Research Entrepreneurship Acceleration Project

I’m involved with a great initiative at the University of Waterloo. The Research Entrepreneurship Acceleration Project (REAP) brings creative academic and private sector experts to explore new technologies – especially those involving interactivity, responsiveness, and digital display environments – in order to spark “research entrepreneurship.” The program hires a small team of students each term to work on a project. REAP is currently looking for students for the Spring term. All the details are below. Please spread the word, or apply if you’re interested.

Research Job for Spring 2011
The Research Entrepreneurship Acceleration Project (REAP) is looking for part-time, extracurricular paid student positions for Spring 2011. We are looking for students who are:

  • Creative
  • Entrepreneurial-minded or interested in learning how to be
  • Group-oriented
  • Results-oriented

We need students with any combination of these technical skills:

  • Graphic design
  • Machimina and game engine design
  • 3D graphic rendering or animation
  • Kinnect-style interactivity design

Benefits include:

  • Designing cool content and applications for leading edge technologies
  • Learning business, project management, group, and presentation skills
  • Expanding your professional resume

For the Spring 2011 term, we will be designing a proof of concept for a ‘Virtual Whisper Room.’ A virtual whisper room uses a game engine to create virtual environment in which avatars of customers interact and play with early-state product/application ideas too expensive – or to difficult – to design and render in the real world. It would combine graphics, machinima, a Kinnect-style technology and MicroTiles (Christie Digital’s newest display technology). Its main purpose is to show rather than tell – to allow people to experience new ideas so that designers and entrepreneurs can gain invaluable feedback during the early stages of prototyping ideas for new products. In order to be considered please:

  • send your resume to reap.uw at gmail dot com by Monday April 5th 2011.
  • reserve Monday April 11th 2011 7–9pm for a mandatory info session. More details about this night after your resume is received and reviewed.