About us
A spin-off from the University of Waterloo, KA Imaging is a company that specializes in developing innovative X-ray imaging technologies and systems, providing solutions to the medical, veterinary, and non-destructive test industrial markets.
Values
- Embrace challenge – be innovative
- Respect – everyone, including yourself
- Over-communicate – share information regularly to create alignment and focus
- Integrity – Doing the right thing, even when no one is looking
- Positive Attitude – Anything is possible
- Put People First – KA’s success is because of its employees, customers, and shareholders
TIMELINE
OUR HISTORY
Our rich history of developing unique sensor technologies dates back to 2000, when co-founder Prof. Karim S Karim created the world’s first amorphous silicon active pixel sensor for real-time X-ray imaging applications during his PhD work at the University of Waterloo. The active pixel sensor eventually found early commercial application in biometric fingerprint sensors. Subsequently, early research on high-resolution direct X-ray conversion CMOS cameras, multi-layer spectral (color) X-ray imaging, and high fill factor lateral photodetectors was initiated in 2007 by Prof. Karim and a team of graduate students in the nascent Silicon Thin-film Applied Research (STAR) group at Waterloo. The STAR group’s detector development program benefited from more than $5 million of Canadian government and private sector funding and early prototypes were demonstrated using the world class Giga-to-Nano electronics prototyping facility at the University of Waterloo.
STAR group’s X-ray detector work attracted seed funding from Grand Challenges Canada (a not-for-profit Canadian corporation that is also one of the largest impact-first investors in Canada) to develop a low-cost medical X-ray detector in 2012. The detector was to become an integral part of point of care clinics that screen for tuberculosis, a disease that kills more than 1.5 million people annually across the world mostly in developing countries in Asia and Africa.
In 2015, with support from the University of Waterloo, Grand Challenges Canada and Christie Digital, Amol Karnick, Karim S. Karim and Sina Ghanbarzadeh (a STAR group alumni) founded KA Imaging to commercialize the novel sensor technologies developed by the STAR group into imaging products that enable better healthcare outcomes at a global level.
Today, KA Imaging develops unique detectors and imaging products that leverage cutting edge multi-energy and phase contrast X-ray technologies for medical, industrial, veterinary, non-destructive, and scientific imaging customers.
