Tag: University Of Waterloo

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Hiring season at Boltmade

It’s co-op hiring season, and at Boltmade we’re been deeply engaged in finding students at University of Waterloo who can join us for a four-month work term this coming summer. We’ve been a long-time employer of development co-ops, and have more recently been hiring for our UX team. That’s the side of things that has kept me and my colleagues busy.

It’s fascinating to see the wide range of academic disciplines that we’ve seen in the applications for our UX position. There are, as expected, many great applications from within Systems Design Engineering, but also from Software Engineering and Mechatronics. There are Computer Science applications, of course, which isn’t really a surprise, but we’re delighted to see applications representing many departments and programs in the Arts faculty — DAC, English, Anthropology, Psychology, Fine Arts, and more.

Because of the diversity of sources, it can be a real challenge to evaluate and compare candidates, but as we like to say, that’s a great problem to have. We’re excited about seeing who joins us in May.

Of course, we’re also looking for full-time software developers to join us at Boltmade. Check us out and let us know if you’re interested!

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Text + Tech = productive fun

A group of people around a table at the Text + Tech event

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m involved with REAP at the University of Waterloo. It’s a terrific program for the students and community partners who work together on various projects.

This past weekend I was fortunate to be a part of the Text + Tech event, a joint initiative between REAP and Pat the Dog Playwright Centre that saw technologists and theatre folks come together to help the latter better understand how emerging interactive display technologies might be incorporated into theatre pieces. It was hosted at Felt Lab, and at Quarry Integrated Communications.

It was a fascinating experience, with some unexpected insights.

Both groups were surprised by how often the question of whether something was possible was answered with yes, but with different perspectives. Theatre folks were surprised that something was possible, while technologists were surprised that the questions were so easy.

My favourite activity was when the whole group sat around a table and listened while each playwright outlined a piece they are working on, and asked how a display technology might be used to address a specific challenge. The discussions were fantastic. The process of collaborative problem solving was pretty much the same as what I experience in software product development. While details were different, we were all able to work together to discover potential solutions.

Everyone was happy to work together — there was no big gap between the arts and tech groups. Of course, as someone with a foot in both groups, that felt like business as usual for me.

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Busy!

I’ve let my blog slide more than usual lately, in part due to being busy on a number of fronts. Here’s a bit of an update that also serves as an explanation!

There’s always plenty to do in my regular work at Karos Health, including a February trip to Las Vegas for the annual HIMSS conference. It was the company’s first trip as an exhibitor to that particular conference, and with our successful visit we’re already committed to going again next year.

February also saw the eighth Ignite Waterloo event at the terrific Waterloo Region Museum. I’ve been an Ignite Waterloo organizer since the very beginning, and it was great to see that people continue to enjoy our events. The next one will be even more special, as we have some very cool plans in the making for our ninth event.

uxWaterloo remains on ongoing pursuit for me, and our monthly meetings are a wonderful way to spend my time. Organizing them with Bob Barlow-Busch is a real treat, and the support that we get from our community of attendees is gratifying. Our February event was essentially a socializing one, where the discussion centred on conference experiences. Our March event was a trip to Felt lab to see the projects that REAP student teams have been working on. It sounds like everyone found the meeting productive and fun.

Speaking of REAP, I’ve been involved there from the beginning as well, acting as a sort of design mentor to the student teams. It’s an easy thing to do, as the student teams really do all the work. I just ask them questions about what they are up to and answer their occasional questions. Connecting REAP with uxWaterloo was a happy opportunity that just seemed inevitable.

A newer initiative is Fluxible, a design event that Bob Barlow-Busch and I are planning for September 2012. We’ve got some interesting speakers and great venues lined up, and we hope to announce more news soon.

Finally, I’ve been busy since January teaching an undergraduate course in presentation design at the University of Waterloo. It’s a joint offering under both Digital Arts Communication and Speech Communication, and the course is another rewarding experience for me. We’re nearing the end of the term, and I’m looking forward to the Ignite-style presentations that my students will be delivering in class. Maybe one of them will apply to Ignite Waterloo and deliver a presentation there.

Sometime way back in January I also managed to make it out to DemoCampGuelph and StartupCampWaterloo, both of which are always enlightening and entertaining.

As I said, I’ve been busy!

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Karos Health goes to a career fair

I’ve written several times here about working at Karos Health, most recently about our co-op recruiting event at the University of Waterloo. Only a week after that event, Karos Health will be present at the Partnerships for Employment Career Fair on Wednesday, September 28, from 10:00am until 3:30pm at RIM Park in Waterloo.

Partnerships for Employment provides an opportunity for students and alumni from the University of Guelph, University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Conestoga College to meet with employers and to learn more about the employment opportunities available. Karos Health happens to have several software-related positions open, and we’re looking forward to meeting with potential candidates at the fair.

If you’re planning on being at the event, and are interested in working at Karos Health, please drop by and see us at booth 77 and say hello. We’d love to meet you. For that matter, please feel free to talk to me any time about career opportunities at Karos Health.

This post originally appeared on the Karos Health blog in a slightly different form.

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Karos Health co-op recruiting event at UW

Some of you may know that I work at a Waterloo-based software company called Karos Health. As I’ve written about in the past, Karos Health recruits students from the University of Waterloo for co-op work terms. It’s only September, but we’re already looking ahead to the Winter 2012 term and we’re actively looking for software developers and software testers.

To that end, on September 21, from 11:30am to 1:00pm, Karos Health will hold a recruiting event at the Davis Centre on the University of Waterloo campus. We’ll be in The Fishbowl, happily chatting with anyone who wants to learn more about of working at Karos.

