Innovative Projects Realized

Exploring and augmenting automation in smart textile manufacturing and testing

This project aims at upgrading and automating some of the existing methods used at Myant to manufacture, assemble, and test smart textiles. The candidate will use their engineering knowledge to assess the needs and opportunities for improvements, to design theoretical solutions, to prototype and test these solutions, and finally to prepare an industry-grade version of the solutions. This is expected to decrease production time and costs, reduce human errors and wasted materials, and overall improve the quality of Myant’s products.

Business Strategy Internship for Patkau Architects

Patkau Architects is an architecture and design research studio based in Vancouver, Canada. Patkau’s business faces many of the same industry challenges that other local companies struggle with, such as: the fluid economy, changing tastes in style, supply chain delays, the Vancouver housing crisis, environmental sustainability, and social issues, such as inclusivity, diversity, equity, and accessibility. These factors directly affect how Patkau is viewed by potential clients, investors, business partners, customers, furniture retailers, and the industry at large. This is also compounded by the daily operations of the Patkau Architects studio, where we are actively working on several residential, commercial, and academic projects. To address some of these challenges, we have endeavoured to improve our marketing strategies and promotional efforts. An intern would assist in the successful completion of the following three goals:
1. 2022 Studio Website Renewal / Furniture Website Launch
2. Furniture Business Process Innovation
3. Ad hoc design assistance

Toronto Common Data Model

City of Toronto’s Digital Infrastructure Strategic Framework (DISF) has a vision of “A Digital Connected Community” where digital infrastructure is increasingly used to deliver services, perform data-driven asset management, help manage public resources efficiently, encourage civic engagement, and inform decision-making.

A critical component of the DISF is the ability to share data across services and external stakeholders. But there are many technical and policy barriers that hinder data sharing. This project will address one of the technical issues that the City faces in sharing data, namely the lack of a common data model to represent data that is to be shared.

The development of a city-wide common data model addresses the data incompatibility problem by achieving interoperability of data. It enables the City to share information, plan, coordinate, and execute city tasks, and support decision making within and across city services, by providing a precise, unambiguous representation of information and knowledge commonly shared across city services.

A DGGS-based approach for querying, filtering and sorting of Geospatial objects for fast and customizable marketplace results.

Geospatial data (e.g. location of the business branches, fleet of online delivery vehicles) is a crucial part of online marketplaces, as their developers need easy-to-integrate tools that efficiently perform searches across said data. This project will explore novel approaches to improve state-of-the-art searches for objects with geospatial attributes. In this project, interns will develop computer programs and algorithms which facilitate efficient search for objects with geospatial attributes (i.e., locations) and non-geospatial attributes (e.g., name of the business, working hours, etc.). Also, they aim to further improve efficiency and scalability by exploring and customizing algorithms from High-Performing-Computing. Improving the speed of searches increases the economic viability of online marketplaces of the partner organization as a startup within the Canadian market.

Xeni Gwet’in First Nations Community Strategic Plan

Xeni Gwet’in is one of the six communities that form the Ts?ilhqot’in Nation located in the traditional Ts?ilhqot’in territory approximately 200km west of Williams Lake. Xeni Gwet’in is the only community in Canada to have received Aboriginal Title land that is recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada, which means that 1700 square kilometres of land is being transitioned to Ts?ilhqot’in full management, benefit and control. This year, the community developed a new 5-year strategic plan providing a framework for better government investment in meeting the community’s shared key priorities. The Xeni Gwet’in First Nations Community Strategic Plan Project will support the development of a new communication plan, a monitoring & evaluation plan and tool(s) that is rooted in Ts?ilhqot’in values.

Innovative Communication and Business Strategies for NABI and Members

Innovative Communication and Business Strategies for NABI and Members

NABI History and Background:
NABI (Northern Alberta Business Incubator) is a sector-agnostic incubator created by the City of St. Albert in 1989. NABI assists early-stage businesses to launch, grow and succeed by delivering a range of business supports, educational/development programming and mentorship.
Since its beginning, NABI has graduated over 470 member businesses and enabled over 3,000 entrepreneurs to capitalize on new opportunities. Eighty percent (80%) of NABI’s alumni companies have lasted for more than 5 years, and many for decades, contributing more than $480 million to our economy. Currently, NABI supports ~90 active member companies and is expanding its capacity to serve even more.

NABI Communications Project Scope:
NABI would like to use the opportunity of Mitacs grant funding to establish a program in partnership with MacEwan University’s Faculty of Fine Arts and Communications and specifically the Department of Communication, whereby the NABI organization may provide opportunities for students to support both the organization and its member businesses in meeting their strategic communication objectives. NABI collaborates and works with member organizations that need support for their growing businesses.

