health

Health Hub

What is the Health Hub?

The Health Hub is designed to spark student interest in the complex and evolving world of health-related challenges—from health tech and med tech to innovative approaches in patient care. It serves as a dynamic entry point for students from diverse disciplines to explore how their skills can contribute to health system transformation.

Through initiatives like the Health Tech Innovation Challenge, students work in cross-faculty teams to develop real-world solutions for issues such as hospital-induced delirium in elderly patients. In partnership with Grand River Hospital, teams prototype technologies like smart pillows that monitor vital signs and support sleep quality, or sensory devices that help restore patients’ circadian rhythms.

What is the Health Hub?

The Health Hub exemplifies Waterloo’s broader goal to get students excited about solving meaningful problems. It brings together health, technology, and entrepreneurship—encouraging early engagement with ethical design, interdisciplinary collaboration, and socially impactful innovation.  Health Tech Innovation Challenge 

Each year, the Health Hub hosts the Health Tech Innovation Challenge—a fast-paced, student-centered design competition where teams prototype technologies to improve health outcomes. 

This year’s challenge asked: How might we design inclusive, affordable, and scalable health technologies to prevent or detect hospital-induced delirium? 

Student Outcomes 

  • Teams developed working prototypes in just one weekend. 

  • Ideas ranged from smart bedside devices to complex monitoring systems. 

  • Solutions were evaluated by experts from engineering, health, and industry. 

 
Teams pitch ideas during the 2024 Health Tech Innovation Challenge. 

Why It Matters 

Students apply their engineering skills to real, unsolved problems—building empathy, collaboration, and design thinking muscles while learning how to work with medical professionals, caregivers, and patients. 

Program Highlights 

  • Design Challenges — Rapid prototyping in health-focused sprints 

  • Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration — Team up with students from Health and Engineering 

  • Mentorship — Feedback and support from clinicians, researchers, and health-tech entrepreneurs 

  • Focus Areas — Digital health, rehabilitation engineering, mental wellness tools, equitable healthcare 

Get Involved 

Want to help reimagine the future of healthcare? The Health Hub is open to all Engineering undergraduates through: 

  • The annual Health Tech Innovation Challenge 

  • Course-integrated projects in the IDEAs Clinic 

  • Co-op placements with the IDEAs Clinic to help develop new teaching activities

 Health is everyone’s business—and engineers have a vital role to play.