Facebook exec joins board of governors

 

 

The University of Waterloo is pleased to announce the appointment of Jordan Banks, managing director of Facebook Canada, to its Board of Governors.

A respected corporate leader with a passion for community involvement and nurturing emerging technology talent, Banks exemplifies Waterloo’s culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Responsible for leading all commercial operations at Facebook Canada, Banks previously provided investment and advisory services to early stage technology companies as founder and managing partner at Thunder Road Capital as well as serving as chief executive officer of JumpTV.

Banks was part of the team that launched eBay Canada in 2000 and served as managing director until 2007. A lawyer by profession, Banks managed the Licensing and International Business group of the National Hockey League Players’ Association and practiced corporate law at Goodmans.

Over the years, Banks has championed numerous efforts in support of Alzheimer’s research and care. He is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization, the Board of Directors for Well.ca, Cogniciti, and the Baycrest Centre. Banks sits on the advisory boards of Polar Mobile, The Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases, and the Art Gallery of Ontario. He was previously named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40.

Banks was appointed to the board on July 18, for a term that runs until April 30, 2015.

The University of Waterloo is one of Canada’s leading comprehensive universities with 34,000 students in undergraduate and graduate programs. Home to the world’s largest post-secondary co-operative education program, Waterloo encourages enterprising partnerships in learning, research and discovery.

 

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Needles Hall reopens

 

Offices and services reopen today at Needles Hall on the main University of Waterloo campus, following a one-day closure. Repairs needed to fix a weekend water main break led to a temporary loss of services to the building. As an administrative hub, Needles Hall houses a number of university offices and services, including the Registrar's Office, Student Awards and Financial Aid, and the Office of Persons with Disabilities.

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Crouton Labs defeat Higgs Brosons

Yes, you read that right.

Students representing the University of Waterloo took two of three podium spots in this year's BrainSTEM Build-a-thon, held at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

The competition, held as part of the BrainSTEM "unconference" which ran from June 25 to June 27, saw ten teams of between 2 to 4 university and college students work for 48 hours to create a digital media product - it could be an app, a game, or a video. At the end of those 48 hours, each team had just 7 minutes to present and demonstrate their creation to a panel of judges, vying for a $25,000 grand prize.

The winning team, Crouton Labs, is a startup of four undergraduate students from the VeloCity incubator. Their product, Ropuzzle, was an educational puzzle game that teaches robotics to high school students, assembling and programming it to achieve objectives.

Crouton Labs edged out the second place team, the Higgs Brosons, a pair of physicists from the University of Guelph, who created "Math & Origami - Crease Your Own Path," an interactive video in the style of a Choose Your Own Adventure book that teaches mathematical concepts using origami. The Brosons walked away with the $15,000 second prize, and the $2,500 "people's choice" award.

Coming in third was another Waterloo team, the Ultramarine Neutrinos, made up of three physics studetns. Their product, Physica, was a game designed to teach high school students about the physics of event horizons and black holes.

According to the event organizers, "all intellectual property generated during the event is retained by the creators. Any revenues generated by sale of products will be owned by the creators, however, Perimeter Institute reserve a non-exclusive right to use any products as a part of their educational outreach curriculum."

The unconference is a organized jointly by the Perimeter Institute and Communitech. It is "an invitation-only summit designed to connect creative, like-minded content architects with science outreach experts, digital media professionals, entrepreneurs, and other leaders in the digital media and education space."

 

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Shad Valley Waterloo holds open house

 

Shad Valley Waterloo invites all members of the Waterloo community and beyond to its Open Day on Thursday afternoon. The event celebrates the achievements of students attending the month-long high school enrichment program, and features exhibits of their many activities including design projects and protoypes.
Open Day takes place Thursday, July 26 from 1:30 to 4:30p.m. in the Great Hall at Conrad Grebel University College.

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