School’s out for the summer, but Members of Provincial Parliament are still hard at work.

Today, The Honourable Reza Moridi, Minister of Research and Innovation for the Province of Ontario, had his first tour of Waterloo Region.

We chatted with Minister Moridi during his visit to the Communitech Hub. After spending some time exploring the Hub Interactive Virtual Environment, he said of his day, “So far so fabulous. I’m very much impressed to see all these companies and talented people. This is a unique place.”

Joined by John Milloy, MPP for Kitchener Centre, Moridi traveled the community to experience the Waterloo Region innovation ecosystem firsthand. Beginning his day at Perimeter Institute, Moridi also visited the Institute for Quantum Computing, Wilfrid Laurier University, Google Waterloo and the Communitech Hub to see the full spectrum of research and commercialization activity in the Region.

While at the Communitech Hub, Moridi chatted with local companies, including Embium (formerly Cyborg Trading).

The Waterloo Region collaborative spirit and enthusiasm impressed Moridi.

“You don’t see very many places that have all of this," commented Moridi toward the end of his visit. “Waterloo is a unique place. You have fundamental research going in Waterloo. In the meantime you have commercialization of research going on, (of) which Communitech is a good example. It seems to me in Waterloo Region we have the whole chain of innovation, which begins with imagination and dreaming and the very basic theory up to commercialization and the products which come out of those very basic sciences. We have the whole chain here."