Builders attract builders

Before Velocity became the centre of entrepreneurship at the University of Waterloo, it was a group of innovative students living in the Waterloo dorm life and hosting weekly meetups at Minota Hagey, also known as Velocity residence. Today, thousands of students from all backgrounds take part in Velocity’s experiential entrepreneurship learning program.  

Similarly, more than 100 Waterloo student volunteers came together to grow Socratica into one of Canada's (and possibly the world's) fastest-growing student maker collectives in just three years. Today, both the Velocity and Socratica communities stemming from Waterloo are recognized as global leaders and have thousands of members, building and innovating across the world.  

Socratica saw more than 2,500 students show up to cheer on their peers at their 2025 Symposium, held at the Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex. Ten Waterloo students took to the stage to present their projects, some passion and some business, and all impressive. An additional 60 student and organizations showcased their creations throughout the venue. Projects spanned across art, engineering, business, design, poetry and everything in-between.

“Socratica is unlike anything I've seen in my years working with students. They've created something remarkable — a community where everyone from artists to tech entrepreneurs work side by side as builders,” says John Dick, senior director of Founder Development at Velocity.

In 2023 Socratica met with Dick to talk about how community is built and how to strengthen student opportunity. Socratica and Velocity have partnered ever since, establishing Velocity’s central community space, also known to students as “the Dungeon.”  The space creates an opportunity for like-minded students to connect and build their projects. Their work is featured through showcases, competitions and challenges.  

Velocity and Socratica allow students to find their place at any stage of an idea. Whether they’re just starting out or further along, they meet students where they’re at. People are coming together to do things that bring them joy, whether it’s writing, designing or engineering, they have connection and the freedom to explore and be innovative.   “There is incredible potential in our universities when students dare to dream big,” Dick says. Velocity's programming complements the low-stakes Socratica approach, allowing students to take their love for building beyond Waterloo and out into the world through entrepreneurship.

From Socratica life to Velocity life

There are thousands of Waterloo students creating and innovating across all industries, from music and events to clean technology. Here are a few Socratica members whose startups have benefitted from Velocity's support:

• Voltra Energy, founded by computer engineering student Alexander Stratmoen and former student Aryan Afrouzi, is an API provider building an operation system for the electrical grid. They’re making it easier to deploy high power electrical infrastructure like EV chargers or battery assets, and interconnect these with the grid and real time energy markets. By abstracting this complex ingestion layer, it’s possible for the dreams of smart grid to become a reality, allowing increased capacity to the existing electrical infrastructure, and reduction of the cost of energy.  

A large portion of Socratica’s 2025 Symposium was powered by Voltra Energy. Stratmoen  and Afrouzi built a demonstration micro grid that ran off their software with battery storage and inverters.

• Wygo, developed by Waterloo engineering students, Jocelyne Murphy and Christopher Oka, are making in-person event process and execution simpler. They are an accelerator for community builders that provides tools and a built-in audience for everyday people to workshop, test, iterate and scale their ideas for facilitating in-person connection.
• Nyquist, a co-pilot for the processing of hardware engineering, is being developed by engineering student, Anson Yu and mathematics student, Hudhayfa Nazoordeen.

Join Velocity and Socratica at Waterloo and build your entrepreneurship side.