BlackBerry Limited is a Canadian software company specializing in cybersecurity. Founded in 1984, it developed the BlackBerry brand of interactive pagers, smartphones, and tablets. The company transitioned to providing software and services and holds critical software application patents.

The University of Waterloo is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on 404 hectares of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also operates three satellite campuses and four affiliated university colleges. The university offers academic programs administered by six faculties and thirteen faculty-based schools. Waterloo operates the largest post-secondary co-operative education program in the world, with over 20,000 undergraduate students enrolled in the university's co-op program. Waterloo is a member of the U15, a group of research-intensive universities in Canada.