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Autonomous airline Ribbit has signed a $1.3 million contract with Transport Canada to start testing its commercial cargo aircraft to deliver goods to northern Canada, starting in 2024. 

“Ribbit ultimately exists to help improve access to transportation,” said Jeremy Wang (PhD ’23), co-founder and COO. "Our dream would be a future where anybody can receive goods quickly and reliably no matter where they are located.” 

Wang said the company’s initial goal is to serve northern Canada, where about 120 million pounds of food gets delivered annually. 

Laura Middleton, associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo, has been appointed Schlegel Research Chair in Dementia and Active Living for a five-year term starting July 1, 2023.

How would the treatment experience and outcomes change for cancer patients if we could actively deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to their tumours?

What if large and complex kidney stones could be dissolved without the need for invasive procedures?

Would the success rate of fertility treatments increase if specialists could guide live sperm directly to the most advantageous location for fertilization?

Navigating the startup landscape takes confidence, speed and little help from friends. Those were a few of the key takeaways during a panel discussion with experts from Velocity, Waterloo’s startup incubator, on June 28 at the Collision tech conference in Toronto.

Here are four key takeaways:

1) Take advice, but remember you know your company best

I spent a large part of my childhood in a bomb shelter. I got married at 15 years old in a bomb shelter. I gave birth to a baby girl when I was 16 – in a bomb shelter. We escaped that bomb shelter in war-torn Lebanon in 1989 with a stamp in my passport for Canada. The stamp of freedom and opportunity.

On June 28, 2023, three members of the University of Waterloo community were violently attacked in a horrific act that targeted gender expression and identity.

It is unimaginable that in today’s era this malicious form of hate exists in some people’s hearts.

In a wide ranging and thought-provoking conversation, former Governor General and University of Waterloo President Emeritus David Johnston joined current President Vivek Goel to discuss how the workforce of the future can turn compassion into action. The fireside chat, part of the World Association of Co-operative Education (WACE) 2023 World Conference hosted at Waterloo, used Johnston’s new book “Empathy” as a starting point.

A transcript of President Goel's remarks from the June 29, 2023 Community Gathering that took place in the Arts Quad is below.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for gathering here with us today.

Our community was shaken by a disturbing hate-motivated attack related to gender expression and gender identity. If you need to take space from work or your studies right now, please do that. Your managers and instructors will do everything they can to support you. 

Campus community members who identify as Two-Spirit, trans, non-binary, queer, gender non-conforming and women may be disproportionately impacted by these events and should be centred in our healing. They may require additional space, support, time away, and accommodations at this time.

On Wednesday our community was confronted by hate-motivated violence.

In a shocking attack at approximately 3:40 p.m., a member of our campus community stabbed a professor and two students with a knife in Hagey Hall. All three people were taken to hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries.