Projets novateurs réalisés

Dual opportunity and risk of LLM-based language translation in international institutions

In accordance with the Digital Policy Hub research foci on artificial intelligence, as well as digitization, security and democracy, the underlying purpose of the project is to research the limitations of language translation technologies in order to suggest updated policy for international institutions to responsibly use them. This directly supports the Digital Policy Hub’s objective to “generate greater understanding in the public, private and non-profit spheres, of how diverse emerging transformative technologies interact with existing governance frameworks that seek to prioritize digital ethics and rights responsibilities, both in Canada and internationally.” Analyzing Large Language Model-based tools from a critical linguistics perspective will aid to better understand the degree of accuracy achieved by emerging translation technologies. Reporting on the findings and discussing them at the Hub’s research conferences contributes to the Hub’s objective to “contribute to the development of the Digital Policy Hub itself, through showcasing reports, discussions, and events produced by researchers to the broader community; and through fostering an environment that positions Fellows as future policy and decision-makers.”

Effect of stilbenoid extracts from viticulture by-products on grape quality

The project “Effect of stilbenoid extracts from viticulture by-products on grape quality” aims to contribute to the development of sustainable strategies for grape production in vineyards. Grapevines are susceptible to parasitic diseases and thus are conventionally treated with synthetic or copper-based solutions, with significant environmental drawbacks. Studies have shown that stilbenoids possess potential as a natural biopesticides against fungal diseases in vineyards. These compounds are present in various grapevine by-products, such as canes. However, there is a limited knowledge regarding effects of stilbenoid extract applications on grape quality. Understanding these effects is a crucial step toward developing stilbenoid-based plant protection products for vineyard use. The project’s main objective is to access the impact of applying green, stilbenoid-rich extracts as biopesticides to grapevines at different stages of grape ripening on the quality of grapes at harvest. Project’s results will contribute to valorization of viticulture by-products (canes) while reducing the reliance on chemical pesticides in vineyards by the use of environmentally friendly stilbenoid extracts. Considering the scientific complementarity of the two teams the collaboration will also lay the ground for a long-term academic collaboration between the two prestigious institutions (ISVV, UB and WRC, UBC) and benefit the wine sector in both countries.

PEP – Patient Empowerment Programs

Nearly half of adults live with at least one of the top ten chronic conditions—such as hypertension, osteoarthritis, or diabetes—and two in five people can expect a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime. These conditions are among the leading causes of morbidity worldwide, significantly reducing quality of life and increasing the risk of mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety.

While medical treatments continue to advance, the healthcare system is increasingly strained, and a critical gap remains in patient support during and after care—particularly in education, behaviour change, and long-term self-management. Many people report unmet needs and lack access to health-promoting information in areas such as nutrition, physical activity, stress reduction, intimacy, and opportunities for social connection.

Our solution: the Personal / Patient Empowerment Program (PEP), an evidence-based intervention and platform that empowers individuals living with cancer or chronic disease through a structured, mind-body lifestyle program. This holistic approach targets key pillars of survivorship care while fostering a supportive community to build self-efficacy and promote long-term well-being.

This comprehensive, home-based, six-month daily health-promotion program is scalable, accessible, and easy for healthcare providers to recommend. As survivorship and chronic disease rates rise, so does the demand for tools that extend care beyond the medical system.

Supply Chain Publishing Network

The Alberta Chambers of Commerce (ACC) has completed the development phase of the Alberta Supply Chain Publishing Network—an innovative digital platform designed to modernize how Alberta businesses connect, share data, and build resilient, localized supply chains.

This solution represents a major step forward in supply chain innovation, enabling businesses to publish standardized information, access real-time market intelligence, and respond more effectively to disruptions. It also provides policymakers and researchers with a valuable data stream to support better decision-making and future AI-driven supply chain tools.

With the technical infrastructure in place, ACC is now focused on the critical next phase: business onboarding and activation. Targeted outreach through the Alberta Perspectives network and the Chamber network is identifying early adopters across the province.

