Current students

There’s an irony to air conditioning.  

Traditional air conditioners condense water out of the air, a very energy-intensive process which pumps greenhouse gases into the environment. So, as we cool our indoors, we heat the climate even more.  

Velocity-based company Evercloak can break this cycle. The clean-tech startup has raised $2 million from Bioindustrial Innovation Canada, Greensoil Proptech Ventures, GroundBreak Ventures, Ontario Centre for Innovation (OCI) and angel investors.  

The Government of Canada announced on February 22

Velocity-linked software company Float has secured $50 million in financing from Silicon Valley Bank to expand its financial services offerings to customers.  

The startup, which specializes in full suite corporate expense management software and cards, simplifies finance teams’ management of expense accounting. It serves businesses of up to 500 people, and some of Float’s 3,000-plus corporate clients include Neo Financial, Knix, Clutch and Nerva Energy.  

With an interest in academia and activism, Aaron Francis, a PhD candidate in the Global Governance program at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, stands out as an example of flourishing in every chapter of his life.

What can Indigenous futurisms do for us? This was one of the central questions guiding Chelsea Vowel’s hopeful and humour-filled presentation, âniskôhôcikan, Like a String of Beads: Indigenous Futurisms.  

As the planet faces the pressing challenge of reducing plastic waste in the environment, new strategies for managing plastic waste are urgently needed. One of the biggest roadblocks to addressing the plastic waste crisis is the use of thermosets and rubbers — a class of non-recyclable plastics widely used in infrastructure, automobiles, planes, adhesives, 3D printing and chemical industries.

Giving formal academic credit and recognition for building social ventures could be game changing for students and the social innovation landscape, paving the way for many more ideas, initiatives and ventures.  

In the quest to reach zero emissions by 2050, Waterloo engineering researcher Dr. Xianguo Li and Dr. Samaneh Shahgaldi from Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) are working with industry partners to develop more efficient, durable, cost-effective fuel cells.  

Dr. Sushanta Mitra is the executive director of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN), Canada’s largest nanotechnology institute and a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering.

His research interests focus on how fluids move around in micro and nano-sized spaces with applications in energy, water and biological systems. Outside of teaching, research and administration, he is an entrepreneur leading several startups.