Silver, bronze, and smiles: Members of Team Canada Calvin Deng, Andy Huang, Angus Kong and Yuanhao Wei pose with Waterloo Mathematics professors Troy Vasiga and J.P. Pretti at the International Olympiad in Informatics held in Brisbane, Australia from July 6 to 13.

According to this note from Mathematics, 80 countries and 300 students participated in the event, competing to solve challenging algorithmic tasks over two days.

Team Canada members return with a silver and two bronze medals.

All four students finished Grade 12, and two of them will be studying at Waterloo in the Faculty of Mathematics this fall.

Back to top

Institutional Analysis & Planning gets director

Allan Starr, Director of the Office of Institutional Analysis at the University of Calgary has accepted the position of Director of Institutional Analysis and Planning (IAP) at the University of Waterloo, according to an announcement from Vice-President, Academic & Provost Geoff McBoyle.

Starr will take up his new position in early September 2013.

According to the job description circulated by executive search firm Odgers Berndtson,

the director oversees and supervises the coordination, implementation, and evaluation of a comprehensive program of institutional research for the university. The director "works closely with both faculties and academic support units to collect and analyze operational data with the goal of measuring and analyzing performance outcomes."

"I would like to thank Daniela Seskar-Hencic for acting as Interim Director of IAP for the last 6 to 8 months," writes McBoyle.

Back to top

Thalmic 'wears out' its welcome

Wearable technology pioneer Thalmic Labs, the startup behind the MYO gesture control armband, has launched from the VeloCity program, says an announcement from the university.

Thalmic Labs is the brainchild of University of Waterloo graduates Stephen Lake, Aaron Grant, and Matthew Bailey who conceived of the idea of the MYO gesture control armband during their time in the VeloCity business startup program.

While at VeloCity, Thalmic Labs generated more than $4 million in pre-orders, raised over $15 million in funding, and grew their staff to over 25 employees.

“Thalmic Labs founders Stephen Lake, Aaron Grant, and Matthew Bailey are a splendid example of startup success within the tech hub of Waterloo Region and the University of Waterloo’s VeloCity startup program,” said Feridun Hamdullahpur, president and vice-chancellor. “Waterloo is known as one of the world’s top innovation universities and the success of Thalmic Labs proves what a special place this is.”

Thalmic joined the VeloCity program in May 2012 and received initial funding of $25,000 through the VeloCity Venture Fund in October 2012. They later received the additional $15 million+ in funding from Spark Capital, Intel Corp’s investment arm Intel Capital, and a number of angel investors in Toronto and Waterloo.

“We’ve had an amazing year building our business at VeloCity,” said Stephen Lake, Thalmic’s CEO. “The VeloCity program gave us the funding and support we needed as students to make our big idea a reality in the marketplace. We are grateful for our time at VeloCity and look forward to further growth as we move on from the program.”

Pictured above are (l-r) Aaron Grant, Matthew Bailey, VeloCity Director Mike Kirkup, and Stephen Lake.

Thalmic’s staff finalized their move out of VeloCity last week, making room for new University of Waterloo startups, which were announced last Thursday at the VeloCity Venture Fund Finals & Demo Day.

“We couldn’t be more proud and excited for Thalmic as they move on from VeloCity and continue to build this amazing company in their own space in the Kitchener-Waterloo area,” said Mike Kirkup.

Thalmic moved to a temporary office space, with plans for a more permanent location in Kitchener-Waterloo later this year.

More information, including a video of Thalmic’s departure from the VeloCity garage, can be found on the VeloCity blog.

Photograph by VeloCity.

Back to top

Decoding the essence of summer school

A five-day quantum cryptography conference gets underway at the Institute for Quantum Computing today.

The International Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) Summer School is a program consisting of lectures and tutorials that focus on theoretical and experience aspects of quantum communication, especially quantum cryptography. Established in 2008, it was last held in 2011.

The program aims to "provide a solid foundation in relevant approaches and techniques to enable graduate students and young postdoctoral fellows to perform their own independent research." The agenda includes lectures on Information Theoretic Security in Classical Cryptography, the Security Analysis Framework of QKD, Testing QKD devices and components, and QKD in a Cryptoworld.

This year, QKD Summer School is immediately followed by the QCRYPT 2013 conference.

The event is hosted by the Institute for Quantum Computing at the Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre.

Back to top