In and of itself, the evolv1 office building is an impressive feat of engineering. Aptly situated in the “Idea Quarter” of the City of Waterloo, the evolv1 became Canada’s first project to receive a carbon-zero building certificate. So what better place to grow and develop the region’s burgeoning green industry?

That’s the intent with the official launch this week of evolvGREEN. A collaborative project to put the Region of Waterloo at the forefront of sustainable business and technology, evolvGREEN will operate from the green open office spaces of the evolv1 building, sending an important message in the process.

The cities of Cambridge, Waterloo, Kitchener and the Region of Waterloo are launching a new public engagement platform: Engage Waterloo Region (EngageWR). The new tool gives citizens the opportunity to have their say on local projects and initiatives. With evolving needs and the advancement of online engagement, the cities and the Region have switched to a new platform that will better facilitate public engagement through more robust tools and a modern, user-friendly design.

A single registration gives participants full access to all online public engagement opportunities for the Region of Waterloo and the cities of Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo. Registered users can tailor their preferences to receive notifications about topics that mean the most to them. The interactive and user-friendly site allows users to participate in different ways and stay updated throughout the lifetime of a project.

A Canadian startup backed by BlackBerry Ltd. co-founder Mike Lazaridis has raised $10 million to fund further growth.

Silicon Valley venture capital firm Shasta Ventures led the investment round in Isara Corp., which sells encryption technology to protect data from the threat of hackers armed with quantum computers.

Waterloo-based startup Communitech has launched the Waterloo Regional Technology Development Site, an innovation hub that will help develop high-definition 3D maps for autonomous vehicles.

As part of Ontario’s $80 million Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Network (AVIN) initiative, the new hub will work alongside the University of Waterloo Centre for Automotive Research, the Waterloo Region Economic Development Corporation and Canada’s Open Data Exchange on various 3D mapping technologies, according to the Record.

Waterloo — Rob Corrigan feels lucky to be alive.

A decade ago, the Kitchener native suffered a serious scare when he was rocked by an opponent while playing hockey for Ridley College, a private school in St. Catharines.

"I was hit in open ice," the 27-year-old said. "Apparently, I did a back flip in the air and was unconscious for about 30 seconds. It was a pretty big hit."

"Honestly, if it wasn't for the (safety) protocols that they had in place … I think my story would be very different today."

WATERLOO, Ontario, July 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Plum today announced that the University of Waterloo will pilot its predictive hiring platform to help better connect its 21,000+ students with the 6,900 employers that recruit from the university each year. The Plum platform marries artificial intelligence and machine-learning with Industrial Organizational Psychology to give hiring managers an additional, distinct dimension by which to predict candidates' on-the-job performance: talent. This pilot aims to enhance service to students and employers, and increase success for campus career service counselors.

When BlackBerry Ltd. divested about three million square feet of real estate in Waterloo, Ont., and area in 2014, some out-of-town naysayers warned of a calamitous office space glut in a region once dominated by the former tech titan.

“With 2.8 million square feet coming back on the market, there was a significant reluctance from the out-of-town investor to consider buying real estate in the Region of Waterloo,” says John Whitney, owner and chief executive officer of Whitney Commercial Real Estate Services. A fourth-generation Waterloo real estate broker, he helped BlackBerry decades earlier to acquire some of the same buildings that went on the chopping block. He says the skeptics told him, “You are crazy; you will never deal with all that space.”

MONTREAL, May 7, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - SPORTLOGiQ, the AI-powered sports analytics company comprised of the world's leading researchers, has officially opened the doors to its Kitchener-Waterloo AI Lab. The company is headquartered in Montreal and has added an office in the Kitchener-Waterloo region, which was named as Canada's fastest-growing tech sector in 2017.

SPORTLOGiQ will have access to top universities, such as the University of Waterloo, where the company already has research collaborations with David Clausi of VIP lab. As well as planning a collaborative research project with Pascal Poupart on theoretical and practical aspects of Reinforcement Learning.

The number of businesses operating in Waterloo Region grew in the second half of 2018, while the number in the Guelph area saw a significant decline.

The Workforce Planning Board of Waterloo Wellington Dufferin has prepared a report looking at the local business landscape based on Statistics Canada data.

According to the report, there were 52,664 businesses operating in Waterloo Region as of December 2017 – an increase of 874 from six months earlier.