Six award-winning solutions for urban challenges

From AI-powered civic tools to sustainable housing solutions, University of Waterloo students came together to present interdisciplinary projects tackling real-world issues at this year's i-Capstone symposium. 

Held on March 26, the event showcased student creativity, teamwork and dedication to solving real-world urban challenges. Designed to unite students from every faculty, i-Capstone — the University of Waterloo’s first interdisciplinary undergraduate capstone program — enables students to tackle complex problems facing Canadian communities while working with real world partners, all for academic credit. This includes areas like sustainable housing, infrastructure and integrated urban planning.

“The i-capstone symposium was simply inspiring. It was an honour to be a judge and engage with students to learn about how they worked closely with community and industry partners,” says Dr. Robin Mazumder, a symposium judge, who presented the awards to students at the end of the night. “The experience instilled a profound sense of hope about our future, and I am excited to see what these brilliant minds do for our society.”

All projects were thoughtfully designed to make an impact on cities and communities across Ontario, Canada and the world. The Future Cities Institute (FCI), founded by CAIVAN, partnered with i-Capstone to help organize the event and played an active role throughout the year — connecting community partners, curating projects and fostering collaboration. Six winning teams were awarded $1,000 by the FCI in recognition of their outstanding innovation.

The event drew an enthusiastic audience, including University President Vivek Goel and Provost James Rush, Kitchener Fire Chief Robert Gilmore and City of Kitchener Councillor Margaret Johnston, among several other project partners.

These six teams ultimately wowed the crowd and walked away as winners:

1. OddBox: Tackling the opioid crisis

Team: Julia Cosma, Jennifer Tsai, Larhya Miller, Patrick Kim, Bruce Wang

OddBox presented an innovative solution for marginalized communities contending with little to no support during the opioid crisis. Their device cleverly detects physiological signs of opioid overdoses and sends immediate alerts to a pre-selected group of individuals. Judges were very impressed with the team’s close collaboration with community organizations and technology experts and found the project both practical and accessible. The team effectively highlighted the depth of their research as well as the urgent necessity of their product, capturing the interest of symposium attendees and leading to many important discussions about harm reduction.
 

2. Illume: Transforming urban planning through AI

Team: Benie Matoka Mabondo, Jessica Farias Medina, Chaitya Ankur Patel, Devanshi Paliwal, Maia Grace Tse, Elizabeth Victoria Smyth

As e-bikes and micromobility vehicles are used by more and more travellers each year, transporting them safely on public transport has become an important concern for many municipalities — particularly following a 2024 GO Train fire involving lithium-ion batteries. The Titan team introduced an innovative thermal monitoring system designed specifically for public transit environments. Making use of infrared cameras and gas sensors, their solution is designed to quickly detect potential battery fires and then alert train crews via a mobile app. The team’s inspiring presentation demonstrated the system’s key role in improving public safety on the Go train while still encouraging sustainable, active transportation.
 

3. Asphalt Avengers: Affordable pothole detection

Team: Liam McArdle, Connor Bechthold, Rishit Daru, Safwaan Chowdhury

The Asphalt Avengers team addressed the nation-wide issue of potholes. Focusing on a cost-effective, technology-based solution, their system revolves around an easily attachable camera module that can be placed onto existing municipal vehicles. The hardware utilizes computer vision and machine learning to automatically detect and record potholes and is paired with a user-friendly web application for data analysis. Judges commended the project's remarkable use of existing resources and highlighted the significant cost savings achieved by avoiding the purchase of expensive specialized vehicles or the need to hire more road crew staff. Symposium attendees enjoyed the team's engaging demonstration and the illustration of their concept's practicality and potential impact on urban infrastructure management.


4. Illume: Transforming urban planning through AI

Team: Shane Hsieh, Ryan Chan, Adam Lam

Illume introduced an intelligent AI-driven platform to make urban planning more efficient. By significantly minimizing procedural paperwork, the platform allows city planners the ability to leverage their expertise more efficiently, by spending less time reviewing repetitive bureaucratic documents and more time making informed strategic decisions. Judges enjoyed Illume’s alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and praised the thoughtful approach to transforming qualitative community feedback into actionable insights. The compelling demonstration of their platform’s capabilities was enjoyed by many symposium attendees, including city officials eager to adopt more efficient planning processes into their own municipalities.
 

5. RoboNav: Advanced pipeline monitoring

Team: Liam Senych, Araf Khan, Anirudh Kilambi, Youngwoo Lee

RoboNav’s tech-forward solution enhances preventative maintenance for sewer pipeline systems. Their focus was on changing how faults are discovered in municipal pipeline infrastructure. Their prototype uses advanced LiDAR alongside stereo cameras and provides precise location tracking for automated fault detection. This ultimately helps municipalities avoid expensive infrastructure failures, such as those experienced in Calgary last year. Judges were impressed with RoboNav’s versatility, sharing that they think it has possible applications beyond pipeline infrastructure. The RoboNav team did a great job sharing the significant advantages of their approach over the slower and costly traditional monitoring methods used today.
 

6. UW Access: Accessible indoor navigation

Team: Carter Ibach, Soha Khan, Elize Kooij, Mateo Alvarez, Shrinjay Mukherjee

The UW Access team unveiled a highly intuitive, crowdsourced indoor navigation solution tailored right for Waterloo’s complex campus. Developed in collaboration with Plant Operations, this mobile web application provides personalized routes for users with diverse accessibility needs. With real-time updates, judges and attendees alike praised the user-friendly and intuitive design of the app. Judges were excited by its adaptability to various indoor environments beyond the campus setting. The team was able to clearly showcase the app's capabilities and sparked many enthusiastic conversations about expanding its use during the symposium.