The University of Toronto has enlisted a new post-secondary partner in its effort to help young entrepreneurs build the companies and jobs of the future.

Queen’s University this week became the fourth university in Ontario to join U of T’s ONRamp initiative – a 15,000-square-foot collaboration and co-working space for startups located on U of T’s downtown Toronto campus.

Members of the Queen’s startup community will have access to the facility to work on their ideas, host pitch competitions and networking events and meet with Toronto-based investors and customers.

From Thomas Heatherwick’s expressive timber proposals for Sidewalk Toronto to Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s stacked-volume renderings of U of T’s School of Cities, we have lately seen numerous architectural visions for projects that will have major impacts on the city’s skyline and fabric. Here are 10 that we believe will really shape the future of the city – that is, if they are ultimately realized.

The Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) will open its first European incubator at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, The Logic has learned.

Sources confirmed that CDL will announce its seventh location as early as next week. This will be CDL’s second international expansion in the past few months, after launching a program at New York University’s Stern School of Business in September 2018.

CDL, which began at the Rotman School at the University of Toronto, has become a magnet for venture capitalists, academics and entrepreneurs.

WATERLOO — They’re a fixture in tech communities around the world, supporting young companies while attracting billions of dollars in public and private investment.

But are incubators and accelerators ultimately of much value to the businesses they’re purporting to help?

That question was posed Thursday during a session at the inaugural Drive conference on scaleup ecosystems, presented by the Lazaridis Institute for the Management of Technology Enterprises at Wilfrid Laurier University, and data and software provider Hockeystick.

A Canadian semiconductor startup based on technology developed in the lab of the University of Toronto’s Sorin Voinigescu has raised US$42 million to help alleviate increasingly congested wireless networks.

The latest round of financing, which brings the total raised to over US$110 million, promises to help Toronto-based Peraso Technologies further develop its chips for the 60 gigahertz (GHz) band, which allows more data to be pushed through wireless hotspots for applications like streamed 4K television or virtual reality.

Peraso was founded in 2009 and, in essence, has been patiently waiting for the wireless industry to catch up to its chips based on the Wi-Gig standard, an ultra-fast type of Wi-Fi. That time appears to have arrived as other chipmakers like Qualcomm and Intel explore the high-frequency band.

The Creative Destruction Lab is now accepting applications for their 2019 Quantum Machine Learning and Blockchain-AI Incubator Streams. As a seed-stage program for massively scalable, science-based companies, the mission of the CDL is to enhance the prosperity of humankind.

The CDL Blockchain-AI Incubator Stream is a 10-month incubator program which gives blockchain founders personalized mentorship from blockchain thought leaders, successful tech entrepreneurs, scientists, economists and venture capitalists. Founders are also eligible for up to US$100K in investment, in exchange for equity.

Manmeet Maggu and Rahul Udasi didn’t know it when they met at the University of Waterloo eleven years ago, but the bond that the two forged in late night study sessions as roommates in the UW Place dorm has helped power their work building an exoskeleton that allows children with disabilities to walk.

The fruit of that labor is Trexo Robotics, which will graduate as part of the latest batch of Y Combinator’s winter 2019 cohort.

The Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), a seed-stage program for massively scalable, science-based companies, is now accepting applications for their 2019/20 Quantum Machine Learning and  Blockchain-AI Incubator Streams.

The Quantum Machine Learning Incubator Stream is a 10-month program for founders pursuing commercial opportunities at the intersection of quantum computing and machine learning.  The program brings together entrepreneurs, investors, AI experts, leading quantum information researchers, and technology partners, D-Wave Systems, Rigetti Computing, and Xanadu to create new ventures at the frontier of quantum machine learning. Participants also receive US$80K equity investment from investment partners.

With work integrated learning on the rise, students are looking for more opportunities to enhance their post-secondary education. For students Christian Garcia Salguero and Joseph Belcastro, they chose to gain experience by enrolling in the Impact Centre’s IMC392 startup internship course. Now both students work with local Toronto companies, learning about business development and innovation in a unique startup environment.

“Working for a startup, you have to put some effort but then you get lots of experience, lots of skills, and to really see how a company works, which you might not see in a big company because they have so many layers” said Christian.

The University of Toronto is forging an ever deeper relationship with India as evidenced by plans to launch an urban research centre and entrepreneurship hub in the country of 1.3 billion in partnership with Tata Trusts.

At the same time, a growing number of Indian students are opting to study at U of T, with undergraduate enrolment soaring 280 per cent between 2014 and last year.

Why U of T?

The university’s global reputation coupled with Toronto’s welcoming atmosphere and diverse communities are oft-cited reasons.