Waterloo grads first Canadian winners of Dyson prize

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For the first time a Canadian company has won the prestigious Dyson Award for Engineering. The group of University of Waterloo grads has invented a high-speed printer that can print circuit boards in just minutes.

Printed circuit boards are essential for our electronics but building them is often a time consuming and expensive process

“Right now if you wanted to develop a new circuit board you would take your design, send it to China, spend hundreds of dollars, wait for a few weeks.” said Voltera co-founder Alroy Almeida.

A group of grads from Waterloo is hoping to change that. They’ve created a laptop sized printer called the “Voltera V1” It uses different inks to create functional, two-layer circuit boards.

The unit, which costs $2200, is small enough to fit on a desk, and the first ones are now ready to be shipped out. The first 2 dozen printers will be shipped out over the next 2 weeks and they have plans to build another 500 next year.

The company, which is 2 years old and has a staff of only 10, has become the first Canadian winner of the International James Dyson award. A design competition judged by the British inventor. The award comes with about $54 000 that they hope will help grow their company.