In 2025, Waterloo Engineering’s Outreach programs reached more than 41,500 young people — a 30 per cent increase from 2024 and more than triple the 13,500 participants served in 2017.
With support from donors, partners and sponsors, the programs are intentionally designed to engage young people who have historically been excluded from STEM — girls, 2SLGBTQIA+ youth, Black and Indigenous youth, youth living with disabilities and newcomers to Canada.
Waterloo Engineering Outreach programs reached 41,500 youth in 2025.
"The result is not just participation — it is belonging, confidence and expanded possibility. None of this is possible without sustained investment, and none of it happens without the generosity of those who believe every young person deserves the chance to discover their potential in engineering." — Dr. Mary Wells, dean of Waterloo Engineering
Delivered through camps, classroom visits, conferences and community partnerships, the programs connect youth from kindergarten to Grade 12 with hands-on STEM experiences across Ontario. This work matters because diversity, in the broadest sense of the term, strengthens engineering.
Building belonging for underrepresented youth
In 2025, equity-focused initiatives reached more than 16,700 youth through programs designed specifically for communities historically underrepresented in STEM. These included STEMpowered, a program for Black youth that reached 1,080 participants, and Indigenous youth programming that engaged 1,901 young people through in-school workshops, on-campus visits and the Travelling STEM program.
The Travelling STEM program earned national recognition, winning the Ontario Network of Women in Engineering (ONWiE) Engineering Outreach Innovation Award for Beading Binary: Code, Culture, and Light — named the single standout outreach initiative of 2025.
Additional equity-focused initiatives served 414 youth living with disabilities through ESQ All-In, and 43 youth through a 2SLGBTQIA+ program. Community-based free programs reached a further 12,399 youth across the region.
Women in Engineering: From youth outreach to alumni networks
Founded in 1992, Women in Engineering (WiE) at Waterloo supports girls and nonbinary youth through outreach initiatives, while also building community for current undergraduate and graduate students and connecting them to a strong alumni network. In 2025, WiE hosted 35 university-level events — including industry nights, hackathons and mentorship sessions — engaging more than 1,950 current students. The program’s youth outreach arm reached 955 girls and non-binary youth, creating continuity from early STEM engagement through to professional life in engineering.
Engineering Science Quest sparks curiosity from Grade 1
Engineering Science Quest (ESQ) is one of the University’s flagship programs, offering hands-on STEM camps, after-school clubs and community delivery for youth in Grades 1 to 9. In 2025, more than 1,600 youth participated across 67 week-long camp offerings, with 85 high school students gaining leadership experience through the volunteer Leader in Training program.
School programs bring STEM directly to classrooms
School programs embedded STEM learning directly into the school day across nine school boards, prioritizing rural communities and low-socioeconomic areas that would otherwise have no access to university-led programming. ESQube In-School Workshops — free sessions covering coding, engineering design, digital skills and prototyping — reached 15,846 youth across 939 classes.
The Kids on Campus program brought 6,582 Grade 4 students to the university for on-site field trips focused on AI and digital skills, giving many their first experience on a university campus.
Catalyst prepares high schoolers to lead in STEM
Catalyst engages Grade nine to 12 students in design thinking, project work and workshops with faculty and student mentors. More than 200 high school students participated in 2025 through flagship offerings that included a two-week summer program — with Traditional STEM and Early Entrepreneurs streams, the latter in partnership with the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business — and the Catalyst Grade 11 Conference for girls and non-binary students, delivered in collaboration with WiE.
The program also supported students through HiveMind, a free tutoring initiative that hosted 147 virtual sessions for students struggling in science and math.
"I truly enjoyed participating in the program — it was such a valuable experience to explore different fields of engineering and strengthen my collaboration skills. I could genuinely see myself studying here in the future." — Catalyst participant
Sustained by partnerships, driven by community
The scale and accessibility of Waterloo Engineering’s Outreach programs depend on sustained support. Critically, 95 per cent of the reach achieved in 2025 came through programs offered at no cost to families.
Individual donors, corporate partners and community collaborators make barrier-free programming possible, as does the backing of key institutional partners: NSERC, whose funding supports the scientific rigour and reach of Outreach’s work, and Actua, Canada’s leading STEM youth outreach network, whose national infrastructure amplifies local impact.
Looking ahead, Waterloo Engineering Outreach will continue building on this momentum, with a focus on engineering design, digital literacy, cyber safety and artificial intelligence — the skills the next generation of engineers will need to meet the challenges of the near future.
Read the Outreach Annual Report 2025 for more about the Waterloo Engineering Outreach team’s meaningful and measurable impact on young people’s futures.