Posts Tagged ‘university of ottawa’

I Received this letter from the University of Ottawa with regards to “Project Hero.” Project Hero will wave tuition fees and 1st year dorm costs for children whose parents were killed while serving for the Canadian Military. I’m impressed with the initiative. Here is the letter:

Despite an overcast sky, summer is here and that means summer vacation. I will take a break and resume my snap-shot emails in mid-August. However, I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you a wonderful summer. Thank you to all for your excellent work and for your tireless efforts that contribute each day to the success of our university.

Some of you may have read a story in the newspaper this morning about the University of Ottawa being the very first university to participate in Project Hero. The idea behind this initiative, spearheaded by alumnus Kevin Reed, is for Canadian universities to offer free tuition for children of Canadian military parents killed in action. The University will also waive on-campus residence fees for the first year of undergraduate studies. I’m proud to say that everyone at the University of Ottawa embraced the idea with enthusiasm. The tuition waiver will begin in September 2009.

It’s the least we can do to ease some of the worries that may plague those who put their lives at risk for our country every day. For more information, I invite you to read the news release.

Have a great summer and happy Canada Day!

Allan Rock

President and Vice-Chancellor

These days web startups don’t need too many resources to get started. An internet connection, a place to work, some basic capital, and a motivated team may be the beginning. I am writing this post from the University of Ottawa where I’m sitting amongst 2 other groups who are working on their own startups.

The University of Ottawa happens to keep alumni credentials (i.e. usernames/passwords) active and this is why a lot of already-graduated students come back to where they spent 4(+) years of their lives studying. I’m sitting amongst 2 groups right now but happen to know of another 3 that work out of this University. I’m sure that the situation is similar in Carleton, Algonquin, and other colleges and Universities.

These are groups that you won’t typically meet at a BarCamp/DemoCamp. These are the groups that prefer to stay stealth for a long time. I typically argue with them that there is a lot of benefit that they can seek from the community, yet, it’s difficult to get the message to sink in.

As far as I’m concerned, Ottawa is a startup town. We have a huge student population (probably close to 70,000) and a lot of very experienced senior executives. If we could connect these disparate groups, I think we’d have amazing results.

Aydin.