To ensure businesses of all sizes, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), can benefit, dedicated support is essential. Many SMEs require hands-on guidance to successfully onboard, publish their data, and fully leverage the platform’s capabilities to grow their market presence and resilience.

The Supply Chain Project Coordinator role is essential to this activation phase. The Coordinator will:

*Provide onboarding support and technical assistance.
*Assist businesses with data formatting and publishing.
*Promote open data standards and innovative publishing practices.
*Troubleshoot technical challenges.
*Gather feedback to enhance onboarding processes.
*Amplify engagement through Chamber communications.

Without a dedicated Coordinator, business activation would be significantly slower, limiting the platform’s immediate economic and innovation impacts.
Funding for the Supply Chain Project Coordinator ensures Alberta’s businesses can embrace this digital infrastructure, strengthening resiliency, driving economic growth, and positioning Alberta as a leader in supply chain innovation.

Junior Associate | B-Side Group Consulting Inc

B-Side Group is launching an operational excellence initiative aimed at significantly enhancing our firm’s scalability, efficiency, and client service quality. The primary objectives of this initiative include mapping and standardizing key workflows, developing automated tools and templates to streamline administrative processes, and establishing a centralized repository for firm-wide knowledge management.

This project will deliver clear, measurable improvements in productivity by automating routine tasks such as reporting, scheduling, and communications. It will also create interactive dashboards to track key performance metrics, client satisfaction, and operational effectiveness in real time. Additionally, the project will institutionalize continuous improvement through structured client feedback processes and internal performance benchmarking.

Ultimately, this initiative is designed to remove operational barriers to growth, strengthen our competitive advantage, and support our mission of providing world-class strategic consulting services to innovative startups and scale-ups.

Lie Group Harmonic and Statistical Analysis of Human Movement

Statistical and harmonic analysis of 3-dimensional motions of objects or humans are instrumental to establish how
these motions differ, depending on various influences. When such motions involve no tearing, they may be described
by elements of the Euclidean Group. Algorithms developed in the author’s Ph.D. dissertation exploit the unique properties of Conformal Geometric Algebra to carry out such analyses efficiently by computer, despite complications resulting from the basic properties of the group; for example, the arithmetic average of two rotations is not a rotation. This project combines these methods with harmonic analysis, also formulated using Conformal Geometric Algebra, to permit statistical estimation of the rotational axes and frequencies of the periodic components of 3-dimensional motions. This will considerably enrich the analytical tools already developed by the author. The end goal is to make the extended package available to a wide variety of researchers, clinicians and commercial users.

Conséquences de l’implantation d’un projet en intelligence artificielle

La Ville de Laval intègre de plus en plus l’intelligence artificielle (IA) dans ses processus administratifs pour améliorer l’efficacité de ses services. Toutefois, elle dispose de peu d’outils pour évaluer concrètement les impacts de ces projets sur la performance organisationnelle, le travail des employés ou la satisfaction des citoyens. En partenariat avec HEC Montréal, ce projet vise à développer un outil d’évaluation adapté aux réalités du milieu municipal. En s’appuyant sur l’analyse de deux projets IA récents, l’étudiante stagiaire identifiera des indicateurs pertinents, tant du point de vue opérationnel qu’humain, et testera leur application sur le terrain. Ce projet contribuera à renforcer les capacités internes de la Ville en matière de pilotage et de suivi de ses initiatives technologiques. Il pourra aussi inspirer d’autres municipalités à adopter une approche plus structurée, responsable et orientée vers la valeur citoyenne dans l’intégration de l’IA.

