Entrepreneurship

At opportunities organized by Canada’s leading entrepreneurship programs, more than 100 U.S. and Canadian financers lined up to evaluate 43 of the most investment-ready tech startups in the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor.

The investors were introduced to the companies at an invite-only Demo Day event held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View California on November 7, as well as a similar event held for Canadian investors in Toronto on October 19.

As a startup in the operational artificial intelligence (AI) sector, EMAGIN Clean Technologies Inc., is finding a receptive audience for a new system that uses AI for environmental protection as a means to help municipal utilities proactively improve their water and wastewater operations.

A patch that delivers allergy medication to children developed by Waterloo students is one of only two Canadian projects to be shortlisted for this year’s international James Dyson Awards competition. It’s the fourth year in a row a University of Waterloo project has reached the final round.

Duleeka Ranatunga proved the strength of his belief in his business idea when he entered – and won – a startup competition known as the Wolves Summit last year.

Held biannually in Warsaw, Poland, the contest is widely celebrated as a gathering of engineers, designers and other innovators. It’s also an opportunity for entrepreneurs to get in front of investors to make five-minute pitches.

A medical artificial intelligence (AI) startup was named one of 2017’s 20 most innovative technology companies by the Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX) earlier this month.

Elucid Labs, a startup founded by three University of Waterloo researchers, uses AI technology in a small imaging device for the early detection of skin cancer. The technology helps dermatologists make better, faster decisions and reduces the number of unnecessary biopsies.

Representing Waterloo start-up EPOCH, students Jade Choy, Keith Choy, Lisa Tran, and Kaivalya Gandhi ranked among the top six teams in the $1 million Hult Prize Challenge at the United Nations in New York. The Challenge asked participants to find a sustainable, scalable social enterprise that could restore the rights and dignity of 10 million refugees by 2022.

EPOCH proposed an app that facilitates an exchange of talents and skills among refugees and community members through redeemable credits, a form of time banking where time is used as currency.

The solutions of tomorrow come from the strength of many in a diverse society, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told students attending Canada's biggest hackathon being held at the University of Waterloo this weekend.

Trudeau made a brief but inspirational and energy-packed pitch for the value of diversity during the opening ceremonies for Hack the North, an event which brings together 1,000 students from top universities in 22 countries to collaborate on technology ideas and solutions.

When delegates gathered in San Francisco for a big annual conference in his field earlier in 2016, Raafat Mansour was eager to find out how many of his former Waterloo Engineering graduate students were among them.

It has become his tradition to hold a dinner for former and current PhD students who attend the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS).

A biotechnology company that created a spray that helps farmers and growers protect crops from frost damage was among the big winners at the Velocity Fund Finals held today at the University of Waterloo. Velocity is a comprehensive entrepreneurship program at Waterloo.

It was awkward at first, but Rumman Rahman eventually got used to appreciative older women tousling his hair and wishing him long life during a student-led aid project in rural Bangladesh last fall.

Admitting he couldn’t help everybody in the desperately poor village of Khukshia was another matter.

Working on a shoestring $8,000 budget, just enough to construct eight wells and eight sanitary toilets, the University of Waterloo civil engineering student regularly had to turn down other area residents who came to him with the same pressing needs.