Entrepreneurship
Waterloo is an entrepreneurial ecosystem where technological leaders and startup founders share the same goal: to bring innovative and world-changing ideas to the global marketplace.
Operating your computer with a keyboard and mouse is yesterday’s news. Velocity Garage-based startup company Palette, founded by Waterloo Engineering student Calvin Chu (L) and Ashish Bidadi (BASc ’12), is creating customizable tools, including dials, sliders and buttons that click together like Lego to improve user experience, productivity and comfort. Palette is now part of the new Velocity Foundry program.
An unparalleled entrepreneurial ecosystem offers a full continuum of supports for students, faculty and staff. From education, inspiration and discovery to incubation, acceleration and connection, this is the home of entrepreneurship education.
Our entrepreneurship ecosystem
Education
An array of hands-on entrepreneurship learning opportunities, many offered through the Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre, including:
- Courses
- Options
- Bridging Entrepreneurs to Students program
- Capstone Design projects
- Diplomas
- Certificates
- Degrees
Inspiration
- Creator-owned intellectual property policy
- Velocity Alpha
- Conrad Entre Nous speaker series
- Entrepreneurship student clubs
- Idea labs
- Hackathons
- Startup weekends
- Mashups
- Alumni entrepreneurs
- Entrepreneurship research
Discovery
- Velocity Residence
- Velocity Science
- GreenHouse
- Sedra Student Design Centre
- Labs, workshops and facilities
Incubation and acceleration
- Velocity Foundry
- Velocity Garage
- Conrad Enterprise Co-op
- Conrad commercialization practicums
- Waterloo Commercialization Office
- Accelerator Centre
- More than $1 million of startup funding available annually, through Conrad scholarships, Faculty of Engineering awards and Velocity Fund
Connection
- Mentorship
- Communitech
- Local, national and international investors
- Ontario Centres of Excellence
- Waterloo Innovation Summit
- 5,200 co-op employers in 63 countries
- Access to other national and international incubators, hatcheries, centres and competitions
Entrepreneurial spirit is in the DNA of our students, faculty, staff and alumni. For hundreds of companies with roots at Waterloo, the talent and energy that thrives here is key to their success.
Startup generator
Waterloo is a magnet for entrepreneurially minded faculty and students. Hundreds of companies, employing thousands, trace their origins to this institution, where their founders were inspired to identify a need, envision a solution and make it a reality. Among them:
- Aeryon Labs
- AKA Creative Group
- Applied Brain Research
- Aquanty
- Arc Media
- Athos
- BlackBerry
- BufferBox
- Certicom
- Charity Republic
- Clearpath Robotics
- Conestoga-Rovers & Associates
- CrossChasm
- Desire2Learn
- Enermodal Engineering
- Engineers Without Borders
- Henkaa
- Hockey Robotics
- Intelligent Mechatronic Systems
- Kids & Company
- Kik Interactive
- Language Use Inventory
- Loose Button
- Loud Crow Interactive
- Lug
- Lystek
- M&M Meat Shops
- Maplesoft
- MappedIn
- Medella Health
- Milao Language
- Miovision Technologies
- Nicoya Lifesciences
- NexJ Systems
- Northern Digital
- OpenText
- Palette
- Pebble
- Piinpoint
- PumpUp
- Sandvine
- Seven Shores Urban Market & Café
- Skimble
- SlipStream Data
- Suncayr
- Teklogix
- Teledyne DALSA
- Thalmic Labs
- Top Hat
- TribeHR
- Tyromer
- Vidyard
- WestonExpressions
- Xtreme Labs
Catching early communication delays
Communication is a critical skill developed in early childhood. When language skills fall behind, there can be lifelong implications. Daniela O’Neill, shown above, imagined a better way to test spoken language development in two- and three-year-old children. A professor of psychology in the Faculty of Arts, she found the support she needed to build and launch the Language Use Inventory at the University of Waterloo. Her assessment tool is now used by speech-language professionals around the world to identify young children in need of help.
By the numbers
- 30+ support and for-credit programs in the entrepreneurial ecosystem
- #1 Canadian university for venture-capital-backed enterprises (Pitchbook, August 2014)
- 70+ student-founded companies in the Velocity startup program
- Waterloo’s startups have received $300 million+ in investment funding over the period 2009 to 2013 (Strategic Plan, September 2013)
- 20,309 Ontario jobs attributable to Waterloo’s innovation ecosystem, according to the 2013 PricewaterhouseCoopers impact study
Looking forward
Waterloo’s Strategic Plan includes commitments to:
- Grow our academic courses and opportunities in entrepreneurship
- Engage more students in entrepreneurship programs and provide more funding for startups, infrastructure programs, chairs and personnel
- Create an environment that leads to more jobs, more startups and a growth in GDP, all directly attributable to the University of Waterloo