Frederich Nietzsche once spoke about ‘dancing’ as an art that is indispensable to the highest forms of education. Elaine Dong, a Computer Science intern from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China, has found her inner dancer — figuratively and literally — in Montreal as she contributes to research on fuel efficient air traffic management this summer.

Mitacs acknowledges the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the governments of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick for their support of Mitacs Step.

It all started when TandemLaunch’s founder, Helge Seetzen, was given a chance to participate in the Mitacs Accelerate program while he was a PhD student at UBC’s Structured Surface Physics lab. In 2002, Helge and a team at the lab developed a new way to control the brightness of visual screens and sold it to audio and cinema giant Dolby Laboratories.

By 2010, he’d formed TandemLaunch, a company that takes young scientists and entrepreneurs in universities and gives them seed money and coaching to transform their ideas into profitable businesses.

When Calgary-based Chaordix, a pioneer in the crowdsourcing space, was looking to gain further insight into market research intelligence and analytics, they turned to Mitacs.  We connected the company with intern Khobaib Zaamout, a PhD student in the department of Information and Communication Technology at the University of Calgary.

Together with Ralph and Chris’ guidance, Suzanne put together an application for a Mitacs Accelerate grant which would afford Indie Ink access to a top-level graduate student for her tech idea. Suzanne wanted to develop a platform for a truly interactive and multi-dimensional experience for adult non-fiction book in her catalog: The New Rock Star Philosophy: A Guerilla Blueprint for Digitally Conscious Artists.

As a student originally from the Universidade Federal Da Paraíba  in Rio Tinto, Brazil, Kelson thought that coming to Canada for a research internship would be “a good chance to know a beautiful country” while learning about network security through research. He and his Globalink intern colleagues have certainly taken advantage of the opportunity by visiting national parks, exploring the city of Fredericton and even taking part in a few Mitacs Step workshops on effective communication and team work.

As a Computer Science major from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Ray has always had an interest in networks and networking — both on computers, and among people. This interest has served him well as he helped to build a household notification system that helps family members to keep track of domestic chores and appointments, as well as to inform each other of personal schedules and shared commitments.

Agriculture and farming in the 21^st century is an increasingly complex operation that requires sound organization and planning, from seed inventories to tractor parts and harvest planning, among other tasks for the farmer. Farm At Hand, a start-up mobile application company, was built to help farmers address the complex needs of their operations “from seed to sale.”