You can read more about our co-op jobs now, or just plan on coming out to the event and learning about us there.

We’re a small startup with a terrific team that already has products in the market and customers who are excited by what we’re doing. We’re collaborative, smart, and committed to creating great products while having fun doing it. At Karos you’ll have a chance to try different things, get your code into shipping products, test new product releases and make a meaningful difference to health care providers and patients. And, once a month, you’ll be fed the best waffles you’ve ever eaten.

If you’re at all curious about working at Karos, this will be an opportunity to talk to many of the people, including current and past co-op students, who are creating the software that powers our products. Want to know what tools we use? Or how we manage our source code? Or how we practice Scrum and other Agile techniques? This is the place to find out, and to hear about why your next great co-op job might well be here at Karos.

No RSVP required. Just come by the Davis Centre, enjoy some free food that we’ll provide, and learn about working at a terrific software startup right here in Waterloo.

This post originally appeared on the Karos Health blog in a slightly different form.

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UW co-op recruiting event for Karos Health

Today, from 5:00pm to 7:00pm, Karos Health will be hosting a recruiting event at the Bombshelter Pub on the University of Waterloo campus. We’re looking for co-op software developers to join us for the Fall 2011 term, and we’ll be at the Bomber in force to extoll the great benefits of working at Karos.

While I’m obviously biased to some extent, I do believe that Karos offers a great opportunity for a meaningful work term experience:

  • Interesting work on shipping products and/or research projects
  • A smart and experienced team to learn from
  • A great atmosphere

The event gives potential co-op employees a chance to talk with our development team, as well as with past and present co-op students. Drop by to chat, and to eat some of the free food that we’re providing. Hope to see you tonight!

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The prototype is done, let’s ramp up!

I wrote a little while back about the Research Entrepreneurship Accelerator Project at the University of Waterloo. The program got up and running for this past winter’s academic term, and saw a team of six students working on a prototype of an online marketplace in which artists and other content creators provide creative services for owners of Christie Digital MicroTiles. I was lucky to be able to work with the student team, as well as with the extended REAP leadership team.

Last Wednesday was the end-of-term presentation for the inaugural student REAP team, and I was happy to be able to see them present the results of their project to representatives for Christie. While I had seen the team’s work at various points during the project, the students still managed to surprise me. Their presentation was in the form of a play in which the team acted out the the scenarios that they had created in support of their design work. This was delightfully unexpected, but perhaps shouldn’t have been given that REAP is an initiative of the Arts faculty that happens to build cross-disciplinary teams.

Fittingly, the first REAP term was something of a prototype itself, and the lessons learned by everyone involved are already being applied as preparations move forward for the spring REAP term that starts in May. There are multiple projects lined up this time, with some interesting ideas to explore. The recruiting process is in its final stages — last night I had a chance to meet the student candidates for the next REAP teams —and I’m looking forward to supporting the new teams on their projects over the coming months.

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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.
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Design Exchange 2011

It’s been a busy month, with the most recent Ignite Waterloo event and planning for uxWaterloo keeping me busy outside of my day job. I haven’t done a blog post here in a while, and I thought I’d start to catch up by letting you know about an event that I’m peripherally involved with.

Design Exchange Waterloo 2011 is a student-organized, design-focused forum that’s happening from 6:00pm to 9:00pm on Wednesday March 2 in room 2218 of the Tatham Center at the University of Waterloo. The DXW website is currently light on detail, but I can share a little more information that I know about. The coolest thing about this forum is that includes ten groups of students from four different areas (Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Environment, and School of Computer Science) presenting their design work. There also will be ample opportunity to discuss design, incubate ideas, and connect with a diverse group of students and industry professionals through their shared interest in design.

To that end, the organizers are hoping to see people from the off-campus community join the students for what looks to be a lively event. I can say from my own past experience that it’s well worth attending. At the last event, back in 2009, I even met a student whom we subsequently hired as an intern at Primal Fusion, an outcome that may have been unusual but which was more than welcome all around.

Here’s a my understanding of the agenda for March 2:

  • Introductions
  • 5 student presentations
  • 30 minute snack break (mingle period)
  • 5 student presentations
  • Awards for Best Presentations, Most Innovative Design
  • Concluding Statements

Should be an interesting event.

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Murphy was an optimist

I visited the Accelerator Centre this week to do a presentation/workshop for an MBET class at the University of Waterloo. The first part of the class turned out to be a bit of a challenge. Well, it was more than a bit of a challenge. It was a vivid manifestation of Murphy’s Law in action.

My presentation included supporting visuals prepared in Keynote, Apple’s wonderful presentation software for Macintosh. While I had brought my laptop, and everything else needed for the class, I had neglected to bring the correct video cable to connect my laptop to the projector in the classroom. No connector meant no supporting visuals.

Not a problem. There were other laptops in the room and there was a viable plan ‘B’ — all I had to do was export my Keynote presentation to a Powerpoint version, and transfer it to a Windows laptop. I had, in the past, done this translation many times. On this occasion, though, it didn’t work.

OK, then, on to plan ‘C’ — upload my presentation to slideshare.net. The conversion failed there, too.

Plan ‘D’ was the one that finally worked. A great colleague at Karos Health graciously hand-delivered the right cable after I called the office with my tale of woe. Cable in hand, I connected my laptop to the projector and jumped into my delayed presentation.

Of course, theres an inevitable punchline to this story. The presentation/workshop that I was delivering was about delivering presentations.