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Thank you for your kind words there are days
here at work that I deal with so many
issues one issue after another one and I
I wonder towards the end of the day what have I done
with my day these are all issues that I hadn't thought about when I came to work
this morning
and yet I spent my entire day dealing with them.
It's a little bit of a downer. Then what
do? I have to recharge myself.
I go and visit the Velocity Garage
or I go and stop some students
look at their projects just goin' just they're having lunch sit down with them
and say well
what's going on and I can assure you that I am fully
recharged and inspired after I leave the velocity garage or after I finish
talking to them this is exactly the reason why
we are all here so I wanna thank you for your participation
your participation yesterday and today
for this event,
it really enlightened our
students so
you will be asking me if you have such
a fabulous body of students here who are doing the things that you're talking
about already
why are we doing this summit? why are we here?
this is only the beginning we want to
deep in it we wanna we want to speed it up we wanna scale it up
and there are very good reasons why you want to do this.
Jim was right,
many of us are here because we wanted to be here.
I am here at this university, I'm very proud to be here
because I envy
I envy this University. Everywhere I work I said
what a fabulous place and i ended up working here many of us
we had other choices and we wanted to be here
we are here it's not by accident
We are here because we want it to be at the University of Waterloo in
the city of waterloo the reasons are clear
last week the Korean television
for many hours aired University of Waterloo's
co-op program the Korean congress
they showed the video and presented what it meant
to offer a really innovative
program was the University of Waterloo's co-op
I'm going to China next week
gonna spend a week in China and I'm not going to sign
a single student exchange agreement. What we're doing,
we're talking about commercialization, were talking about strategic
partnerships
in areas that we will together
globally will make a big difference. That's the reason why
we are here we want to make sure that
the two things that we do here
this is our business, our business
is talent, as many talent
as the world needs to grow these talents here to educate them here
and new, destructive, Innovative
transformative knowledge you
when you put the two together you create this
fabulous mixture but it's happening here because
I mentioned the coop program once and
it's part of the DNA again we talk about it
we told you you create that slot of
the knowledge it is yours we have the
world's most innovative intellectual property policy
here so you put those together that's the reason why
this University is very special. It's been very special right from its
inception and in a way it is
our responsibility to ensure that
we are going to deepen ,intensify, scale it up
and speed up everything we do here in the form of
innovation and entrepreneurship it is very exciting it's a very exciting time
for us to be here
but I also as a citizen of this country,
as somebody who really
owes a lot to Canada in terms of
what it means to the whole world it is our responsibility to offer this
opportunity to our students
so when I go to Velocity Garage I talk to those students
and then I say oh my gosh what was I doing when I was their age
so and what I thought about it
probably I have the same level of knowledge I knew thermodynamics as much
as they did
no problem there but I couldn't go beyond that
when I start asking them question one question after another one
I feel a lot of depth and breath
and this is again an opportunity for
our university to benefit from your experience
from your expertise so that
our students, our professors, myself my colleagues will benefit from it.
Depth is never an issue in terms of
the quality and excellence of our programs but when you add
that fabulous exposure of students to build
their confidence so that when they get out
they know before even they get out they are determined
they can do it. Ladies and gentleman when I sometimes think about
jumping out of an airplane in my youth days
my knees tremble and I say, you stupid how did you do that?
you know for many many times. I did that
because I was young, I was determined to be able to do it
and this is when we're looking at the future
this is what we are excited about our students
the talent that are going through this university
they are going to make this tremendous difference
I have the same problem you do it so show 000 that means I have
my time is expired but before I leave this platform
I wanna thank each and every one of you for being here
it's great to have your participation and as however
Jim mentioned we are with this is only the beginning
This is this is only our second Innovation Summit and we want
to continue this. I considered the summit
as a great success however I will not consider exactly the same summit next
year
as a great success This is the Innovation Summit
it has to innovate itself to be able to do this
we need your input what would you like to see next year
and who else would you like to see next year
in addition to yourself okay we need that input we will very much appreciate
getting that put so that
what do you wanna see and who else your yourself is counted already
but who else do you wanna see in addition to yours
yourself with that let me also embarrass
a man who is
is so passionate about what we do here
is so passionate up about innovation
entrepreneurship creativity imagination
and man who is very passionate about this universe
I could not have thought of a better person to do this
summit then gym to while Jim thank you so much
and Howard also thank you very much for being part of this
and thank you all so very much for helping me with
with our innovation and entrepreneurship agenda there are many other players here
as as Jim mentioned so I won't name them but you have my
deepest gratitude thank you very much
hope to see you again soon all the best