Projets novateurs réalisés

Enhancing Digital Product Strategy and Workflow Automation for Scalable Innovation

This project aims to enhance SolvedAF’s digital product strategy by developing a workflow automation system that streamlines client onboarding, project tracking, and internal collaboration. By integrating automation tools and optimizing business process workflows, SolvedAF will improve efficiency, reduce manual bottlenecks, and enhance the user experience for both internal teams and clients. The project will contribute to scaling SolvedAF’s operations by implementing structured frameworks that support data-driven decision-making and process standardization. The intern will work on digital product strategy, workflow automation, and process optimization, ensuring that SolvedAF remains a leader in delivering seamless digital solutions.

Monitoring Housing Diversity Project – Sustainability Scholar

The Edmonton City Plan was approved by Council in 2020 and sets ambitious diversified housing and land use targets to avoid premature fragmentation of agricultural lands while accommodating another one million residents. The Monitoring & Analysis Team, within the Urban Growth Unit lead the annual Growth Monitoring Program, the Geodemographic Projection Program, and Urban Growth Interactive Visualizations (including the Building Permit Dashboard). These programs support implementing the City Plan’s robust monitoring and analysis of housing and land use changes in Edmonton to track progress towards the land use targets.

There are three main issues that limit M&A Team’s ability to report on housing and land use:
1. The Team’s existing geospatial data layers only provide information on housing on residentially-zoned lands. This means all the dwelling units on land zoned for other uses (e.g. mixed use zones and institutional uses such as congregate living) are not counted.
2. Whether in residential or non-residential zones, many congregate living facilities (i.e. long-term care homes, university dormitories, seniors’ living facilities) have a single address for many people making it difficult to count those facilities relative to housing types such as apartments with similar population counts.
3. The accuracy of data on row housing units is not at an acceptable level for reporting at or more detailed than the neighbourhood geography.

The M&A team is requesting support from a Sustainability Scholar to complete the Monitoring Housing Diversity Project that will aim to fix the three issues above. Not only will this project fill a data gap, but will also allow the City to better calculate the supply and locations of all types of housing while understanding housing patterns for some of our vulnerable populations. The monitoring and analysis produced by the team is relied on by Edmontonians, City Council, various City branches, utilities, and the development industry.

Improving Onboarding and Curatorial Guidelines at the Camrose Museum

A major challenge facing the small museums like the Camrose Museum is a high rate of turnover in staff and volunteers, which limits the potential to offer innovative exhibits and programming that can respond to changing community needs. In order to address this challenge, one intern will produce a training manual and a set of curatorial guidelines. These documents will standardize the museum’s operating procedures while providing support for future staff and volunteers developing new exhibits and programming. This project requires expertise in museum studies, which will be provided by a University of Alberta faculty member based at the Augustana Campus in Camrose.

Simplified Identification of Insects using Software Tools and Digital Photography

Identification of insect prey is essential for understanding the foraging behaviours of insectivorous bat and bird predators. The intern will develop software tools that will aid a skilled entomologist with the rapid identification of insects from photographs taken from field collecting sites. The proposed tools will facilitate the identification of photographed insects to order/suborder and, in certain groups, possibly superfamily or family and will streamline the cataloging of insect inventories and the inclusion of metadata such as geographic location, collection time, number of specimens in a sample, etc. The resulting data could be used to in the analysis of predator activity at the collecting site which could be useful in reducing mortality and thereby improve conservation of species in industrial locations such as wind farms. The partner organization will benefit from this project by being provided a functional and useful identification tool to use in future projects requiring basic ID of insects from photographs, as well as the analysis of the provided insect images for the software tool development.

Développement de procédés d’assemblage en microélectronique pour l’interconnexion haute densité entre puces

Ce projet, en partenariat avec IBM Canada et son usine de Bromont, vise à développer des technologies avancées pour l’assemblage et les tests électroniques. IBM Bromont, la plus grande usine de son genre en Amérique du Nord, se spécialise dans des innovations comme l’assemblage flip-chip, les systèmes à haute densité et les tests avancés. Cependant, certaines nouvelles technologies, comme l’interconnexion à haute densité sur substrat organique, présentent des défis de fiabilité pour des applications complexes. Pour y remédier, IBM collabore avec l’Université de Sherbrooke à travers des stages de recherche. Ces stages permettront de tester et améliorer la fiabilité de ces innovations, notamment sur les interconnexions haute densité, la fabrication additive d’interconnexion et la gestion thermique des modules. L’objectif est de garantir des solutions robustes pour les besoins industriels.