Monitoring recovery dynamics of salt marsh pools with focus on their habitat provisioning to fish

Salt marshes are highly productive coastal ecosystems that have faced extensive impacts from human activities. They provide an extensive array of services including the provisioning of habitat to a diversity of species. In Maritime Canada, acres of salt marsh have been diked to accommodate agricultural land, freshwater impoundments, and infrastructure. Increasing recognition of the services provided by salt marshes coupled with degrading and failing dike systems has sparked interest in restoring these areas back to their original state. Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) has initiated a number of salt marsh restorations across Maritime Canada. The proposed internship will monitor the response of salt marsh pools in five of DUC’s salt marsh restorations in this region. Salt pools provide critical aquatic refuge to fish and invertebrates during periods of low tide. The intern will sample the fish and aquatic invertebrate communities and measure various abiotic conditions in salt pools in restoring salt marshes and in nearby natural salt marshes. Comparing faunal communities and abiotic conditions in salt pools between restoring and natural marshes is crucial to understanding how this subhabitat progresses through restoration. This information will be useful to DUC for predicting salt marsh restoration trajectories and improving restoration strategies.

Snow avalanche risk management – Year two

Managing the risks from snow avalanches during winter mountain travel is vital for the Canadian avalanche industry.
An average of 14 avalanche-related fatalities per year occurred between 1997 and 2014 with the majority of those
triggering the avalanches themselves. We propose a detailed examination of avalanche risk management practices
using the conceptual model for avalanche hazard and the Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing 5-Step Checklist System.
Although widely adopted by the Canadian avalanche community, the conceptual model of avalanche hazard has not
been thoroughly analyzed. We will collect field observations of weather, snow cover, avalanches, and terrain use from
the MWHS operation. We will statistically analyze these data to examine the relationships proposed in the conceptual
model. This research will strengthen our understanding of avalanche risk, and provide important insight about how to
improve existing operational practices and communications about hazard.

Fibre-Optic Sensing with Ambient Noise for Improved Understanding of Landslide Behaviour

Landslides are natural hazards, commonly triggered by heavy rainfall, glacier melt, and permafrost degradation. This project explores an emerging fibre-optic sensing technology, Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS), which can enhance our understanding of slope failure processes. DAS transforms fibre-optic cables into thousands of sensors capable of detecting small-scale ground deformation in near-real-time. This project will apply coda wave interferometry to DAS data collected from a slow-moving landslide to investigate changes occurring within unstable slopes. This method uses the ambient seismic wavefield to infer changes in shear-wave velocity, a parameter closely linked to soil rigidity. By identifying shear-wave velocity changes associated with slope deformation, this project aims to improve landslide characterization. These insights could inform slope stability monitoring strategies at other sites such as tailings dams.

Qinvst Platform Engine

Qinvst Inc. is building an AI-powered financial intelligence platform to support small businesses with advanced yet accessible forecasting, valuation, and marketing attribution tools. Currently, startups struggle to afford the expertise needed to create investor-ready financial models. This project aims to democratize access to strategic financial insights without requiring expensive data science teams. The intern will play a key role in advancing Qinvst’s core technology through three objectives: (1) developing a machine learning-based channel attribution model that embeds cost-per-acquisition metrics and accounts for decaying returns on advertising spend; (2) enhancing the forecasting engine to simulate various growth scenarios and benchmark performance against industry standards; and (3) automating the generation of valuation reports by leveraging discounted cash flow methods, comparable company analysis, and ML-based regressors. Throughout the internship, the student will gain hands-on experience collaborating with the engineering and product teams, participating in strategy sessions, and accessing real-world startup data. Academic supervision will be provided bi-weekly by Professor Adelphe Ekponon to ensure research rigor and technical soundness. The final deliverables include a working prototype of the attribution model, an integrated forecasting dashboard, and an automated valuation generator, all tailored for early-stage startups.

GreenWorks Sustainability Market Research

GreenWorks is focused on developing technology solutions to help clients their sustainability requirements. Over the course of the project, we will be developing research assessments for different market segments that can help advance GreenWorks reach and capabilities. A large portion of the project will be building research reports to that can provide insight into the specific sustainability gaps and initiatives that exist within specific industries, this will include regulatory pressures, emission sources, decarbonization plans, and global initiatives. Part of the work will include an overview of the industries that have the most impact on the Albertan economy, working to establish how to create environmental balance sheet line items, with an end goal of establishing ROI values from perceived cost center activities.