Speakers

on The dangers of social validation

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Truman has developed digital innovations in marketing, media and advertising for over ten years. Truman was previously the director of marketing, customer and advocacy at Influitive, a well-known employer of UWaterloo students. Now, he’s the marketing consultant for Google. He’s passionate about personal branding and using social media to advocate for the greater good.

on A call for educational reform

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Hamid Tizhoosh is a teacher and researcher at the University of Waterloo. He is the Director of the Laboratory for Knowledge Inference in Medical Image Analysis (KIMIA Lab), focusing on machine intelligence and medical imaging. Hamid is well-read in both Eastern and Western philosophy and has detailed knowledge about world religions. In spite of all his experience and despite his scientific background, he advocates the view that knowledge and science cannot contribute to elimination of violence and reaching higher levels of intelligence.

on Challenging the healthcare system

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Amr Abdelgawad, graduated from the University of Waterloo with a Master's degree in Business, Entrepreneurship, and Technology and a Bachelor's degree in Nanotechnology Engineering. Co-founded two startups. Passionate about healthcare, science, and improving the general quality of life. He has a vision to disrupt the healthcare system, where he believes that he and his team can provide better resources for physicians to make more informed decisions regarding their patients.

on Tech and ethics for the future of film

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Katie is a video producer at Shopify Plus in Waterloo. She graduated from Wilfrid Laurier University where she studied English and Film Studies. She has a creative spirit that lives for art, film, and creating, and is most excited about what the future of film will look like.

on The curious intersection of mapping and art

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David received a Master of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo in 1999 and currently works as a software developer at Miovision. He’s always been interested in the beauty of mathematical art. His talk would showcase the intersection of cartography and photography.

on Cryptocurrency vs. regular currency

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Tanner currently works at Kik Interactive, one of Canada’s tech unicorns, which was founded here at the UW Velocity program. For the past year, Tanner has been working with the team at Kik to develop an ecosystem of digital services powered by the cryptocurrency, Kin. His number one priority is finding a way to empower everyone, regardless of demographic, location, or socioeconomic status, to generate and capture value in this age of globalization. In another life, Tanner was a 3-year captain for the Laurier Golden Hawks football team, squaring off in many “Battles of Waterloo.”

on How to battle blindness

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Gah-Jone, or GJ, was a PhD candidate at UWaterloo School of Optometry and currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Krembil Research Institute, Toronto Western Hospital. In 2016 he won the national Three Minute Thesis competition when he successfully summarized his 220 page thesis on a cure for presbyopia. He is currently investigating Glaucoma, the leading cause of irreversible blindness.

on Bridging law enforcement and mental health

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Daniel Pearson Hirdes is the CEO and Co-Founder of HealthIM, a company based in Kitchener that supports police officers responding to mental health calls in the community. Through his experiences at HealthIM, Daniel has learned from police and health care services across Canada and abroad and has gained an intimate understanding of the challenges that face our mental health system today. Daniel completed his undergraduate degree in Arts & Business at the University of Waterloo and is currently completing a masters in eHealth at McMaster University.

on Taking environmental messaging to the next level

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As past Chair of REEP Green Solutions and director of Canada’s leading undergraduate program in environment and business at the University of Waterloo, Jennifer Lynes has a reputation for turning ideas into action. Prof Lynes’s research focuses on the intersection of sustainability and marketing, particularly with respect to the live music industry. She has collaborated with musician Jack Johnson and Hillside Festival, been a green roadie on the U2 Joshua Tree tour and worked on numerous projects with Live Nation. She is a co-founder of the Sustainable Concerts Group.

on Empowering grassroots organizations

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Mr. Taylor graduated from the University of Waterloo in Chemical Engineering and has 29 years of experience in the fields of water and energy conservation, pollution prevention, sustainable development and treatment process design. In 2004, as founder and CEO of Enviro-Stewards, he created the Safe Water Project to empower communities in South Sudan and Uganda to construct water purification systems using locally available materials. The locally owned projects are taught business principles and techniques to help residents understand about safe water investments.