I talked with Jesse Rodgers, the guy who runs the Velocity program for U Waterloo a few weeks ago. He's a very cool guy, and the program sounds kick ass. Every session they put around 40 CS students into a dedicated dorm, and they work on building startups.
Yup, it's open to all students. My (engineering) friends, love the art/business students who pop up there. Turns out that they are smart. And really useful. Especially since the faculties time their crunch time differently, so a mixed group/team will likely always have at least one person who isn't totally crushed at any given time.
Just to ensure the correct people are given credit here, Velocity is Sean Van Koughnett's brainchild and he pushed the university to build the Velocity program. He's a great guy and the city of Waterloo is fortunate to have had his efforts dedicated to this.
Also, I want to address one of the grandchild comments. It's important to enforce the fact that Velocity is not simply a place for engineers or math students. It's a place to meet passionate entrepreneurs and build startups. The mindset of "arts/bus students are surprisingly useful" is outright disrespectful, and discredits the value of fresh insights and diverse skill sets.
Sean is indeed the guy that got VeloCity going and he deserves a huge amount of credit. Without him it would not have existed.
Bud Walker (head of business ops at the time) and Chris Read (head of Housing and Residences) also deserve some credit as well as Bud found the money and Chris found the space.
Students (never mind the city) at Waterloo have these same folks driving the new Student Success office. The student experience at Waterloo is going to get much better.
Now Ted is the guy that has given VeloCity elevated value and opportunity beyond what was already there from the amazing talent that has lived in the residence over the last 8 terms.
The work Jesse and VeloCity have been doing over the last few years has been great for the community at UW. YC-funded Allerta (of inPluse) is also VeloCity alum, as was the 7CUBED project (of QuickCite). Not bad results after only 3 years.
