Become a global leader in optometric innovation and entrepreneurship.
Objectives
- Foster an environment that stimulates entrepreneurial pursuits through creating interdisciplinary teams to solve problems relevant to Canada’s economy and fostering pathways to entrepreneurship for optometry and graduate students.
- Increase infrastructure to support research commercialization and application, including through:
- Leveraging networks to expand entrepreneurial opportunities and partnerships with industry.
- Further strengthening the emphasis on innovation, entrepreneurship and spin-out companies at the Centre for Eye and Vision Research (CEVR) and Centre for Ocular Research and Education (CORE).
- Engaging with the University’s Velocity Health and Innovation Arena initiatives to boost entrepreneurship in the health technology sector.
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Goal 6: Accomplishments
Centre for Eye and Vision Research
The Centre for Eye and Vision Research (CEVR) is a research collaboration between The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the University of Waterloo, funded by the InnoHK initiative of the Innovation and Technology Commission of the Hong Kong Government. Launched in 2020, CEVR has quickly seen success in its mission to carry out international, interdisciplinary ocular research and commercialization, with multiple spinout companies established from CEVR research. Highlights involving School researchers include:
SLOPE
The team behind the Structured Light Observation and Perception Evaluation (SLOPE) device won gold medals at both the Asia Exhibition of Innovations and Inventions Hong Kong in December 2023 and International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva in April 2024. At the latter event, SLOPE also received a special prize from the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania, to honour its scientific creativity and originality.
SLOPE is the world’s first application of quantum technology in vision science. It uses quantum spin-orbit beams of light to generate unique patterns that can be perceived by the human eye – but are perceived differently by people in even the earliest stages of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). It can therefore detect AMD before irreversible vision loss has occurred, allowing patients to make changes or get treatments to slow down or stop the progression of the disease.
ObstAR
ObstAR is an augmented reality navigation system for people with vision loss that can be used with any extended reality headset system. Using AI, the system uses data from the headset’s camera to identify what’s in the user’s surroundings and find a safe path through obstacles. This path is indicated with an arrow that can be calibrated to be visible to individual users, no matter the pattern of their vision loss. The researchers behind ObstAR also won gold medals at both the exhibitions of inventions in Hong Kong (December 2023) and Geneva (April 2024).
Eyenova Biotech
Eyenova Biotech aims to help improve the likelihood of success of candidate drugs going to clinical trials by developing an ‘eye on a chip’ – a preclinical microfluidics testing platform that replicates the complexity of the eye’s cellular environment and performs multiple tests at once, which saves time, costs and animal testing. The team behind Eyenova Biotech won a gold medal and a China Association of Inventions award at the fourth Asia Exhibition of Innovations and Inventions in Hong Kong in December 2024. It also won a gold medal at the International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva in April 2025.
Interdisciplinary engagement
Our researchers have increasingly become involved in interdisciplinary research groups or projects. For example, at the University of Waterloo, our faculty members and graduate students have joined the: • Network for Aging Research • Centre for Bioengineering and Biotechnology • Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics • Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology In 2024-25, our researchers organized or participated in opportunities to share their research and explore potential collaborations with people from: • Systems design engineering (twice) • Biomedical engineering • Faculty of Science (across departments)
Interdisciplinary research awards
In 2024, Dr. Lyndon Jones received a Research Leader Award from the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology in recognition of his being part of the multi-institutional team that won the national (NSERC) 2023 Brockhouse Prize for interdisciplinary research. The same year, he also won the Carel C. Koch Memorial Medal Award from the American Academy of Optometry, presented annually to a person who has made outstanding contributions to the enhancement and development of relationships between optometry and other professions. Jones is cross appointed to the Waterloo departments of physics, biology, chemistry and chemical engineering.
Goal 6: In progress
ThermOcular AI
ThermOcular AI, a company started by University of Waterloo vision science and engineering researchers, aims to bring a patented thermal imaging system to market that can measure in detail the temperature of the cornea, the transparent part of the eye that domes over the iris and pupil. The novel device could be used to screen for dry eye and potentially other ocular diseases. Postdoctoral fellow and ThermOcular AI CEO Dr. Ehsan Zare Bidaki has been working on measuring eye temperature since he started his PhD in 2017 under the joint supervision of Dr. Paul Murphy of the School and Dr. Alexander Wong, a Waterloo systems design engineering professor. All three are partners in the venture, which has been working with Velocity, Waterloo’s startup incubator, to access funding and get help with product-market fit, sales traction and founder network support as the focus shifts from research to entrepreneurship.
New regional hospital and health innovation coalition
In July 2024, it was announced that a new regional hospital will be built on the University of Waterloo’s north campus. This will lead to opportunities for our School to partner with the new hospital in research, education and patient care. Drs. Stanley Woo and Sarah MacIver, plus student Mariam Bhatti, had the opportunity to meet with Premier Doug Ford as part of a health innovation showcase connected to the announcement of the new hospital site.
Dr. Vivek Goel, the University president, has spoken about the new hospital leading to opportunities to grow the School's interdisciplinary engagement in education, research, and patient care.
As part of laying the groundwork for the new hospital, tentatively called Waterloo Region Health Network @ University, a partnership has been developed between the University and the Waterloo Regional Health Network (formerly Grand River Hospital and St. Mary’s General Hospital). The CareNext Coalition aims to bring together clinicians, researchers and entrepreneurs to create educational programming, test drive technological advances and create integrated health care systems that will reach people where they are. The School looks forward to supporting this coalition and the future hospital as it becomes a reality.