Startup city: The high- tech fever reshaping Kitchener- Waterloo. From left: Iain Klugman, CEO of Communitech; Dave Caputo, president and CEO of Sandvine; Mike Kirkup, director of Velocity; Rachel Pautler, co- founder and CEO of Suncayr; Michael Litt, co- founder and CEO of Vidyard; Pearl Sullivan, dean of engineering at the University of Waterloo; and Rod Regier, executive director of Economic Development for the City of Kitchener; pose at Communitech inside the Tannery in Kitchener, Ont., on July 1. On a sticky August Saturday in 2. Steven Woods got a call on his cellphone. The Saskatchewan- native had just moved from Silicon Valley to Waterloo, Ont., to serve as Google Inc.’s site director for an outpost of engineering excellence in the mid- sized Canadian city. He was surprised to get a call while he was unpacking boxes in his new house, on a phone he’d received that day. On the line was Iain Klugman, the CEO of a local organization called Communitech, a private not- for- profit company devoted to supporting startups, inviting him out for dinner. Still reeling from the stresses of the move, Mr. Woods suggested they talk Monday and figure something out. Klugman was in more of a hurry, and suggested the next night, a Sunday. The following night, Mr. Woods arrived at a local restaurant to find a group of people with a mission. Okay: What are you doing for us?’ Seriously, within five minutes the conversation was . Klugman makes no apologies for his cajoling, and his efforts have been paying off. Waterloo, long considered little more than the home of Black. Berry, has become one of Canada’s technology hot spots, attracting some of the biggest rainmakers in the business. Canada has its share of startup hubs where an entrepreneur can set up shop: Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, and, to a degree, Calgary and Halifax. The Kitchener- Waterloo region is among the smallest by population, with about 5. 302 Administrative Assistant Job vacancies available in Kitchener, ON on Indeed Canada. Burgeoning tech companies are on the rise in Canada, attracting funding and IPO buzz in hubs across the country. Our occasional series explores how each locale. But the Southern Ontario centres are among the most successful.“Internationally, their reputation is off the charts. I’m not sure Canadians understand that,” says Mr. Woods, who has a Ph. D and a master’s from the University of Waterloo. In just the past five years, 1,8. KW, raising at least $6. If technology and innovation are the future of the Canadian economy, then the group of dreamers, toilers, coders and entrepreneurs who live 1. Canada’s biggest city think they have the inside track.“We believe there’s this future where Waterloo is one of the top cities for technology in the world,” says Ted Livingston, CEO of chat app Kik, Canada’s largest homegrown social media company, headquartered in Waterloo. Lazaridis’s Perimeter Institute is harnessing theoretical physics to discover the next generation of technological breakthroughs; Mr. Balsillie is still an active investor in the area. But this isn’t a story about how Waterloo has been defined by Black. Berry. This is about a generation that grew up alongside Black. Berry and seeks to forge a new identity for the city. At the centre are an indispensable institution, the University of Waterloo, a bunch of young people starting companies, and a dedicated group of community leaders eager to support the region’s ambition to become a world- class technology centre. Leading this rebirth is Communitech. Founded in 1. 99. Mr. Balsillie, Communitech is funded by all three levels of government, by member companies and by corporate partners. It operates as a hybrid economic development agency, marketing board and business support network. A compact, tanned man with perpetual silver stubble, Mr. Klugman got his MBA at Wilfrid Laurier University, and his start in marketing at Nortel in the 1. Prior to joining Communitech in 2. CBC and the Ontario government. His job at Communitech is to help the community punch above its weight when it comes to providing support for startups.“We feel that we have to try harder and work harder because we don’t have a lot of natural assets to work with – we don’t have an ocean or mountains or a beach,” Mr. Klugman says with a shake of his head. But what the region lacks in breathtaking scenery it makes up for with the talent of its residents. In 2. 01. 0 some 1. Communitech; that figure doubled the following year, and topped 5. Some of those new ventures – Miovision, Clear. Path Robotics, Aeryon Labs and Thalmic Labs, among others – have attracted a lot of buzz and investment. There have been stumbles, too, notably Communitech’s Hyperdrive accelerator that failed to take off. If things were moving any faster, Mr. Klugman fears, a scarcity of talent might force companies to pump the brakes. So you’re talking about 1,5. Sean Cuddy makes Buying, selling or investing in Real Estate as simple as possible. This does NOT have to be a difficult process! The Kitchener Waterloo market is. Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge Real Estate – Clare and Jeanette Dove with REMAX Real Estate Centre Inc Assisting buyers and sellers to understand the local. Low cost for real estate agents in Ontario to hang / park my real estate license with non-board brokerage. Indeed, a 2. 01. 