Business pitches by ݮƵ Engineering students captured the top three awards at this year's University of ݮƵ Nicol competition held at the Conrad Centre on February 26.
According to Wired magazine, wearable computers are the way of the future, and University of ݮƵ alumni are leading the R&D race.
Co-founder of Thalmic Labs, Stephen Lake (BASc, mechatronics), discussed the launch of Myo, the startup’s gesture control armband in a recent article published in Wired, saying the device “will one day control computers, smartphones, gaming consoles, and remote-control devices with simple hand gestures.”
A ݮƵ Engineering research project that will lead to lighter and stronger automotive components will receive substantial funding from Automotive Partnership Canada (APC). The project is one of five that will benefit from a total of $21.4 million in APC support that was announced February 22.
A research project that may significantly boost clean biofuel production in Canada is among three ݮƵ Engineering initiatives to receive funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Jan Huissoon has been appointed chair of mechanical and mechatronics engineering, succeeding interim chair Fathy Ismail. The mechanical and mechatronics engineering professor's term runs from February 4 until December 31, 2016. In January, William Melek was appointed director of the mechatronics engineering program, replacing Sanjeev Bedi who served as director for six years. [announcement]
The New York Times calls the University of ݮƵ "one of the world's best technology schools" and takes a look at the recent successful start-ups by ݮƵ Engineering students and alumni.
"Increasingly, graduates are following the lead of Mike Lazaridis, who nearly 30 years ago helped found BlackBerry, and creating start-ups of their own like Pebble, the smartwatch company founded by a University of ݮƵ grad, and BufferBox, a parcel delivery system recently acquired by Google," says the article run in the February 4th issue of the publication.
Robert Jan van Pelt, a ݮƵ School of Architecture professor, was honoured as a finalist in the 2012 National Jewish Book Awards for editing At the Edge of the Abyss: A Concentration Camp Diary, 1943-1944", written by Dutch student David Koker during his imprisonment in the Vught concentration camp. van Pelt, a leading Holocaust expert, also wrote the book's introduction, with Michiel Horn and John Irons translating Koker's diary for its first English printing.
Research into green transportation in Ontario received a boost, thanks to a new partnership that lets researchers and drivers see how well electric vehicles perform. The new collaboration, called Drive4Data, is the first of its kind in Canada and involves the University of ݮƵ's Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE) and FleetWise EV300, an initiative of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund.
A research facility that will one day develop the technology that enables hybrid vehicles to feed energy into the power grid is among the innovative research initiatives at the University of ݮƵ that will receive major funding. The Canada Foundation for Innovation announced January 15 that it is awarding more than $4.7 million to four research projects at ݮƵ, including over $2.1 million for the Green and Intelligent Automotive Research Facility being established at the university.