About Michael Mazilu

Michael Mazilu is a Computer Science student at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and a co-founder of Waterloo Defence, a student-led team at the University of Waterloo that designs and builds autonomous counter-drone systems. Michael started the Bachelor of Computer Science program at Waterloo in September 2026, as part of the Class of 2031, and is in first year.

Michael builds AI/ML systems, agent infrastructure and robotics software. Earlier work includes an internship at Sentra, an AI memory and enterprise data company, research contributions to WAT.ai on semantic object-state understanding, and humanoid robot design with Waterloo Reality Labs. Michael is also a co-founder of Arctic Autonomy, a dual-use maritime company.

Waterloo Defence, co-founded in 2026 with Udai Relan, is building an autonomous counter-UAS turret: a camera detects and tracks a drone, fire-control software computes where it will be when a round arrives, and a powered mount holds that aim. The founders are listed on the Waterloo Defence team page.

Last updated 2026-09-22