Shorter days, longer nights, blankets of cold enshrouding the darkness. Welcome to winter, the so-called dead season, where the mind becomes broody, awaiting the reawakening of spring. We are all waiting for the snow to melt and for the sun to shine brightly again.
It’s a transitional period, thank goodness, so banish despair. The light will shine bright again, germinating a renewed sense of purpose. What that entails is up to the individual. But it is in the silence of winter when the inner voice sounds most loudly, articulating ideas that can irradiate the spirit, even on the darkest of days.
For inspiration, look at the alumni who illuminate the winter 2024 edition of The York University Magazine. Each is a bright light that can guide us through the winter months to keep pushing toward our own goals and self-betterment.
Some harness creativity to push themselves forward. They include Eric Choi, an aerospace engineer who writes award-winning speculative fiction on the side, and the acclaimed Canadian musician and composer Aaron Davis, a founder of Manteca and the Holly Cole Trio, whose latest project – debuting soon – is a score set to new poetry by Margaret Atwood.
Others are motivated by a sense of fairness. Christa Eniojukan, the celebrated head coach of York University’s top-flight women’s basketball team, is part of a growing movement toward gender equality in sport.
Female empowerment is also the theme of our cover story highlighting Eva Lau, one of only a handful of women in Canada to lead her own venture capital fund. Recipient of a 2023 Report on Business Changemakers award, Lau was recently back at Keele Campus for the launch of the Schulich School of Business’s new MBA in Technology Leadership program. Lau knows something about that.
Not only is the engineer turned venture capitalist a proud Schulich grad, she is also a trail-blazing tech entrepreneur whose company, Two Small Fish Ventures, an early-stage transformative tech investor, makes big bets on everything from AI to blockchain to semiconductors and computing. Why does she invest in tech? “I believe in creating a better future,” says Lau, echoing York’s commitment to foster positive change for students, educators and alumni here in Canada, and around the world. It’s a way out of the darkness, for sure. ■
— Deirdre Kelly