Innovation is about the creation of new ideas as well as the revolutionizing of old ones. To me, innovation stems from creativity, the ability to use the imagination and foster original ideas—this is where innovation begins.
The other day, I was at a Chinese food restaurant and broke open my fortune cookie to find the sentence, "Your innovation keeps you ahead." No joke, that's actually what it said. Of course, I immediately knew I was going to write about it within the context of this class, and it got me thinking about the reasons people look to innovate. Is it simply to make money? Is it an obsession with being "ahead of the game?" Do some just get lucky with a good idea under the right conditions? During my presentation, I asked the class whether they classed themselves as financially, creatively, or intellectually motivated in their quest to enter the workforce. Many of them responded that they felt their interests were a mixture of the categories, and consequently I've been thinking a lot about what it means, to me personally, to be "ahead." Really, I think that term is something that is different in meaning to every individual and is changing all the time for...
For this blog post, I’ve decided to reach out to Waterloo entrepreneur currently going through the Y Combinator program. He will do an AMA (Ask Me Anything). This will provide the class with an inside look at both Waterloo’s and The silicon valley’s ecosystems. How this will work I’ll pass on all the questions asked by the class to Shak and post his answers at the end of each week. This will continue within reason (to respect his time) until reading week. Introducing Shak Shak Lakhani is a co-founder of Avro Life Science, a biotech Startup developing skin patches for generic drug delivery. Shak leads R&D, clinical strategy, partnerships and fundraising at Avro. He has 5 years of research experience under Rhodes Scholars and the Canada Research Chair for Nanotechnology Engineering. His research has been published in leading journals including Nature Materials and Bio fabrication. He and his team previously worked out of the velocity garage in Kitchener and have since moved ...
I watched a film the other day that I think you should all watch, not because it's hilariously bad, but because it touches on a few of the ideas that we've talked about in class. In The Circle , you'll watch Emma Watson go from working a sad, unfulfilling job at a call center to making big bucks and climbing her way through the ranks of fictional, multi-billion dollar company "the Circle." Aside from being incredibly unrealistic, the film fails to capture any of the hard work that comes with working in the tech field; everything simply lands in Emma Watson's lap (spoiler alert?). What it does capture, however, is that innovative spirit we've talked so much about. While you're watching it, you really get caught up in the excitement of pushing ideas further and asking the tough questions, taking risks and such - as well as the burnout that can lead to. W...
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