The University of Waterloo’s Future Cities Institute (FCI) founded by CAIVAN brings together a global network of interdisciplinary researchers from a variety of fields, industry leaders, practitioners, students and community members to develop new tools and approaches for building healthy and prosperous cities.
Help shape the Vision 1 Million Scorecard
We’re working to make the BestWR Vision 1 Million Scorecard a powerful tool for understanding how ready our region is for a population of one million. We need your insights on critical areas like housing, transportation, health, employment, and livability; where are we prepared, and where do we need to improve?
Your feedback is confidential and will directly inform updates to the scorecard. Thank you for helping us build a better, more resilient future.
Fostering – We promote the integration of research, teaching, and knowledge mobilization to drive innovative city and community solutions.
Healthy – We embrace a One Health approach, recognizing the interconnectedness of human, environmental, and planetary well-being.
Prosperous – We create the conditions for communities to thrive socially and economically by fostering employment, innovation, education, and inclusive growth that benefits citizens.
Future – We explore multiple plausible futures, not just preferred ones, ensuring adaptable and resilient city and community strategies.
Cities and Communities – We engage with municipalities and Indigenous communities to collaboratively shape sustainable development.
News
BUILD NOW Community Design Workshop: Housing for Newcomers in Waterloo Region
FCI and community partners hosted a BUILD NOW design workshop bringing newcomer-focused community organisations into direct conversation with the BUILD NOW team. Participants offered feedback on housing design, neighbourhood planning, and amenities, contributing firsthand knowledge to the early development of the region's largest affordable housing project.
2026 i-Capstone Symposium
The i-Capstone Symposium brought students, municipal leaders, and industry partners together for a day of final presentations on real urban challenges worked on throughout the term. University of Waterloo President Vivek Goel, Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe, and representatives from the Region of Waterloo were among those in attendance. Student awards were supported by GLOCAL Foundation of Canada, AWS Canada, and the Global Futures Office, with the event made possible through the ongoing support of CAIVAN.
FCI x Brave Career Hackathon
The FCI x Brave Career Hackathon challenged student teams to build AI-powered tools for pressing urban systems problems in a single day, from zoning and data fragmentation to infrastructure capacity. Grounded in real problem statements from the City of Kitchener, the event produced a strong set of ideas from teams that worked quickly and thought carefully about the complexity of the challenges in front of them.
