Toronto Waterloo
Locations / North America

Toronto-Waterloo

Spend a year inside a Toronto startup while taking entrepreneurship classes at the University of Toronto. Experience one of the global homes of AI and AI research.

  • Partner uni

    University of Toronto

  • Format

    Full Year
  • Intake

    January August
  • Audience

    Undergraduates only

  • Ecosystem

    AI & deep tech
  • Cohort size

    ~25 students per intake

About Toronto-Waterloo

Rearrange your view of normal.

Toronto is where the current wave of AI started. Geoffrey Hinton spent thirty years at the University of Toronto on neural networks after most researchers had written them off. In 2012 two of his students used them to win an image recognition contest so decisively that the field changed direction inside a year. Those students and the people that followed them built one of the most prolific AI ecosystems on the planet.

Your internship is only part of your experience. Toronto’s startup scene concentrates in buildings anyone can walk into. MaRS, DMZ, OneEleven, Communitech an hour west in Waterloo. Hackathons and open challenges take entries from anyone, not from anyone with an introduction. One NOC student entered the largest open innovation challenge in Canada, pitched at DMZ, and won a hackathon, all while working full time. Those opportunities are abundant in Toronto for those seeking growth and challenge.

Half of Toronto was born somewhere else. You are not the foreign student in the room, you are one more person who arrived recently. What makes anyone in Toronto standout is the work they do.

Why Toronto-Waterloo?

Big enough to matter, focused enough for deep connections.

The home of deep learning

Geoffrey Hinton's students built AlexNet at the University of Toronto in 2012. The Vector Institute is downtown and the AI companies that followed are spread across the city.

Classes at University of Toronto

You take entrepreneurship classes at the University of Toronto while you work. Eight of your forty NOC units come from them, and you are immersed in one of the most diverse student bodies in the world at UofT.

Important work from day 1

Interns at Toronto-based startups are expected to contribute and their presence is never spare. NOC students at CERT Systems, PolicyMe and TRIYO led projects and worked directly with founders.

Partner university
University of Toronto

University of Toronto

You take entrepreneurship classes at the University of Toronto part-time while the internship runs. Eight of your forty NOC units come from those classes. The other thirty-two come from your internship.

Insulin in 1921. The pacemaker in 1950. Stem cells in 1961. Neural networks that actually worked in 2012. UofT keeps turning out things the rest of the world ends up needing and living with, and you take classes at the heart of those discoveries.

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[LIFE IN A GLOBAL SCIENCE AND AIHUB]
What our students say

"We are conditioned to look for "model examples" - past year papers in school or "how it was done before" at work. NOC Toronto completely broke that habit for me. Returning for my final semester at NUS, my perspective has fundamentally shifted. Even in classroom settings, I no longer just "get things done." Now, I ask why I’m doing them and look for deeper ways to add my unique value."

Headshot

Kyoeun Kim

NOC Toronto Alumna | 2025 | School of Computing

Practical info

The things you'll need to know before committing to Toronto.

  • Cost of living [ $ ]

    About SGD2,500 a month

  • Accommodation

    NOC supports housing search.

  • Stipend & awards

    Most students receive an internship stipend from their host company. NOC awards available via Awards & Scholarships

  • Visa

    Canadian study permit. NOC covers the full application cost

  • Language

    English
  • Climate

    Continental Hard Winter
  • Time zone

    UTC -5 (EST)
  • Getting around

    TTC subway and streetcars. GO Transit runs the corridor to Waterloo. A car isn’t necessary, but is convenient.

Curriculum at Toronto-Waterloo

Faculty-mapped courses for NOC Toronto-Waterloo: units, intakes, and academic structure.

All three are submitted via myEduRec → External Study Online Application → Program Application → Supporting Document, before the application deadline.

NOC may withdraw your application if any are missing.

Apply for NOC Toronto-Waterloo

Rank Toronto-Waterloo in your application. Note that NOC reserves the right to assign you to any available location regardless of stated preference.

Start your application