News

Teams representing Waterloo Engineering made the top three in six of eight categories at the recent Ontario Engineering Competition, which was held online due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

The two Waterloo teams, the winners of campus competitions held in the spring and fall of last year, together collected two firsts, three seconds and a pair of thirds at the 42^nd annual event.

Undergraduate students competed in communications, programming, consulting, re-engineering, junior design, senior design, debates and innovative design over two days.

Researchers at Waterloo Engineering have taken another step forward in their open-source COVID-19 project with the release of new datasets and an artificial intelligence (AI) model that was built using them.

Launched in March, the initiative involves the use of deep-learning AI software to screen for evidence of infection in chest x-rays and CT scans.

A wide-ranging conversation with celebrated Waterloo Engineering alumnus Chamath Palihapitiya and one of his early role models, technology entrepreneur Vinod Khosla, was a highlight at the recent Hack the North event.

Sponsored by Waterloo Engineering, the University of Waterloo and a long list of industry partners, the largest hackathon in Canada doubled to 3,000 participants after moving to a virtual format because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A senior environmental official with York Region is the 2021 Douglas Wright Engineer-in-Residence for the civil and environmental engineering department at the University of Waterloo.

Erin Mahoney is commissioner of environmental services for York, overseeing water and wastewater, waste management, forestry and other services for 1.2 million residents in the regional municipality north of Toronto.

An engineering grad's online story-sharing company is to be acquired by South Korean internet business Naver Corp. in an estimated $754-million CAD cash and stock deal later this year.  

Each year, Waterloo Engineering recognizes Faculty members for their outstanding contributions and unwavering dedication to education and research.

The recipients of the Faculty's four faculty and staff awards were recently announced by Mary Wells, dean of engineering, and celebrated virtually.   

Chamath Palihapitiya, the outspoken venture capitalist, former social media executive and Waterloo Engineering alumnus, has made an annual list of the 50 most influential Canadians published by Maclean’s magazine.

Palihapitiya, who graduated from the electrical engineering program in 1999 before making his fortune at Facebook and as a founder of Social Capital, holds down the 33^rd spot on the 2021 Maclean’s Power List.

The University of Waterloo has joined forces with five other Ontario universities to increase academic and industry diversity by creating new fellowships for Indigenous and Black students pursuing doctoral degrees in engineering.

An online education company co-founded by two Waterloo Engineering alumni announced this week that it has secured $159 million in backing to fuel its expansion.

Prodigy Education, one of the fastest-growing education technology companies in North America, was launched by Rohan Mahimker and Alex Peters, who both graduated in 2011 from the mechatronics engineering program at Waterloo.

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Household appliances and other devices could be operated with simple voice commands using highly efficient new artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

Developed by researchers at the University of Waterloo and explainable AI company DarwinAI, the technology enables the creation of low-cost, low-power, self-contained speech recognition software that is tailored to specific tasks.