Metaverse plugin

Development of a system (template, plugin, API) to integrate cloud based services such as GIS, IoT and interactive gaming streams into a browser based user interface.

artolog – Prototype

Le portail d’archives collectives artolog.ca a comme objectif de permettre aux artistes d’obtenir une visibilité équitable. Son mandat est de réduire la perte du patrimoine culturel Canadien. L’objectif est de finaliser le prototype afin que le portail soit sécurisé, accessible, rapide, facile à utiliser et compatible avec d’autres plateformes. S’y faisant, nous pourrons promouvoir le projet pour y rejoindre l’ensemble du Canada et améliorer la vitalité et la connectivité du secteur des arts.

SSE – QV Studio – Ebrahim Sajadi

This project aims to investigate market demand for an emerging type of quantum computing system in partnership with QV-Studio. The quantum computing system has to potential to accelerate the timeline for useful quantum computing in the domain of materials and chemistry simulation with applications in chemical process design, materials design, and pharmaceuticals. This opportunity is connected to the hardware’s unique features for computing, as well as its reliability, and scalability. The assessment of market demand is the first step to attract talent and investment, helping Canada maintain its leadership in quantum technology. The expected benefit to QV-Studio is the opportunity to collaborate on cutting-edge technology that has the potential to generate significant economic impact and job creation in the future.

Validating the Maltreatment in Sport Scale

As a follow-up to a prevalence study on maltreatment in sport among Canadian athletes (Willson et al., 2022), this project seeks to validate a maltreatment in sport survey. The intention is to partner with Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom to conduct a similar study assessing rates of maltreatment rates in high-performance athletes training at the High-Performance Centre in Sheffield. This study will assess rates of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, neglect, harassment, and discrimination to inform prevention and intervention strategies. By developing and owning a validated scale to measure maltreatment in sport, the University of Toronto will gain a robust tool that can be used to inform policy, improve practices, and support research initiatives. This scale will position Canada as a leader in safe sport research and innovation, offering a resource that can be adapted for global use while maintaining Canadian intellectual property. Additionally, this project will benefit the host institution as they will have access to the survey and assess rates of maltreatment among high-performance athletes in the United Kingdom. Maltreatment is a significant concern for athletes’ well-being and mental health thus this study will contribute to advancing safe sport efforts in Canada and internationally.

Impacts sociaux et héritages culturels des mouvements de population en Grèce du Nord

Un projet de recherche qui vise à comprendre les impacts sur les plans historiques, anthropologiques et culturels du mouvement migratoire dans le nord de la Grèce dans les années 1920 et qui se traduit par la réalisation d’un documentaire sur la population du village d’Asprovalta.

ENTENDRE (comportEments iNdividuel collecTif dE l’araigNée et Du touRteau canadiEn)

Le bruit sous-marin généré par le transport maritime est une pollution émergente qui peut perturber le comportement des organismes marins. Si ses effets sur les mammifères marins et certains poissons sont bien documentés, son impact sur les crustacés benthiques, comme le crabe commun (Cancer irroratus), reste encore mal compris. Ce projet de recherche vise à étudier comment ces organismes réagissent aux bruits des navires en milieu contrôlé. En utilisant des capteurs de mouvement et des caméras, nous analysons leurs déplacements et leurs interactions en présence et en absence de bruit sous-marin. Cette étude permettra de mieux comprendre les effets du bruit anthropique sur un grand crustacé, qui jouent un rôle clé dans les écosystèmes marins et les pêcheries canadiennes. Les résultats contribueront à affiner les stratégies de gestion du milieu marin et à proposer des solutions pour limiter l’impact des activités humaines sur ces espèces d’intérêt écologique et économique.

Vulnérabilité des forêts et des activités forestières aux changements climatiques

Les feux de forêts naturels sont les perturbations majeures à la base de la dynamique végétale boréale. Les changements climatiques induiront une augmentation des régimes de perturbations. Les régimes de perturbations, la structure et la composition forestière pourraient se diriger vers une variabilité naturelle différente de celle connue précédemment. Ce projet de recherche vise à 1) projeter l’évolution future (2000-2100) de la composition forestière de la pessière à mousses de l’Ouest du Québec et du rôle du feu et du climat dans cette évolution, 2) caractériser l’évolution de la composition forestière de la pessière à mousses de l’Ouest du Québec durant l’Holocène (~10 000 ans) et le rôle du feu et du climat dans cette évolution, 3) comparer la variabilité naturelle attendue pour la fin de ce siècle avec la variabilité naturelle passée et 4) établir des liens entre ces connaissances et l’aménagement écosystémique du territoires d’étude, notamment en ce qui a trait aux états de référence et à la certification environnementale.