Optimisation du procédé de fabrication d’éléments chauffants à base de fibre de carbone

Traditionnellement, les dispositifs employés pour chauffer individuellement à l’électricité les pièces sont conçus à base de métal, lamelles ou spirales, où l’ont fait circuler un courant afin de les chauffer. Pour assurer un chauffage adéquat au plus fort de l’hiver nord-américain, les plinthes chauffantes doivent avoir un volume minimal de métal, ce qui résulte en un dispositif volumineux et encombrant qu’on installe le plus souvent au sol. Une entreprise de la rive-sud de Montréal, Delmec, s’est lancée dans la commercialisation de panneaux chauffants décoratifs. Contrairement aux dispositifs conventionnels, ceux-ci sont légers et compacts et peuvent s’accrocher au mur à la manière d’un tableau. Ils peuvent même être imprimés d’une image, d’une photo, d’un motif ou d’une peinture de sorte que le dispositif devient un élément à la fois utile et décoratif. Les panneaux offerts présentement ont une taille fixe de 2×3’.Delmec veut créer un nouveau marché en offrant des panneaux chauffants multiformes de différentes tailles. Afin de développer ce nouveau produit, Delmec a démarré une collaboration de recherche et développement dont l’objectif est de mettre au point une méthode de fabrication de panneaux multiformes à partir d’un procédé d’impression par sérigraphie d’encre chauffante.

Fonemed Technology Solution Exploration

Fonemed has been in the telehealth industry for over 20 years. We provide telehealth services to patients of our clients. We also have our own technology that our nurses use to guide them through the triage process. We are currently re vamping our products and services to make it more adaptable and interactive for external client use. The project will engage 2 students to assist with the development of an IT plan to accomplish this.

SSE_Sarah Henzi-RJPNQL-Frédérique Mayer – Autonomisation et mobilisation des jeunes des Premières Nations au Québec

Ayant pour mandat principal de consulter les jeunes Premières Nations qui vive dans la région Que?bec-Labrador en milieu urbain et en communauté sur leurs volontés et besoins, le RJPNQL est une instance associée représentant et se portant à la défense des inte?re?ts des jeunes des Premie?res Nations qui vivent dans la région Québec-Labrador sur le plan politique aux niveaux provincial, fe?de?ral et international. En tant que stagiaire pour le RJPNQL ma mission sera de contribuer au développement, au renforcement et à la promotion des identités culturelles des jeunes Premie?res Nations dans le monde d’aujourd’hui.

Cancer drug discovery-small molecule synthesis

The interns will be working in medicinal chemistry on two projects: the design and synthesis of drugs targeting the cyclin dependent kinase, CDK1; and the design of small molecule inhibitors of mutant KRAS. Both of these proteins are commonly involved in cancer initiation. In neither case are there good drugs available to patients. Although separate projects, they use the same workflow, and personnel trained in one can contribute meaningfully to the other. In both cases, the computational structural biology team in the Trant lab has screened billions of potential molecules against both targets, including many derivatives of our previous generations of “hit” molecules (those we have shown have activity, but not sufficient activity). This team, comprised entirely of Ukrainian scientists, will lead the synthesis of these new molecules. They will design synthetic routes, carry out the chemical reactions, identify products, and work with the biochemistry team in the Trant lab at evaluating the potency of the candidates. This is expected to last 24 weeks.

Hydrothermal Liquefaction of Woody Biomass Waste

The focus of this project is hydrothermal liquefaction of woody biomass waste. Woody biomass waste could include branches or woodchips from logging and wood processing. The waste material is ‘cooked’ with water at extreme temperature and pressure to produce waste oil. The low energy carrying woody biomass waste is converted into a higher energy carrying waste oil. This project will focus on increasing the number of pots used to cook the waste material, as well as focusing on using a less severe temperature range. This is because hemicellulose, a part of the woody biomass waste, breaks up much more quickly than other parts at lower temperatures. Essentially, if the makeup of the woody biomass can be understood on a cellular level, then we can modify how the waste oil product is expressed. This research will prove cost-effective to Greenfield Global if the high-pressure aspect of the process can be bypassed.

Les technologies de l’information au soutien de l’action déontologique à de la Chambre de la sécurité financière

La Chambre de la sécurité financière (« CSF ») est un organisme d’auto-réglementation qui a le mandat d’assurer la protection du public en veillant notamment à la déontologie et à la discipline de ses membres.
Pour améliorer ses processus dans le traitement des demandes d’enquête, la CSF souhaite explorer les possibilités offertes pour améliorer l’utilisation qu’elle fait de ses données. La valorisation des données pourrait également permettre à la CSF d’être plus efficiente en matière déontologique. La CSF dispose non seulement d’un pouvoir d’enquête à la suite de la réception d’une information émanant du public, mais elle peut aussi faire enquête sur l’un de ses membres. Dans le cadre de son mandat, ce pouvoir de surveillance a, jusqu’à présent, peu été utilisé par la CSF.
Face à cette situation, l’objectif du projet est de mieux comprendre l’utilisation des technologies à l’intérieur d’un processus de traitement des plaintes déontologiques ainsi que les détails des façons de faire de la CSF.
Nous souhaitons d’abord faire un survol des connaissances scientifiques sur l’utilisation des technologies dans le secteur de la réglementation financière et dresser un portrait global des pratiques de traitement des plaintes déontologiques développées à la CSF.