Technological Futures

Three childhood friends from the University of Waterloo have secured $500,000 from the Y Combinator (YC) for GALE, an innovative immigration software. 

YC is one of the world’s biggest and most prestigious startup accelerators, with an average acceptance rate of one per cent. Every year, recipients receive $500,000 in seed funding and other resources like alumni talks and mentorship. With alumni including Airbnb, DoorDash, and Twitch, YC can help kickstart a young business. 

For co-op students, securing a co-op job has always required persistence. The process of scanning job boards, tailoring resumes, and submitting applications to multiple employers can feel like a full-time commitment, often pulling focus from coursework and other responsibilities.

The aerospace industry is at a turning point—where artificial intelligence is no longer a concept of the future but a necessity for advancing safety, efficiency and sustainability. To accelerate this transformation, Dr. David Del Rey Fernández has been named as Pratt & Whitney Canada’s new Industry-Sponsored Research Chair in Industrial Artificial Intelligence, reinforcing its commitment to cutting-edge research that will shape the next generation of aircraft propulsion.

Imaging technology developed and refined at the University of Waterloo promises better detection and treatment of breast cancer by more accurately pinpointing cancerous tissue.

First successfully applied to prostate cancer, the new form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has now been optimized using artificial intelligence (AI) to make cancerous tissue appear to light up or glow next to healthy breast tissue in images.

Imagine asking AI to plan your trip itinerary, book and pay for all your flights, and arrange your airport transport — all within a single click. Fortunately, an international research team is making this vision a reality.  

Dr. Victor Zhong
Co-creator, Computer Agent Arena
> Faculty of Mathematics

What began as a 150-square-foot windowless lab at the University of Waterloo in 2004 is today the Multi-Scale Additive Manufacturing (MSAM) Lab — Canada’s largest academic metal additive manufacturing (AM) facility. With a space spanning 15,000 square feet, equipped with more than $25 million in cutting-edge infrastructure, MSAM leads innovation in advanced manufacturing, developing the next generation of sustainable 3D printing technologies for industries worldwide.

Have you ever bought something in your game without knowing the cost in real currency? You may have encountered deceptive game design or specific user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) practices that trick players into doing things that mainly benefit the game's developers and publishers.

Hilda Hadan, a Ph.D. candidate in Systems Design Engineering supervised by UX researchers at Stratford School for Interaction Design and Business at the University of Waterloo, explains some common tactics and how to avoid them.

Waterloo researchers, students and alumni tackle challenges through cross-disciplinary collaboration, developing creative solutions with global impact.

You’re familiar with Waterloo’s iconic inventions like BlackBerry and OpenText, and those mentioned in our 10 inventions you didn’t know came from Waterloo — but you spoke, and we listened. Our readers helped us uncover even more groundbreaking innovations from this vibrant community that continue to shape industries worldwide.

Interop Labs, the initial developer of the Axelar Web3 interoperability network, announced today a $1 million USD donation to grow the Computer Research Endowment at the University of Waterloo. This generous contribution will support the creation of an AI and blockchain research laboratory at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, the largest and top-ranked academic computer science research centre in Canada. The laboratory will be named the GENESIS Lab, standing for Generative AI for Secure, Interconnected Systems.