News

Eight teams of student founders from the University of Waterloo won a total of $95,000 at the Velocity Pitch Competition – All Star Edition to invest in their innovative startups.  

Waterloo Engineering students co-founded six of those startups, including the event’s first-prize winner of $25,000 — GreaseTech. The company, co-founded by Jesh Ramesh (MBET ’24), helps manufacturers prevent machine failures by optimizing lubrication processes.

The University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Engineering hosted Tobias Lütke, CEO and co-founder of Shopify, in a recent fireside chat with Vivek Goel, president and vice-chancellor of the University. 

Lütke spoke of the calibre of Waterloo's co-op students, stating that Shopify employs 40 per cent of its interns from the University because "Waterloo offers a different tier of talent".

Waterloo Engineering and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering are mourning the loss of Professor Emeritus Timothy Topper, an influential researcher in fatigue and fracture mechanics and a beloved mentor to generations of students and colleagues.

Dr. Topper passed away on February 28, 2025.

X-ray technology developed by a Waterloo Engineering spinoff company blasted into space this week as part of a private mission aboard a SpaceX rocket.

The flagship X-ray device made by KA imaging was selected for the Fram2 mission, a partnership of academic institutions and private companies with a four-person crew, for its portability and accuracy.

Twelve teams of fourth-year Waterloo Engineering students pitched their Capstone Design projects as viable startup ideas to a panel of industry judges at the 2025 Norman Esch Entrepreneurship Awards.

Ideas included a device to enhance sleep quality and cognitive function in children with epilepsy, and a novel material designed to improve efficiency in oil spill remediation.

A new partnership between the University of Waterloo and the City of Iqaluit is giving students the opportunity to apply their skills to real-world challenges while making a meaningful impact in Nunavut.

The collaboration was made possible through i-Capstone — Waterloo’s first interdisciplinary undergraduate capstone program. Bringing together students from all Faculties, i-Capstone empowers them to address complex community issues like sustainable housing, infrastructure, and urban planning for academic credit.

University of Waterloo students have built one of the fastest-growing local chapters of an international maker collective called Socratica. More than 2,500 students gathered at the 2025 symposium in Waterloo to build, innovate, design, engineer and collaborate.

The organization was founded in 2022 and has since involved hundreds of volunteers from a variety of disciplines. Its success stems from harnessing the Waterloo entrepreneurial ethos and inviting thousands of students from multiple disciplines to make magic together.

A third-year student in the biomedical engineering program has been recognized as the co-operative education student of the year for Waterloo Engineering.

Jarett Dewbury was cited for his contributions during a co-op term with the Tadesse Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Engineering is renowned for its entrepreneurial graduates. No surprise then that the Waterloo region is home to a number of successful startups with global reach and local impact.

Alchemy, Avidbots and Miovision are just three examples of local businesses that were founded by Waterloo Engineering alumni— namely, Chong Shen (BASc ’13) and Khanjan Desai (BASc ’13); Pablo Molina (BASc ’11) and Faizan Sheikh (BASc ’11); and Kurtis McBride (BASc ’04, MASc ’07), respectively. All three have contributed to putting the Waterloo region on the map as Canada’s tech capital.

Waterloo Engineering students achieved impressive results at Canada’s most prestigious engineering student competition last month.

The 2025 Canadian Engineering Competition (CEC), hosted at Dalhousie University, provided a platform for students to demonstrate their innovative thinking and technical expertise across several categories. Every Waterloo competitor secured a top-three finish in their respective category.