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New tech for VeloCity residents!
Monday, February 6th, 2012
Our VeloCity residents love to create – they’ve only been living here for a few weeks and they already have a bunch of brand new apps to test. There has been talk of a multilingual conversation app, a friend finder and even a heart monitoring app. In order to feed this hunger for app testing, VeloCity has provided its residents with 8 awesome, brand new devices!
Devices that are ready to use immediately include:
iPad 2- iPad
- Blackberry PlayBook
- Blackberry Bold 9900
- iPhone 4s
- Samsung Nexus
- Nokia x7
- Samsung Windows Focus
Tags: BlackBerry, device lab, ipad, IPhone, nokia, samsung
Posted in News, Residence, Updates | No Comments »
Moving in, VeloCity style
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
After 2 hectic days of moving boxes, bins, computer monitors, Nerf guns, and even a giant exercise ball, we are finally settled into our new space! The giant BufferBox caused a bit of a problem, but we made it through. All of our startups and the whole VeloCity team loves it here – we have a total of 6,500 square feet, lots of desks, giant windows – and the best part is there’s room for expansion!
Watch how it all went down:
Keep following to see an in-depth view of our entire space!
Tags: move in, velocity hub
Posted in News, VeloCity Startups | No Comments »
Whoa, it’s the Grand Opening of the (new) VeloCity Space!
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
It is 6:30am & the sun is starting to rise, there is lots of hustling here as everyone comes together to mark an amazing milestone in tech culture for the community, the Grand Opening of VeloCity’s brand new space in the newly expanded Communitech space. The past 48 hours have been a blur as we moved our startups from our old space in the other wing of the building to this new addition, more on this in a future post. Enough said because…we’re all moved in and ready to get working, hacking, and making things happen! The resources here are phenomenal – good things are going to happen, it’s definitely in the air. We are very fortunate to have some VIPs here to join us for the opening of our new space; they have been instrumental in sharing our vision for entrepreneurship and tech culture:
Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario
McGuinty has been a great supporter of all the technological innovation happening in Ontario. He has starting funding many new initiatives that will support the advancement of technology in Ontario, including the Emerging Technologies Fund and the Innovation Demonstration Fund, which will help innovative companies develop new technologies.
Feridun Hamdullahpur, President & Vice-Chancellor of the University of Waterloo
Hamdullahpur has been a great supporter of our VeloCity program. With his background in engineering, he naturally understands tech culture and the influx of technical ideas that our students & alumni are working on to solve everyday problems.
John Baker, CEO of Desire2Learn
Baker has played a key role in the Waterloo technology community. As a University of Waterloo alumn and entrepreneur, he can appreciate the foundation VeloCity provides for Waterloo’s emerging entrepreneurs. His online learning platform, Desire2Learn, has made it easier for students to learn online.
Iain Klugman, President & CEO of Communitech
As the CEO of Communitech, Klugman is dedicated to supporting tech startups. He has also been a much appreciated supporter of VeloCity & is widely affiliated with numerous tech related endeavours throughout the community.
A huge thank you for all of the support – our team loves the new space and are looking forward to see our startup culture continue to grow. There is lots of momentum and energy in the air and we hope to continue harnessing this as we cycle through the crest and troughs of startup life. Stay tuned for more details about our new space in the next few posts to come!
Tags: Dalton McGuinty, Feridun Hamdullahpur, grand opening, Iain Klugman, John Baker
Posted in Events, News, Updates, VeloCity Startups | No Comments »
Wishing Laura McQuinn all the best
Thursday, January 12th, 2012
Our VeloCity team has undergone a number of changes in the past year. Today we are announcing that Laura McQuinn, our Manager, Business Development, has decided to leave our VeloCity team. We thank Laura for all of her dedication to VeloCity over the past year and a half – all of her hard work has created a strong platform that VeloCity will continue to build upon in the future. We will definitely miss the enthusiasm and energy that she brought into work every day. Laura has been a valued member of the VeloCity team but we have no doubt that she will be successful in whatever she does next. We wish her the very best in her future endeavors!
We’ll miss you Laura!
Tags: Laura McQuinn
Posted in News, Updates | No Comments »
Inspiring Waterloo Entrepreneurs
Wednesday, January 4th, 2012
The VeloCity Venture Fund was created in March of 2011 after a generous donation of $1MM was made to VeloCity by an alumnus and high-tech entrepreneur, Ted Livingston. This donation inspired VeloCity to create the Velocity Venture Fund, a contest for innovative students at Waterloo.
In a few weeks, up to 4 student-founded startups will win $25,000. This amount was inspired by the $25,000 left to Ted Livingston by his grandfather – the perfect amount for him to start Kik Interactive Inc. In addition to $25,000, winners of the VeloCity Venture Fund will receive incorporation, mentorship, and workspace for four months in the Communitech Hub. VeloCity takes nothing in return. These winners are chosen by a panel of judges – Ali Asaria (founder of Well.ca), Ted Livingston (Kik), Mike Kirkup (Director of VeloCity and founder of NextUp Labs), and Brett Shellhammer (VeloCity’s Executive-in-Residence). Finalists will have the opportunity to pitch their idea to the judges before the final decision is made.
This competition is cross-faculty and campus-wide. It is open to all students and graduates of Waterloo (at least one founder has to be a UW student or a student who has graduated within the year). Although the previous winners have developed tech-related businesses, any business idea is welcome.
The application deadline for the VeloCity Venture Fund is midnight on Saturday, January 7th (apply here). Applications should include a general outline of your business idea, who will be on your team, and how you plan to work effectively as a team. From the 10th to 11th, all applicants will be interviewed. From those interviews, up to 8 finalists will be chosen to compete. These finalists will be coached by the 4 judges (Ali Asaria, Ted Livingston, Mike Kirkup, and Brett Shellhammer) until the final competition on January 26th, where up to 4 startups will be chosen to win $25,000!
Good luck everyone!
Tags: Kik Interactive, Ted Livingston, VeloCity Venture Fund
Posted in Alumni, Events, News, Residence, VeloCity Startups, VeloCity Venture Fund | No Comments »
