The University of Waterloo’s tech and entrepreneurship scene was on full display last week as two student-organized events, Hack the North and Waterloo Tech Week, drew founders, investors and student developers from around the world to the region.
Hack the North, now in its 13th year, is billed as Canada’s largest student-led hackathon. This year’s edition brought together more than 1,000 participants who spent 36 straight hours building projects, collaborating with peers and connecting with industry representatives. Organizers said 353 projects were submitted across categories including software, robotics, health care and economics.
Waterloo Tech Week, launched in 2025 by the same student organizing team behind Hack the North, is a newer event open to anyone interested in engaging with the Waterloo Region startup community. Maggie Lu, the event’s team lead and a Computing and Financial Management student, said the two events share a common goal of connecting people to build ideas together, describing Waterloo as a hub for founders, startups and tech talent in Canada.
National Ranking for Student Entrepreneurship
The events come as Pitchbook’s 2026 University Rankings named the University of Waterloo the top Canadian institution — and seventh globally — for producing undergraduate entrepreneurs.
Alongside the two flagship events, the university’s Faculty of Engineering hosted a panel discussion featuring alumni Michael Litt, co-founder of Vidyard and Garage Capital, and Jocelyne Murphy, co-founder of Wygo, along with Chris Albinson, managing partner of True North Fund. The panel was moderated by Professor Chris Holt of the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business.
Albinson, who spent two decades working in Silicon Valley before returning to Canada to lead Communitech and later co-found True North Fund in Waterloo, said the university’s concentration of talent and ambition made it a uniquely powerful place to build companies.
Litt, a Systems Design Engineering graduate, started Vidyard, an AI-powered video messaging and hosting platform, as a fourth-year capstone project. The company went through the Y Combinator accelerator program in 2011, at a time when conventional thinking suggested startups needed to be based in Silicon Valley to succeed. Litt instead chose to build the company in Waterloo, citing the region’s talent pipeline and co-op program as key advantages.
Student Startups Attracting Investment
Murphy built Wygo, a platform that helps community organizers create sustainable businesses and nonprofits, during her undergraduate studies in Systems Design Engineering. She and co-founder Chris Oka have since raised more than $1.5 million from an all-Canadian group of investors, including Garage Capital and Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke.
Murphy credited the university’s Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business, its Enterprise Co-op program, the Pearl Sullivan Scholarship for Community Leadership, and the Accelerator Centre for giving her team the financial support needed to build Wygo’s foundation before seeking venture capital. Wygo served as the official platform powering this year’s Waterloo Tech Week.
Highlights from this year’s Hack the North included a keynote from Erik Bernhardsson, co-founder and CEO of Modal, along with custom-built electronic badges used for networking and event access. Megan Chun, co-director of Hack the North and a Computer Engineering student, said the concentration of ambitious people building projects is what makes the environment feel like the center of innovation for students.
Hack the North and Wygo By the Numbers
Organizers said they plan to build on the momentum from both events to expand future opportunities for connecting founders, students and the broader startup community in the Waterloo Region.
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