Future looks bright (K-W Record, June 29, 1984)

Page 1

Bernie Weil, Record

staff

UW spawns new generation of sophisticated companies Record staff Waterloo is having a baby boom- but the "babies" are high-technology companies, godchildren of the University of Waterloo. 路 路 -路They're finTnjfP1IT:II1JJStreet,popping .up.m. offices uptown and in stark, rectangular buildings on the city's outskirts. They are creating jobs at a rate that has surpassed the city's traditional industries such as Labatt's Breweries and Joseph Seagram and Sons Ltd. It's been happening slowly but steadily for almost a decade. Typically, an office would be rented and two University of Waterloo graduates would set up shop to produce computer software. Few people even knew what software was but the students knew it was the coming thing. Although sa-called "high-tech" companies are being established throughout Waterloo Region, the City of Waterloo has been the main beneficiary, largely because of the fatherly presence of the University of Waterloo.

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Waterloo Region is on the threshold of a hightech boom. Record staff writers Joe Sinasac and Philip Bast have compiled a comprehensive report- the f1rst of two parts -on the new industrial revolution, its link to the University of Waterloo,-fts efhJct em the corrTFrruflity and its rosy future. Additional stones, photos on A 7. The second pnrt will be featured Saturday.

Indeed, in the last two months a series of major announcements has pushed Waterloo's high-tech boom and the university connection into the limelight. On April 10, computer manufacturer .-H.ewlett-Packard Canada Lt,d. became the "first co'mpany to decide to mbve to UW's industrial research park, taking out an option to buy 25 acres of the university's north campus. It will be the site for a facility to build electronic monitoring equip't for natural re-

source industries. The provincial government jumped into the limelight three days later with a promise of $31.1 million for a new computer research building at UW. The university threw in another $14 million to fill the place . Then in a double dose of good news, two major projects were announced on May; 14. The Digital Equipment Company 6f Canada Ltd.f doriated $25 million worth of computers to UW See Future--Page A2.


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