Global Futures

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Our top 12 trending stories of 2024

by Jordan Flemming, University Relations

This past year, students, alumni, researchers and staff made significant strides in addressing global challenges and advancing technology. These top 12 stories of 2024 highlight some of Waterloo’s transformative work shaping the future.

Thursday, December 12, 2024

Encouraging and supporting the risk-takers

by Charlotte Danby, Faculty of Engineering

Many entrepreneurs build companies to tackle problems they’ve experienced first-hand — and Kurtis McBride (BASc ’04, MASc ’07) is one of them.  

The Waterloo Engineering alum hit upon his startup idea when he was a student on a co-op work placement at a transportation consultancy. The job involved manually counting vehicles, which McBride saw as outdated and inefficient, hindering the urban planning process.  

Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Building an iconic movie car for the fun of it

by Jack Weatherston and Charlotte Danby, Faculty of Engineering

University of Waterloo student Anson Yu loves a design challenge, particularly one that she can work on with friends. Looking for an extracurricular project that was exciting yet achievable, Yu hit upon the idea of recreating a fun vehicle from pop culture. But which one?  

Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Waterloo is leading the way in AI education across society

by Jordan Flemming, University Relations

The University of Waterloo is strengthening its leadership in artificial intelligence (AI) education with two initiatives: an open online AI literacy course for its community and a Waterloo.AI workshop on generative AI in K-12 education. Together, these initiatives highlight the University’s commitment to fostering responsible AI knowledge and shaping a future where AI is thoughtfully understood and applied across all levels of education and society.

Tuesday, December 3, 2024

MedInclude partners with Grand River Hospital to improve patient communication with AI

by Angelica Marie Sanchez, University Relations

A Velocity health-tech startup focused on improving health-care communication has announced an exciting new partnership with Grand River Hospital (GRH) to address communication challenges within the hospital’s Renal Program. This collaboration — a pre-commercialization project spanning three months — will leverage MedInclude’s artificial intelligence (AI) platform to enhance patient engagement and streamline interactions between health-care providers and patients. 

Monday, November 25, 2024

Using our brains to advance the power and performance of AVs

by Charlotte Danby, Faculty of Engineering

An interdisciplinary research team from the University of Waterloo is building systems that mimic the human brain to improve the power efficiency and performance of artificial neural networks like those used in autonomous vehicle (AV) technology.  

Monday, November 25, 2024

Innovation Arena transforms research into impactful solutions

by Jordan Flemming, University Relations

Karim S. Karim (BASc '99, PhD '03) is the associate vice-president of Commercialization and Entrepreneurship at the University of Waterloo and a professor of electrical and computer engineering. With a distinguished career that includes co-founding the Waterloo medical imaging spin-off KA Imaging, Karim highlights the University’s impact and vision behind its Innovation Arena.

For Global Entrepreneurship Week, we’re spotlighting some incredible University of Waterloo entrepreneurs making a difference for humanity and our world.

Julia Baribeau (BASc ’23) is advancing her career with a unique twist on entrepreneurship as part of her journey in tackling environmental challenges. Rather than jumping into creating her own company, she’s working as an intrapreneur, bringing an entrepreneurial approach to her role within an existing organization.