In 2017, BC-based Hydra Energy hired then-Mitacs intern Patrick Steiche, who helped them develop a breakthrough retrofit kit that enables trucking companies to convert their diesel vehicles to cleaner hydrogen, reducing emissions up to 40 percent. Shortly after, Steiche was hired full time and later became the company’s Director of Innovation.

Simon Fraser University’s Dr. Erik Kjeang is leading a four-year collaboration with Greenlight Innovation, the global leader and manufacturer of fuel cell and electrolyzer test stations, to help scale up the technology needed to lead the transition to a hydrogen economy.

Innovation starts with asking the right questions.

For Transport Genie Ltd., a deceptively simple question vexing Canadian biosecurity experts sparked a collaboration that accelerated development of the company’s smart sensor technology and brought it to the cusp of commercial success.

Based in Aurora, Ont., the company is working with two Mitacs interns supervised by University of Saskatchewan’s Dr. Terry Fonstad to advance sensors that monitor animal welfare during transport.

It’s difficult, dirty and dangerous work, but someone has to do it. For clients of Copperstone Technologies, that someone is an amphibious robot. 

When 31-year-old Jason Deglint was completing his PhD in systems design engineering at University of Waterloo, he decided to tackle a problem that costs an estimated $2 billion in damages and losses in the aquaculture industry: the harmful algae blooms that kill fish.

Deglint dedicated his thesis research to developing a smart, low-cost prototype imaging system to analyze samples in the lab. With support from the Mitacs Accelerate Entrepreneur program, his efforts resulted in the creation of Blue Lion Labs, a new small business based in Waterloo, Ontario.

Founded by a pair of Dalhousie University alumni of the materials engineering program, Nova Scotia-based Graphite Innovation and Technologies (GIT) is providing opportunities for Dalhousie graduate students to put their research experience into practice through Mitacs internships.  

Quebec entrepreneur and former Mitacs intern Azadeh Dastmalchi developed a medical-grade smartwatch after struggling to find a device that could help her father monitor his hypertension. Now, in addition to targeting the one in three adults suffering from high blood pressure in North America, her company VitalTracer is pivoting its solution to assist with early detection and monitoring of COVID-19 symptoms.

With the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, CAMufacturing Solutions Inc. knew they needed to bring their expertise in additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, to support the rising demand for quick production of personnel protective equipment (PPE) for the health care community.

Who could have foreseen that humanitarian activities during the 2010 earthquake in Haiti would, 10 years later, guide the way for researchers, entrepreneurs and Mitacs interns during the COVID-19 crisis?

During his deployment at a Red Cross field hospital after the earthquake, Dr. Abdo Shabah saw the potential for greater use of technology in emergency health interventions.

When postdoctoral fellow Mahdiyeh Hasani of University of Guelph came to Canada in 2017 and began working with Professor Keith Warriner to decontaminate produce, she had no idea that in just a few years COVID-19 would dramatically change the world — and the impact of her research.