Balance Biogas is revolutionizing how we power our world. By harnessing cutting-edge technology and ground-breaking research, this Yukon-based company is transforming organic waste into a valuable resource. With support from Mitacs, Balance Biogas is spearheading efficient, clean, and renewable biogas production methods that are driving down greenhouse gas emissions and fostering a circular economy.

Based in St. Albert, Alberta, Medidas Digital developed TrypScore, a mobile app that gathers and analyzes driver risk data and uses challenges, leaderboards, and incentives to nudge behavioural improvements.

The fashion industry has an environmental problem and Iris Redinger is working to address a significant part of the challenge: clothing dyes. Her innovative solution uses micro-organisms that naturally produce colour. 

While Juliette Champeil pursues her PhD in Chemical Engineering at Laval University, she also serves as co-founder and CEO of her bioengineering start-up, Ivano Bioscience. The company is advancing Champeil’s breakthrough innovation: ready-to-use lab test kits that come pre-loaded with bioengineered artificial cells and viruses designed to mimic real life. The test kits speed up the process for testing new vaccines, helping them get to market faster. 

Speedy solution 

Injuries and bad habits can derail an athlete’s career and quality of life. Pascal McCarthy learned this first-hand when his professional volleyball career was cut short due to recurring injuries. That’s when he saw the gaps in the medical system when it comes to treating sports injuries, including concussions, and decided to do something about it. 

Karina Gasbarrino uses AI to tackle the second-leading cause of death and third-leading cause of disability worldwide – stroke. Her journey started more than a decade ago when she lost her grandfather to a sudden stroke. Since then, she has devoted her academic career to his memory, helping to advance early detection and diagnosis of harmful fatty deposits in the arteries of the neck. Rupturing of these plaques is the main cause of strokes. 

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

The Internet is the decisive technology of the Information Age. This global network of computer systems, largely based on platforms of wireless and near instant communication, provides limitless opportunities for multimodal interaction in chosen time, transcending space. Increasingly driven by the need to constantly produce greater amounts of information and knowledge, the Internet transmits data at higher and higher speeds over fibre optic networks and its impact on culture and commerce has fundamentally altered the way we live, work, and interact. 

The COVID-19 pandemic sparked an urgent need for innovation in all aspects of our lives – and researchers rose to the challenge. From COVID-19 diagnostics and treatments to changes in how we work and receive healthcare, the pandemic has fast-tracked innovation across sectors. 

High-potential researchers and businesses around the world did a pandemic pivot, shifting their work and resources to respond to the world’s pressing need for solutions. In Canada, Seyyedarash (Arash) Haddadi’s story is a standout example of innovation partnerships helping to counter the COVID-19 threat. 

An Indigenous-led research team at the Sanyakola Foundation, situated in Port Hardy, B.C. has initiated a multi-faceted, collaborative effort to recover Kwak’wala. Led by Sara Child, a professor of Indigenous Education at North Island College, the Sanyakola Foundation is undertaking work that involves Kwakwaka’wakw Elders and Knowledge Keepers and is engaging a younger generation in its work.