Kitchener hub hopes to inspire a new wave of innovation

Entrepreneurs, business owners and founders will soon have a new place to work on their ideas thanks to the University of Waterloo.

The school officially opened a new collaboration space in downtown Kitchener that they are calling the Innovation Arena. Velocity, the university’s startup incubator, is moving into the space to support burgeoning businesses.

The Innovation Arena features development labs and manufacturing equipment, including 20,000 square feet of space dedicated specifically to hardware, to transform ideas into real-world products and services.

“The Innovation Arena is the new home for entrepreneurship at Waterloo and will be a nexus for health innovation,” University of Waterloo President and Vice-Chancellor Vivek Goel said in a news release. “Building on the momentum from Waterloo startups like Intellijoint Surgical and KA Imaging, and with resources for advanced technology startups and access to partners in the health care sector, the facility will accelerate southwestern Ontario’s drive to become Canada’s epicentre of health innovation and entrepreneurship.”

The new hub was built with financial support form the federal government’s Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, the province and the City of Kitchener.

People work at the Innovation Arena in Kitchener on Nov. 15, 2024. (Ashley Bacon/CTV News)

Who will be working in the Innovation Arena?

The Innovation Arena will host a wide variety of companies, from medical researchers to robotics teams and equipment developers.

“We have people working on new medical devices, new diagnostics, new ways for information to flow in health care environments that ultimately speed up how patients receive care, increase the quality of their care and, more importantly as well, make sure health care workers’ experience can be improved,” Velocity Executive Director Adrien Côté said.

Velocity Executive Director Adrien Côté speaks at a podium at the Innovation Arena in Kitchener on Nov. 15, 2024. (Ashley Bacon/CTV News)

One company working out of the Innovation Arena is NewGen Health.

“We’re trying to revolutionize the industry by detecting kidney disease at the earliest stage possible,” CEO Mazhar Shahen told CTV News.

NewGen Health will be working alongside other companies, such as Upside Robotics. The robotics company uses AI-powered robots to deliver fertilizer, herbicide and fungicide.

“Instead of dumping in a whole bunch of fertilizer at the very beginning of the season, we go out every week and apply a little bit of fertilizer, much closer to when the plant actually needs it so that we can be much more efficient with how we’re using that fertilizer, reducing the amount of runoff and the amount that’s wasted in the atmosphere,” explained Upside Robotics Chief Technology Officer Sam Dugan.

Companies like Migranium, meanwhile, will be merging technology and health care.

“The average hospital uses about 16 to 20 different softwares. That causes a lot of operational chaos. High costs contributes to the burnout,” CEO and Co-Founder Tope Ukaegby explained. “At Migranium, we’re consolidating all these softwares into one cohesive platform, integrating seamlessly with existing systems and enhancing them, leveraging AI.”