3 Price. Waterhouse. Coopers survey attributes more than 2. Communitech’s efforts have included startup mentoring and peer- to- peer networking, and its latest plan is to give entrepreneurs a head start on building a sales strategy. It does all this by hosting events, encouraging executives of established firms to participate in its education sessions, luring venture capitalists and lobbying various levels of government. And fledgling firms needed the help because, says Mr. Livingston, “It’s a massive disadvantage in partnerships and funding and press not to be in Silicon Valley.”But that’s changing. And he would know: He’s done it twice in the past 2. Pix. Stream, a video conferencing company, which he and his co- executives sold to Cisco Systems in 2. Sandvine.“I assumed that Communitech- like organizations were everywhere, but I’ve come to learn that they are relatively rare,” says Mr. Caputo. For decades, global tech companies set up shop in Waterloo even if it was just to recruit and ship out talent. Intel, Electronic Arts, Google and SAP moved in alongside local enterprise tech companies such as Open. Text, Descartes and Desire. Learn. Waterloo engineers can be found in large numbers in many of the biggest companies in the capital of global tech, Silicon Valley. Kitchener Waterloo Realtor and Real Estate Agent has homes for sale and condos. A top producer for Remax Twin City Realty Inc. Brokerage in Kitchener, Waterloo. Rent a car from Avis in Kitchener ON. Visit our Kitchener location today for a wide selection of vehicles at competitive prices. But now, local players say, people with those skills have reason to stay.“Let me say what’s changed here: It is now an absolute career alternative of students graduating from Wilfrid Laurier University and University of Waterloo to say, . The idea was, if you wanted to be in technology . Last year, the university filled 1. Not bad for a university with 3. There is no other institution in this world that does co- op like we do,” says university president Feridun Hamdullahpur. The university claims a 9. Some 7. 4 per cent of 2. Ontario graduates. Waterloo’s student debt default rate is among the lowest in the country: 1. The second- lowest rate in Ontario is the University of Toronto at 4 per cent, and at most post- secondary institutions it’s more like 1. Kitchener- Waterloo benefits enormously from the placement of all those talented students. In 2. 01. 5, 3,3. Mr. Livingston, who did his co- op placement at Black. Berry, says the international success of his company’s popular app means he has every reason to relocate. More than 1. 00 companies have been created out of the university’s Velocity program, a non- academic hub that started in 2. Velocity residence, a dormatory the university filled with its most entrepreneurial students. Among other services, Velocity offers students free office space for a period of time, and lab space on the university grounds. There’s also the Velocity Fund, a pool of money made up of university cash and donations. It distributes $1. Velocity is really unique in that everything non- academic is Velocity. Everything we do on campus is about creating awareness and creating the experience of entrepreneurship,” says Mike Kirkup, who heads the Velocity program. Berkeley has eight different entrepreneurship programs, one in engineering, one in business, so they don’t connect all the pieces together.”“Most of the items we deploy focus on lessons learned from others and our own challenges or opportunities,” he adds. Among the early Velocity participants was Eric Migicovsky, maker of the most talked about non- Apple smartwatch, Pebble, which holds the crowdfunding record from U. S. She and her two co- founders came to the University of Waterloo for one of North America’s only undergraduate degree engineering programs specializing in nanotechnology.“We honestly all applied to nano because it had the highest admission average and we thought we wanted that. Pautler believed she was going to be a professor, but it only took her three co- op terms doing nano lab work to realize she hated pure research. Engineering students at UW have to do something called a capstone project in their senior year. Some people build solar cars, others build new highly sensitive radio sensors, but Ms. Pautler had a problem to solve: “I get sunburned super easy, and I hate it because I get sunburned wearing sunscreen,” she says. Rachel Pautler is co- founder and CEO of Suncayr. Pautler’s team came up with a concept: not a new sunscreen, but a type of ink that that would change colour when it sensed UV rays, which would tell you when it was time to re- apply.“We took it to a professor, he said, . You should start a company.’”They did and their company, Suncayr, has become an example of the many supports in the university’s startup ecosystem. The co- founders used some of their co- op sessions to develop their idea. They perfected the product at the Velocity lab, won several cash awards from the university and met drug- company sales reps and retail buyers during networking events at Communitech. After graduating this year, Ms. Pautler’s Suncayr team moved into the Velocity Foundry space, with plans to stay in the region for at least the next few years.“The education of the future engineer is based on three main beliefs,” says Pearl Sullivan, the university’s dean of engineering. Innovate early – if you have an idea, go for it. Finally, incubate early – if we can help you take your idea to the next level, we will help you.”“The lesson here is that maybe the role of university is not to just to complete a five- year program in engineering,” she says. For home, car, or business insurance that's right for you, contact your local insurance experts at BrokerLink in Kitchener.
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