MetaCycler BioInnovations, a new company at Velocity, the University of Waterloo’s startup incubator, is making biodegradable materials out of waste from the dairy industry, with the potential for wide-range applications, including biodegradable plastic-like straws.
An engineering professor from the University of Waterloo was awarded $1.2 million in federal funding to protect Canada’s critical energy infrastructure and energy sector supply chains from cyber threats.
Students and business leaders at the University of Waterloo are pushing back on the idea that there’s only one way to be a successful entrepreneur. It’s an idea that’s been growing in every part of the Waterloo entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Velocity has launched a new program called Foundations to help students develop an innovative mindset, a skill which is becoming increasingly important.
Applicable to any career, learning how to ask great questions for a deeper understanding of a problem can be a professional lifeline, in particular due to the ubiquity of large language models like ChatGPT that is giving rise to questions about the future of job opportunities.
For the first time ever, Forbes’ 30 Under 30 produced a “local Toronto” list, which features four individuals with connections to the University of Waterloo. The list highlights some of the most entrepreneurial minds in Toronto, who work in industries like technology, finance, health, sports and the arts.
The game-changers named to this inaugural list have been making a significant impact with their businesses across the finance, creative and health-science industries.
Four and a half years ago, the VitalOne was an ambitious idea. Today, the desktop computer-sized blood diagnostics device can run comprehensive tests on comparatively small blood samples — in 20 minutes.
Made by Vital Bio, a company founded at Velocity, the VitalOne was unveiled to the public and scientific community at a conference held by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) last month, where Vital Bio also won the Disruptive Technology Award.
With their abundance of sunlight, deserts are valuable locations to harness solar energy. But in addition to sun, deserts also have an abundance of dust which settles on solar panels and reduces their efficiency.
This is the problem that Miswar Syed’s new company, Swish, is trying to solve with the help of Velocity, the University of Waterloo’s startup incubator.
Mushrooms are used to make plant-based meat alternatives, as a base for sustainable bioplastics, styrofoam alternatives, vegan leather products and more - so efficient and cost-effective fungi farming is foundational to bringing sustainable products into the hands of consumers. But currently, mushroom production is bottlenecked.
Enter Mycro Harvest, a startup that has recently joined Velocity, the University of Waterloo's incubator, to develop an artificial intelligence-driven mushroom smart farm.
The road to building a company with advanced technology from the ground up can be winding.
For those who choose to travel that road in good company, meeting a co-founder can be methodical: taking on extracurricular projects while in school, attending professional networking events, tapping into family and friendships, and networking. But whether that relationship formalizes into a solid foundation that works in the startup’s favour can depend on more nebulous components.
Smart cities are moving towards the automation of many essential services. Quality of life for city residents relies on the safety of its buildings, roads, bridges and other infrastructures. Manual inspection of these infrastructures, besides being costly, is a tedious task that requires special skills and intense labour — especially when access to some sites, like bridges, is not easy. Due to the sheer number of bridges and inspection timelines, there is a critical backlog for inspecting bridges in Canada that requires an immediate solution.