innovation

This is a place where great minds unite, imagining what tomorrow can be.

Myo was created by Stephen Lake (BASc ’12), Matthew Bailey (BASc ’12) and Aaron Grant (BASc ’12), co-founders of Thalmic Labs and graduates of Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo.

Thalmic Labs is a University of Waterloo startup at the forefront of a hardware revolution. Developed in Waterloo’s Faculty of Engineering and the University’s Velocity Garage startup incubator, the company’s Myo armband translates electrical activity in muscles to wirelessly control electronic devices — from computers and phones to aerial and land-based robotics. The company announced a $14.5-million round of funding in 2013 and is ready to begin shipping armbands.

Different from the start

From our founding, nearly 60 years ago, the University of Waterloo has revolutionized higher education by introducing co-operative education and robust academy-industry connections. In fact, our founding was our original and definitive act of entrepreneurship, setting the tone for the rich scholarship and leading-edge innovation to follow.

That deep instinct for innovation defines us still, on our quest to be recognized as one of the world’s top innovation universities.

Today, we have the world’s largest and best co-operative education program. We are a leader in many frontier disciplines of research including quantum information science, water research and aging studies. We serve as the engine of the region’s startup ecosystem — ranked among the top 20 such ecosystems worldwide. Through those achievements, and on the strength of our strategic plan, we are defining the future of the university experience: connected, impactful and rooted in the ageless aspiration to discover.

This report provides a snapshot of the University of Waterloo’s character and priorities and of our achievements and breakthroughs over the past year. It also casts an eye to the future, with notes on what you can expect from us going forward.

Whether it’s reconfiguring the student experience through experiential education, rethinking the role of the arts and media in the digital age, reinventing computing and cybersecurity or developing more sustainable communities, energy and transportation, Waterloo is defining tomorrow.

Thank you to our students, faculty and staff and to our alumni and supporters the world over. Your skilled and generous contributions to Waterloo’s pursuit of discovery, innovation and educational excellence continue to make all the difference.

Sincerely,

FERIDUN HAMDULLAHPUR
President and Vice-Chancellor
University of Waterloo

waterloo

We’re unique in the world — fusing scholarship with pro-innovation research policy and education steeped in experience. The result is an innovative environment where the entrepreneurial spirit runs deep.

Innovation also extends to our campus architecture. As the first LEED® Platinum-certified building on an Ontario university campus, Environment 3 is an accessible, 57,000-square-foot living laboratory for the Faculty of Environment, helping to shape our sustainable future.

From a farmhouse to the future of education

In 1957, the University of Waterloo was a farmhouse, a handful of temporary shelters and — almost — a chemical engineering building.

Founded as an audacious dream at the corner of two dirt roads in rural Ontario, Canada, Waterloo has become the undisputed global leader of a new kind of university education.

We have grown to encompass 1,000 acres, four campuses, six Faculties, 10 Faculty-based schools and 42 Senate-approved research centres and institutes. Our scholars are innovators, and our learners are leaders in the making.

Our spirit cannot be contained by the boundaries of a university campus. Waterloo is the anchor of this region’s innovation ecosystem. We are known as the Quantum Valley for our world leadership in quantum information and our rising reputation as a top global centre for entrepreneurship and disruptive innovation.

Read on to learn about our innovators’ contributions to scholarship, education and prosperity in 2014, and about what to expect in the year ahead.

Engineering 7, shown here in an architectural rendering, will see Canada’s largest Faculty of Engineering continue to grow in a space that serves to catalyze innovation on entrepreneurial endeavours and enable more high-impact, industry-relevant research.

The original house from the farm that would become the University of Waterloo still stands, serving today as the Graduate House, a vibrant club operated by the Graduate Student Association.

The Path to the future runs through Waterloo.

The University of Waterloo is the engine of a remarkable innovation cluster and an anchor in Canada’s emerging innovation corridor, which stretches from Waterloo to Toronto. From new technologies to new industries, we are a vital component of one of the world’s top 20 startup ecosystems and a globally recognized centre of disruptive change. The Waterloo region is defined by a deep-rooted spirit of collaboration, driven by partnerships between individuals and institutions — including Communitech, the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, the Accelerator Centre and many others. Waterloo is destined to achieve growing global prominence as the home of world-changing innovation.

Probing the limits of semiconductors is just part of the groundbreaking exploration taking place at the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN). Innovation is now happening at the interface of traditional disciplines as new tools, materials and processes are developed at nanoscale for advanced manufacturing.