Economy
Waterloo has a strong knowledge- and service-based economy with significant insurance and high-tech sectors as well as two universities. The city's largest employers are Sun Life Financial, the University of Waterloo, Manulife Financial, Research In Motion, Sandvine and Wilfrid Laurier University.
The city is also home to three well known think tanks – the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, an advanced centre for the study of foundational, theoretical physics and award-winning educational outreach in science; the Institute for Quantum Computing, based at the University of Waterloo, which carries out innovative research in computer, engineering, mathematical and physical sciences; and the Centre for International Governance Innovation, an independent, nonpartisan think tank that addresses international governance challenges.
The city is part of Canada's Technology Triangle (CTT), a joint economic development initiative of Waterloo, Kitchener, Cambridge and the Region of Waterloo that markets the region internationally. Despite its name, CTT does not focus exclusively on promoting technology industries, but on all aspects of economic development.
Waterloo has a strong technology sector with hundreds of high-tech firms. The dominant technology company in the city is Research In Motion, makers of the BlackBerry, which has its headquarters in the city and owns several office buildings near the University of Waterloo's main campus.
Notable Waterloo-based high-tech companies include:
- Dalsa
- Descartes Systems Group
- Maplesoft
- MKS Inc.
- Open Text Corporation
- Research In Motion (RIM)
- Sandvine
Many other high-tech companies, with headquarters elsewhere, take advantage of the concentration of high-tech employees in the Waterloo area, and have research and development centres there. Sybase, Google, Oracle, Intel, McAfee, NCR Corporation, Electronic Arts and Agfa are among the large, international technology companies with development offices in Waterloo.
Before it became known for technology, Waterloo was sometimes referred to as "the Hartford of Canada" because of the many insurance companies based in the area. Manulife, Sun Life Financial, Equitable Life of Canada and Economical Insurance have a significant presence in the city.
Breweries and distilleries had been a significant industry in the Waterloo area until 1993 when a Labatt-owned brewery was shut down. Now the only major brewery is the Brick Brewing Company. Waterloo was the original home of distiller Seagram (also home town of many descendants of J.P. Seagram), which closed its Waterloo plant in 1992. Of the remaining Seagram buildings, one became home of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), while others were converted into condominiums.
Read more about this topic: J.F. Carmichael Public School
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Quidquid luce fuit tenebris agit: but also the other way around. What we experience in dreams, so long as we experience it frequently, is in the end just as much a part of the total economy of our soul as anything we “really” experience: because of it we are richer or poorer, are sensitive to one need more or less, and are eventually guided a little by our dream-habits in broad daylight and even in the most cheerful moments occupying our waking spirit.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Wise men read very sharply all your private history in your look and gait and behavior. The whole economy of nature is bent on expression. The tell-tale body is all tongues. Men are like Geneva watches with crystal faces which expose the whole movement.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)