O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum, how informative are thy branches: Library staff have built a festive book tree in the foyer of the Dana Porter Library. Conceived by the library's Outreach Committee, the tree took about two hours to assemble, and is made up of hundreds of books, mostly volumes from the National Union Catalog, which is apparently the bibliography to end all bibliographies. The catalog volumes were a good choice, according to Communications and Liaison Librarian Nancy Collins, because of their colour, consistent size, and, er, "low use." Take that, National Union Catalog!

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Waterloo students win Facebook hackathon

With material from VeloCity.

University of Waterloo students Fravic Fernando, Jinny Kim, and Scott Greenlay have won the Facebook Global University Hackathon. They were the only Canadian team at the competition.

Facebook has run approximately 18 hackathons, mostly at campuses in the U.S., with a few in Canada, including regional events at the University of British Columbia and the University of Waterloo, as well as events in Brazil and Ukraine. Winners from each of the regional hackathons assembled to compete at the finals at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California for three days at the end of November.

Jinny Kim and Scott Greenlay had won the regional Facebook uWaterloo Hackathon with fellow student Peter Sobot, building a Facebook game called NinjaQuote in the 24-hour time allotment. The game tests how well you know your Facebook friends, and their victory put them in the running for the Global University Hackathon. Fravic Fernando stepped in for Sobot, who couldn't make it to the final round of the competition.

For the finals, the team members worked on an iPhone application called Quin, which allows users to ask questions about their Facebook friends using their voice, and returns the results in the forms of graphs based around various attributes, like gender and relationship status. Quin visualizes data in a way that Facebook's native search doesn't.

Quin was a success and the University of Waterloo team bested 17 rivals, taking home the $3,000 prize.

The Waterloo students' victory caught national and global attention with coverage on CTV News and in the Toronto Star, and on The Next Web and Hacker News.

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Staff association members elect president

Carlos Mendes (right) was named president of the University of Waterloo Staff Association (UWSA) on Thursday, November 29 at the association's special general meeting.

Mendes received 210 votes, with candidates Sher DiCiccio receiving 183 votes and Jason Gorrie receiving 86 votes. There were 10 votes for "declined."

Mendes is a Computer Systems Manager and Programmer in the Psychology department and has worked for the university since 2002. He has been a staff association director since 2011 and has served on numerous committees including the Faculty of Arts Computer Users Advisory Committee, Staff Training and Development Committee, Staff Representative for Psychology Chair Nominating Committee, UWSA Hiring Committee, and WatITis Committee.

He takes office effective November 29 for a two-year term, succeeding Trevor Grove.

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United Way campaign lauds uWaterloo efforts

by Elle Crevits, United Way Office Manager.

The University of Waterloo community is constantly striving for success, so it’s no surprise that we surpassed our goal of raising $230,000 for United Way KW and raised $238,000 instead. The goal amount is $20,000 more than what was raised by the uWaterloo United Way Campaign last year.

The donations will be used to support the many programs that are built around United Way KW’s three focus areas: All That Kids Can Be, From Poverty to Possibility, and Healthy People, Strong Communities. These programs are especially important now, as funding cuts by the government to programs and services are sending more and more people to the United Way for help.

“This year’s campaign has seen some unexpected challenges. Despite what we may hear in the news, companies and individuals are not confident about their current economic position," says Nancy Bird, United Way VP Resource Mobilization. "That said, we have had a few great successes as well. The University of Waterloo not only met its goal, but exceeded it, and this is not something we’ve seen a lot of this year. The energy, commitment and drive shown by the United Way Committee and the 100+ volunteers is staggering. We can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done to support your community through United Way.”

To honour our long term commitment to supporting the United Way, uWaterloo campaign supporters have been invited to the United Way’s ‘Seeing is Believing Tour’. This is your chance to learn about the work that is being done in the United Way’s three focus areas. The bus tour will begin and end at the Kingsdale Community Centre on Tuesday, December 11 from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. If you are interested in attending, please email the United Way Office at unitdway@uwaterloo.ca.

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