In this rooftop conversation, a group of student founders—including Demi, speakers A, C, and D—share personal projects, perspectives on AI, and advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. Demi recounts creating a semi‑viral LinkedIn video that blended AI tools with video editing, building a retro handheld game console from scratch, and launching a bubble‑tea product. The participants discuss the dual excitement and fear surrounding AI, especially its potential in medical applications and efficiency gains, while questioning whether a computer‑science degree is required to make an impact. Speakers C and D argue that impact can be achieved through self‑learning, marketing, and interdisciplinary skills, emphasizing the importance of asking the right questions to AI. The conversation shifts to entrepreneurship, highlighting that confidence, networking, and other skills are buildable, and that passion, community, and trial‑and‑error are more critical than formal credentials. Overall, the dialogue encourages students to experiment, leverage AI tools, and collaborate with peers to create meaningful projects without relying on a CS degree.
Chapters
This fall I'm starting a marketing internship at Shopify, and this summer I'm doing everything I can to prepare for it. I'm on a rooftop filled with builders from Waterloo to ask them these questions. Simon, hi! What's something that you've built so far that you're proud of?
Okay, so this is actually inspired by Julia Fedorin herself. I made a LinkedIn video for Shopify, and I made it like half with AI and half with video editing skills. And then I was proud of it because it's my first time doing anything like that. I've never posted on social media before.
And then yeah, Yeah, and it went like semi-viral, so that was super exciting.
It's kind of surreal. Yeah, so in the last year I've been working on building a retro handheld game console from scratch. So we did all the electronics, all the hardware ourselves, and now we're ready to sell them. So we're opening up a Shopify store to sell our merch at first, and then we're gonna also do our actual consoles on it after. I would say, uh, probably my first company I started. It was the first time I actually got out of my shell and started a company. It was a bubble tea company. I was selling, uh, 1-liter bubble teas for people to consume, kind of like chocolate milk where you have it in your fridge and you could just kind of pour yourself a glass whenever you wanted. It did pretty well, like at least with the community, I was able to sell a decent amount. But it was just, it was my first leap into entrepreneurship and I've always wanted to do that. So I was really proud of myself for taking that leap. I did a skateboarding video in Waterloo because I listened to the song ABBA or Waterloo by ABBA and I thought it was like a really cool skate song for some reason. So then we, me and a friend just went around Waterloo just like shooting skate videos.
I've seen it. It's really good. This is Ali. Okay, Allie, what's something in AI that excites you and also scares you? What scares me is that the more you know, the more you know you don't know. And I know so little about it. And then when I talk to the people that like build it, they also feel like they know so little. And that's kind of terrifying. But it's also the thing that's the most exciting. I think the thing that's the most exciting though is like, as someone who did not grow up programming aside from like my like personal websites or like my MySpace pages, I don't— I can, I can still use it. I can still do it. The thing that excites me the most is definitely using it to like help people. So the one thing that like kind of came up in my mind is like medical stuff. I feel like it'll save a lot of lives, but at the same time, if we put all of the medical data into AI, I also don't know what people are going to do with those data. So it's definitely scary and also exciting at the same time. I'm excited about the efficiency aspect of it. I think that at work when I'm coding with it can be really, really helpful. Makes things quicker, makes understanding things quicker. Do you think you need a CS degree to make an impact in AI?
Personally, no, not really. To be honest, CS is obviously the main driver in the AI world. Obviously development is the biggest thing that comes into AI, machine learning, that type of thing. But in reality, there's many ways to make an impact in AI rather than just CS. The companies that do the best have the best marketing.
I don't think so. 100% no. I mean, majority of my class in CS I don't use like on a day-to-day basis whenever I'm working or anything. Everything I've done is like self-taught or like on the internet, things like that. I wouldn't say like you definitely don't need a degree in CS. I've seen people who are not in CS or like other programs, like even like communications and things like that, make an impact in, you know, this field without having the technical knowledge. It definitely does help with a lot of the theoreticals, but, you know, as an overall, I, I wouldn't say you don't need it.
No, you do not need a CS degree to make an impact in AI.
Why is that?
I—
because it's— the AI works. You need to be able to use it, and to use it, you have to understand humans and understand how to ask questions and understand rhetoric and understand language. And so if you don't ask the right questions, you don't get the right responses.
What would you say to someone who doesn't think they're not cut out to be an entrepreneur?
Well, first thing I would do is ask them why they think they're not cut out to be an entrepreneur. And one of the most common things we often hear is that I'm not confident enough, I don't have the networking skills. But in reality, those are buildable. All skills, in my opinion, are buildable. If you're not a good coder, you can become an entrepreneur. If you're not a good speaker, you become an entrepreneur. Skill set that you don't have now is not a skill set necessarily that you won't have later.
You're— there's not like something being cut out to be an entrepreneur. I feel like a lot of the time, uh, it's just taking that first step, you know what I mean, into actually starting yourself starting something by yourself. A lot of times people think they need to like do degrees or do courses or things like that to start a business, but in reality it's a lot of just trial and error. And that's how kind of I feel like a lot of the big guys always started. If you look at like big names in tech and things like that, it started like out of the guy's garage or something, or like Mark Zuckerberg dropping out of Harvard. And that's where like the true ideas kind of like shine through, like passion, things like that. But I'll pass it on to Demi.
There's no set skills that determine you to be an entrepreneur. Honestly, it's all about having passion, all about having drive, you know. You can even be an introvert You don't need to have a business degree. It's all about like actually being passionate about what you're going to do. And that honestly leads to great things 99% of the time. Everyone feels like they're kind of out of place. I feel like ultimately building together is the most fun. And so when you're kind of in a group, you kind of get to realize like you're talking to people and they're like, oh, I didn't know I could do this. And then 3 years later, here I am, right? And so I think that's the mindset you have to kind of take on and build with people, make your build of your network and like try to like make friends around you who are also trying to be founders. I think that's really inspirational to, to myself and other people to kind of keep pushing forward and you get to learn from one another, and I think that makes the journey so much more fun.
