Thank you for that kind introduction.
Good afternoon everyone.
Thank you all for allowing me the honour of speaking with you today. Thanks especially to all guests today who are working toward stronger and ever more vibrant links between the Canadian and Singaporean business communities.
As my colleagues and I have had the pleasure of validating first-hand over the last few days, Singapore is an incredible place – an incredible country – and it’s our privilege to be with this distinguished group this afternoon. Let me specifically thank our friends and partners with the Chamber for pulling this event together and making today possible.
On behalf of the University of Waterloo, thanks to each indispensable member of this team for your contributions.
Why Singapore?
When my team and I – many of you will by now have met Ken and Nello and the rest of our delegation – began planning our travel to Asia, we thought hard about how to engineer the trip.
Over the past two weeks we’ve visited our friends and partners in Korea; we’ve visited our friends and partners in Hong Kong; and now it’s our pleasure to visit our friends and partners in Singapore.
Why Singapore?
Those of us who’ve given that question any thought whatsoever know the answer.
Singapore is one of the 20th century’s greatest economic achievements; one of the 21st century’s pivotal Asian and global economies; and a nation whose strengths in research, human development, and innovation dovetail beautifully with Waterloo’s own.
We all know these things to be true – that’s why my team and I have come to this particular nation, and sought out this particular audience.
So perhaps the more relevant question – with the more relevant answer – is Why Waterloo?
Canada’s Innovation Capital
Many of you have had extensive exposure to Canada, and some exposure to Waterloo.
You’ll know that Waterloo is Canada’s Innovation Capital.
And you’ll know that two weeks ago the University of Waterloo was named Canada’s Most Innovative University by Maclean’s Magazine.
The City of Waterloo, about an hour west of Toronto, is a community of about 100,000 people.
The Waterloo region as a whole – which includes the cities of Kitchener and Cambridge, where our University has campuses – is about half a million.
Not a major urban centre by any means.
But to give you a sense of how high the Waterloo region is punching above its weight:
Consider that last year, Waterloo was ranked as a global Top 20 startup ecosystem by Startup Genome.
And to understand how the University of Waterloo fits into that ecosystem, we commissioned an Economic Impact Study in that same year.
In addition to our University having a total annual economic impact of $2.6 billion, our study found that fully 47% of the Waterloo region’s “knowledge economy” companies have strong links to the University of Waterloo.
What’s happening now is very exciting.
Our region, with the University of Waterloo as its key source of innovation, is reaching a critical mass of innovative capacity, and the virtuous cycle is spinning.
Recently, Google has expanded its presence in Waterloo, and Square – the mobile payment company founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey – has set up a large local presence as well.
Why did they do this? Why Waterloo?
University of Waterloo: our value-added
Because Waterloo, with our University at its core, provides forward-thinking organizations with the research and the talent and the collaborative culture they need to lead their markets.
Our value-add as a University is threefold, and these three tenets correspond with our Strategic Plan:
We will be national and global leaders in:
- Experiential education, especially co-operative education, of which we have the first, largest, and best program of its kind in the world;
- Transformational research, specifically in ‘frontier disciplines’ like quantum, nanotechnology, water, and aging, and more broadly in Engineering, Science, and Math;
- And Entrepreneurship: by building on the Waterloo region’s growing reputation as Canada’s Innovation Capital
Or instead of taking my word for it, take what Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google has to say about the skills of our graduates and the ecosystem we foster in the Waterloo region:
"I always knew Waterloo was a fantastic engineering centre. You tend to think Waterloo is a programming languages university (but) they broadened what (they’re doing).”
This value proposition on research, experiential education, and entrepreneurship is resonating in Canada in all the ways I’ve outlined – in rankings, investment, job creation, and other areas – because it’s the right value proposition at the right time.
And we know that, as far as post-secondary education is concerned, the times are changing.
I’ve enjoyed meeting with education officials at various levels of government throughout this trip.
I’m hearing much of the same messages as my own government partners back home are saying.
Universities are academic institutions to be sure, but today’s expectation is that we also drive innovation, entrepreneurship, and human capital development.
Because the University of Waterloo was born this way in 1957, unlike older, traditional universities, we’re widening this “innovation advantage” every year —even in Canada, the OECD nation with the highest rate of PSE-attainment and PSE spending.
I would submit– and this will come as no surprise to you – that Waterloo is equally well positioned to support enterprises and initiatives from Singapore.
This is especially true because where Singapore produces great demand, Waterloo produces a stable, extremely high-quality supply.
Singapore demand, Waterloo supply
To sketch this out with just a few examples:
Look at two key areas: actuarial sciences and engineering. Both are areas where the Singaporean economy’s appetite is far from satisfied.
Waterloo’s School of Accounting and Finance is unique in Canada in its program offerings. They run the full spectrum from applied accounting to Ph.D. streams.
Our programs are designed to provide students with the technical, analytical, evaluative, and communications skills needed to prepare for careers in public accounting, finance, and industry.
And consider engineering. With a stable of legacy programs like electrical and mechanical engineering, along with a new suite of streams including nanotechnology and mechatronics, Waterloo is a global engineering powerhouse.
Building the bilateral superhighway
My friends, I hope you’ll find my overview of the Waterloo advantage to be compelling, because there’s a reason I’m sharing it.
As the Chamber knows, Canada is seized of the immense opportunities taking shape in Asia, including in this remarkable nation. We want a broader, deeper, more valuable relationship.
I’m not here merely to build a bridge between the University of Waterloo and Singapore. I’m here to help Canada continue building a superhighway between our two nations.
Because our nations have the talent, technology, institutions, and geostrategic relationships to be an excellent team.
I need to look no further than the National University of Singapore to make this point.
NUS was ranked the best university in Asia in 2014. Waterloo was just named the best and most innovative university in Canada.
We should rise together.
And there are so many opportunities to do so.
Just two years ago the University of Waterloo opened a major new facility, the Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre. The centre is named after its key philanthropic supporters, Mike Lazaridis being the founder of BlackBerry.
QNC, as we like to call it, is multi- and trans-disciplinary to its core.
It is a collaborative home for Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing and the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology
The research and scholarship emanating from QNC places Waterloo a national and international leader in quantum information science…
Just as NUS’s Centre for Quantum Technologies makes Singapore one of the globe’s quantum powerhouses.
Conclusion
In this area and in so many others, Waterloo and Singapore are natural partners.
We can and should spur one another to greatness in these exciting ‘frontier disciplines’ that have the potential to disrupt whole industries.
And we should build partnerships around these key themes for the benefit of both economies, both peoples.
With the cumulative goodwill in this room for Singapore, Canada, the bilateral relationship, and the University of Waterloo, I’m sure we could go on for much longer.
I want to be invited back so I won’t do that.
Instead, I’ll conclude by saying thank you for your gracious attention.
I look forward to getting to know many of you better, and I am at your disposal for any followups, Q&A, or any further work our hosts would like to put me to.
Thank you for your time and attention.