Entrepreneurial engineers discuss University's role on the international stage

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

From Waterloo Stories

Every business, every idea and every product being created right now, is being “born global.”

That’s the takeaway from the Waterloo Innovation Summit, which ended

Hongwei Liu, Camelia Nunez and Matin Esfahani
its two-day run on April 15 at the University of Waterloo.

Waterloo Engineering students and alumni were among the highly-successful entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, students, government officials and academics who gathered at the Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre to share a conversation about innovation, and how the University’s role in a high-tech hub can benefit the local and national economy.

While there was much discussion about whether a company should try to grow in Canada or go south of the border, the message that kept coming through loud and clear was the global nature of the commercialization of innovation.

Student success stories

A transparent film that turns every window into a billboard, an on-demand language tutor, an indoor navigation mapping system were three of the Waterloo Engineering-linked startups in the spotlight at the summit. The founders include engineering students or alumni

Nunez, an MBET graduate, is the co-founder of Milao, an on-demand language tutor.  Within a year, she created and beta-tested her company on-campus and is now looking to get Milao into 10 universities in Canada and the United States. “In Waterloo, things happen fast,” she said. [Waterloo stories]