Waterloo's new Future of Work Institute is encouraging students, professors and industry leaders to collaborate in reimagining education and career development for an AI-driven world.
The Institute's first initiative is Futures Lab: An AI + UX Prototyping Workshop, which invites students to learn AI-related skills and build teams to tackle educational problems leveraging Google's suite of AI tools such as Gemini Canvas and Google AI Studio.
The initiative is part of a recent research collaboration announced between the University of Waterloo and Google to examine the impact of AI on education and career readiness. It's one of more than 1,160 research partnerships that connects University researchers and students with industry, government and non-profit organizations to effectively address challenges facing the economy and society.
In December 2025, the first of these recurring workshops concluded with the "Google-UWaterloo Symposium on the Future of Learning," where student teams could showcase their projects for the public.
Their innovative work, however, is just getting started. Here's how three interdisciplinary teams of Waterloo students are harnessing this powerful technology to build a better future.
SignFluent
SignFluent seeks to improve accessibility and help people learn American Sign Language (ASL) by counteracting the "feedback vacuum." Often, when students are practicing ASL, they don't receive any feedback, leading to bad habits and incorrect movements.
The team, consisting of Joanna D., Nimisha J., Emily Y, and Mahdee K., built the app to shift learning from passive watching to active coaching. SignFluent uses a phone camera to provide learners with real-time, contextual AI-driven feedback and conversation practice, much like a personal mentor. "Combined with structured learning paths and accessible design, SignFluent is built to make ASL learning more interactive, inclusive, and effective for everyone," Joanne says.
Kanji Garden
Kanji Garden helps users learn Japanese and practice tracing kanji, a major part of the Japanese writing system. Users draw kanji characters and label their parts, then the app's AI model generates a story and graphic based on the user-provided label's and the kanji character's meaning.
Kanji Garden was created by Lara A., a Master of Digital Experience and Innovation (MDEI) student, Spenser S., a Chemistry graduate student and Justin X., a Computer Science undergraduate student.
"By breaking each character into meaningful pieces and generating personalized stories, Kanji Garden helps learners build deeper connections with Kanji rather than relying on rote memorization," Spenser says. "We wanted to create a more engaging, human-centered way to learn kanji, one that adapts to individual interpretation and supports long-term retention."
MuscleMemory
MuscleMemory enables users who can't afford personal training to access safe, personalized at-home workouts using calisthenic exercises like squats and deadlifts. The app uses an AI model to track the user's movements through their smartphone camera and then provide instant audio and visual feedback on their form, helping prevent injuries.
It was created by a team of Engineering and Arts students: Sadiq I., Sabrina T., Tales Mello P., Bhavnoor V., and Amar S. Together, they iterated, solved problems and collaborated to combine design thinking and practical work.
This spring, with the support of the Global Futures Fund, the Future of Work institute has kicked off 8 interdisciplinary projects from across Waterloo's faculties to tackle complex problems at the intersection of technology and social well-being. Future of Work Executive Director Edith Law will also be running a series of AI Literacy workshops in June 2026, and teaching a new AI transformation capstone course in the fall.
"As AI is rapidly evolving it's important to learn these skills as leverage," Bhavnoor says. "With these tools becoming more accessible, the potential for innovation exponentially grows."
