September Update: Builders in Motion, Tech Week in Full Flight
September started fast and October is coming in even hotter.
Waterloo Tech Week filled the city with nearly 100 events, and Builders Club was busy that week with pitch nights, panels, AI mixers, and pancakes. That energy isn’t slowing down. October is stacked.
🔥 Coming Up in October
Besides Octoberfest. Which is amazing btw. This other stuff is happening in town this month.
SWARM: The World’s Largest Swarm Robotics Hackathon
📍 Oct 3 @ Builders Club
500+ robots, one swarm. Teams get a kit, build emergent behavior, and push the limits of robotics together.
Women Who Launch: Startup Social
📍 Oct 7 @ Builders Club
An evening of connection and momentum for founders ready to launch and grow.
Founders & Funders: Techstars Toronto + Waterloo Relaunch
📍 Oct 14 @ Builders Club
Reconnecting founders, alumni, mentors, and investors. A big reset for the Waterloo x Techstars community.
Techtoberfest: Tradition returns!
📍 Oct 16 @ Communitech
A high-energy day full of learning, pitching and networking designed to bring founders, investors, partners and ecosystem builders together.
Build Canada Waterloo Meetup
📍 Oct 23 @ Builders Club
A new national conversation starts here. Builders across Canada are uniting, and Waterloo is joining in. Come learn and connect.
👉 RSVP + full calendar: lu.ma/waterlooevents
Waterloo Builders Making Noise in SF
It wasn’t just local momentum. Waterloo builders made noise in San Francisco too: Waves had a huge launch through August, and YC’s Summer 2025 cohort includes Normal, Relling, and others with Waterloo roots.
Companies with strong Waterloo connections keep doing amazing things, entering SF with their new companies and proving that this ecosystem isn’t just local, it’s global.
Waterloo Tech Week (Sept 8–11) Recap
Tech Week came in loud with nearly 100 events across Waterloo, from treasure hunts to AI debates, hardware chats, mixers, and late-night after-parties.
Builders Club anchored the week with six events:
Wellness Stack — resilience for founders in the thick of it.
Axiom Startup Competition — early-stage founders putting their ideas forward.
CivicTech Waterloo Showcase — 120+ weeks of civic problem-solving on display.
StartupCampWaterloo v2 — no-judge, builder-powered pitches return. 22 of them!
AI Agents Waterloo / Context Social Mixer — AI builders, demos, and networking.
Tech Week Hangover Pancake Social — syrup + recovery to close the week.
👉 Explore the full Tech Week calendar: https://luma.com/waterlootechweek
🏠 New in Waterloo: Akatos House
This fall, Akatos House opens its doors. Another bold step for the region, more places for builders, thinkers, and doers to connect.
📢 Follow Along: 30 Days of Why Building in Canada Makes Sense
We’ve kicked off 30 Days of Why Build in Canada. A daily dive into talent, ambition, and the culture of building here. If you’ve been looking for the bigger picture behind Builders Club and Waterloo, this is it.
👉 Follow along here: Substack: 30 Days of Why Build in Canada
September proved the point: momentum is built weekly, not once a year. Tech Week is done, October is here, and it’s already flying.
See you out there,
— Jesse
👉 Follow: @TheBarnWaterloo | Builders Club on LinkedIn
🗓 Events: lu.ma/waterlooevents
📬 Weekly update: Monday Club