineer and former president of India. He is the author of four books: Wings of Fire, India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium, My Journey, and Ignited Minds: Unleashing the Power within India. Kalam previously spoke at Waterloo in April 2008. The Convocation to present him with an honorary degree will be held in the Humanities Theatre, starting at 11 a.m. on Monday the 27th. Since space is limited, anyone wanting to attend the event is being asked to register in advance by e-mail: karen.mason@ uwaterloo.ca.

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Spinoff firm outgrows Accelerator Centre

The Accelerator Centre, a UW spinoff that describes itself as “an award-winning and world-renowned centre for the cultivation of technology entrepreneurship”, is today celebrating the “graduation” of the seventh company to outgrow its services since the facility opened four years ago.

The firm is DossierView,  a start-up founded by entrepreneur and technologist Stephen Bacso, based on research done in the pattern analysis and machine intelligence (PAMI) lab in the electrical and computer engineering department. The “graduation” celebration is a by-invitation event that will start at 9:30 a.m. at the Accelerator Centre, 295 Hagey Boulevard on the north campus.

DossierView “is turning the world of Internet search upside down”, a news release boasts. “The company is focused on building a new software solution that brings relevant information on the Web or a desktop to the user by making the search experience more predictive and social, versus traditional search methods that rely on the user typing in key words to surface relevant content.”

The firm’s own web site pitches its services to both corporate users (“Sign up to our early notification list if you've ever spent 5 minutes or more looking for and searching through your machine for a client or project file or wished that you could find others within your company or externally that could help you with an urgent issue you need an opinion on”) and consumers (“Sign up if you've ever been tricked into clicking an ad by a spam site from page 1 of your search engine results or had to manually inspect several pages of results before finding a relevant website”).

The researcher behind the technology is Andrew Wong (right), distinguished professor emeritus and founding director of the PAMI lab. 

DossierView announced a $750,000 financing round in December 2009, “and recently closed a second round of angel financing,” the Accelerator Centre release says. “This funding, coupled with DossierView’s successful progression through the Accelerator Centre’s client development program, has allowed the company to graduate and relocate to office space in Kitchener’s historic Tannery District, alongside the new Digital Media Centre and other technology counterparts.”

Says Bacso, the entrepreneur who heads the company: “We are incredibly grateful to the Accelerator Centre and its team of mentors, technology gurus and executives who have nurtured and assisted us through our commercialization journey.”

And Tim Ellis, chief operating officer of the Accelerator Centre, declares that “Our graduates now span all technologies and markets, with leadership ranging in experience from ‘fresh out of university’ through to experienced technology veterans. DossierView, as the latest AC grad, brings together highly progressive technology leveraging cutting edge University research with extensive technology expertise honed through technology success stories such as Pixstream. We are thrilled to announce their graduation and will watch their growth trajectory with great pride.”

The Accelerator Centre is “made possible through funding from Federal and Provincial Governments, Ontario Centres of Excellence, the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, the City of Waterloo and the University of Waterloo, along with industry and academic partners”. It “was established to accelerate the creation, growth, and maturation of sustainable new technology companies; to promote commercialization of research and technology rising out of academic institutions such as University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, University of Guelph, and Conestoga College; and to demonstrate the economic benefit and strategic importance of Waterloo Region within Ontario and Canada’s broader economy.

“The Accelerator Centre is firmly focused on accelerating the growth and success of its client companies — fledgling start ups from a variety of technology sectors. The Centre’s team of advisors and mentors provide a unique range of support services and education programs, enabling AC clients to move to market faster, create jobs and stimulate economic activity.

“As home to 25-plus technology start up companies, as well as resident National Research Council’s IRAP, and Ontario Centres of Excellence, the Accelerator Centre has become the place to be to become immersed in Waterloo’s innovation community.”

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Monte Carlo, Dubai, Stratford, Rideau Hall

Orientation continues today, with the final three performances of “Single and Sexy” (9:30, 12:30 and 4:00) in the Humanities Theatre, and many other life-changing events. It’s a particularly big day for first-year engineering students, who will get down and dirty in Junkyard Wars for most of the morning, then “Meet the Tool” at Federation Hall in the afternoon. Meanwhile it’s the turn of arts, environment and science students to visit the “At Your Service” fair in the Student Life Centre. Tonight brings the six-faculty, semiformal Monte Carlo Night in the SLC, with the result that the building will be closed to general use from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. The turnkey desk remains open (use the north entrance) and so does Tim Hortons (use the ring road entrance). Highlight for tomorrow is “Jumpstart Friday”, a day-long series of talks and workshops to help students approach classes and university life in the most effective way they can. Oh, the aerial photo at left? First-year environment students, yesterday morning. I think the curved object is the faculty’s banana mascot.

Just in case anybody’s wondering . . . a brief orientation week was held in late August at Waterloo’s campus in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where there are students this fall in both engineering (chemical and civil) and mathematics (financial analysis and risk management, and information technology management). Classes there began September 1, though there will be a couple of days’ break this week because of Eid-al-Fitr, the religious holiday that marks the end of Ramadan.

However, there are no students arriving at the closer-to-home Stratford campus this month. “We’re in a partnership with the MBET program,”  explains marketing manager Jodi Szimanski, “but the students will be at the Conrad Centre,” in the Accelerator building on Hagey Boulevard just north of Columbia Street. “Those specializing in the DAC program of MBET,” she adds, “will be coming out to Stratford for special programming and lectures,” but that’ll be starting later in the term.

And . . . when president David Johnston leaves Waterloo to become Governor General of Canada, as of October 1, he’s taking somebody with him. Pamela Helmes-Hayes (right), his assistant in Needles Hall for the past ten years, has accepted his invitation to come to Ottawa as “Executive Assistant to Their Excellencies”, meaning Johnston and his wife, Sharon. The job is intended to be long-term, but Helmes-Hayes (who has a husband in Waterloo, sociology professor Rick Helmes-Hayes) says she’s structuring it initially with a one-year leave of absence from the university. “It’s something you can’t say no to,” she says about the opportunity to continue working with Johnston and do it from an office in historic Rideau Hall. “I’m thrilled. I really look at it as serving the country in some small way. . . . The sad part about leaving is leaving people.”

CAR

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