Technological Futures

Dr. Mikal Skuterud
Professor, Economics
> Director, Canadian Labour Economics Forum

Dr. Mikal Skuterud became interested in labour markets in high school while working in a large warehouse alongside many recent migrants to Canada. During his undergraduate degree in labour studies, Skuterud took several economic theory courses, which confirmed he was on the right career path.

Many of the world’s leading innovation ecosystems share a common feature: a world-class research university at their core. The University of Waterloo has played a pivotal role in establishing the Waterloo region as a premier innovation ecosystem in Canada. 

For the first time, researchers at the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) and the University of Innsbruck in Austria have performed a quantum simulation of a two-dimensional particle physics theory on a qudit quantum computer, bringing us closer to understanding nature at its most fundamental level. 

Six researchers at the University of Waterloo have been awarded more than $7.5 million in funding to support their research.  

The funding is made possible through the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) Program, which invests up to $311 million annually to attract and retain some of the world’s most accomplished and promising minds.   

Page, the AI-powered external relations platform based at Velocity, the startup incubator at the University of Waterloo, has successfully closed $4.1 million in seed funding to expand its services into the U.S. and U.K. markets.

This funding round was led by TwelveBelow, with participation from Go Global Ventures and Canaan Partners. The company has raised more than $5 million following a pre-seed financing round led by Ripple Ventures, Garage Capital and the Velocity Fund.

Dr. George Shaker has huge hopes for a small radar device he developed with a team of researchers at the University of Waterloo.

An engineer who has pursued the possibilities of radio waves for more than 20 years, Shaker envisions the installation of the silent, unobtrusive system almost everywhere people sit to help detect heart problems before they become life-threatening.

Imagine a painless patch that continuously sends your health status to your phone. A team of researchers from the University of Waterloo is on a mission to deliver just that by developing next-generation technologies that can monitor and dispatch personalized medicine. 

A new way to measure male fertility has been discovered by researchers at the University of Waterloo, opening the door to the development of simple, inexpensive tests for clinical and at-home use.

The research team combined expertise in sperm cell behaviour and interface science to determine that the movement of healthy sperm within semen reduces the force with which droplets stick to a water-repellent surface.