Raquel UrtasunOOnt (born 30 January 1976[1]) is a Spanish-Canadian computer scientist, entrepreneur, and professor at the University of Toronto. She is the founder and CEO of Waabi, a company developing autonomous driving technology using artificial intelligence. Urtasun's research focuses on the application of artificial intelligence to physical systems, to make vehicles and other machines perceive the world more accurately and efficiently.[2]
In 2021, Urtasun left Uber to launch Waabi, a Toronto-based company focused on developing autonomous vehicle technology, where she serves as chief executive officer.[7] Waabi uses generative AI to create simulation software through which self-driving technology can be tested, as opposed to logging miles on real-world roads.[12][13] The company has partnered with Uber Freight and Volvo but has not yet begun commercial autonomous truck operation.[13] Urtasun raised $83.5 million USD in seed funding to launch Waabi, one of the largest first funding rounds ever by a Canadian startup.[12] In 2024, Waabi raised an additional $200 million, bringing total funding to over $280 million.[14]
Awards and honours
Among Urtasun's awards are an NSERC E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship, an NVIDIA Pioneers of AI Award, a Ministry of Education and Innovation Early Researcher Award. She is the recipient of Faculty Research Awards from both Amazon and Google, the latter three times. She served as Program Chair of CVPR 2018, and is an editor of the International Journal in Computer Vision (IJCV). She has also served as area chair of several machine learning and vision conferences including NeurIPS, UAI, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, and ECCV. She was selected as one of the Chatelaine Women of the Year 2018.[15]
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