Innovative Projects Realized

Glacier weather planning decision aid – MDS AeroTest

The Glacier test facility was established to conduct testing of aircraft turbofan engines under icing conditions. Engine manufacurers from across the globe use the Glacier facility to earn airworthiness certification for their products. A range of icing conditions is prescribed by airworthiness authorities, and required air temperature is produced under naturally occurring conditions. Air temperature tolerance for certification test may be quite small. However, the facility is not close to or located at an available observation and forecast station. Hence, the forecast and actual observed temperatures for the station can differ from the facility. The intent of the present work is to develop a Glacier Weather Dashboard to be used as a decision-aid in test planning.

Summer Analyst – Impact Investing, Acceleration, and Advisory – Red River College

The Social Innovation Academy will be working with a network of Mitacs interns to develop national-scale backend infrastructure resources for incubation and acceleration organizations across Canada. These resources may include (but are not limited to): initiatives for advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion; impact measurement frameworks; recruitment of entrepreneurs. In addition, interns will provide marketing, research, and financial analysis for social purpose organizations over the duration of the 14-week internship.

Shared Cybersecurity Services for Regional Public-Sector Organizations

The objectives of this project are to increase the capability of cybersecurity products, services, and practices available to the public sector group of CW-E stakeholders. Connecting Windsor-Essex (CW-E) is a non-profit, shared-service organization which provides technology services for public sector organizations, small- and medium-sized businesses, and other community-oriented organizations.

CW-E has a mandate for promoting technology use in the region through collaborative partnerships, knowledge sharing, the leveraging of collective investments, and service facilitation. An important aspect of networking technology is cybersecurity. Whenever there is a device or piece of technology that is connected to a network, that connection must be protected from potential threats. One of the long-term objectives of CW-E is to be recognised as a ”Centre of Excellence” for cybersecurity, being able to offer services and expert advice for organizations to implement cybersecurity best practices within their own operations. This project represents a first-step in the development of this overall initiative. The shared services model allows CW-E to improve services for its stakeholders. Specifically the organization has been able to use the aggregated demand of the organizations it represents to attract competition for various services, thereby improving the overall quality and reducing the cost of those services. It also allows for the sharing of relevant information, allowing organizations to work collaboratively and learn from each other.

Integrating the ReJoyce Workstation into the ProMote Tele-Rehabilitation 2.0 Platform

Patients when they are discharged from hospital following a stroke can benefit greatly from a program of rehabilitation to help restore function. Often one of the patient’s arms is affected and this affects many activities of daily living. For patients who live in rural areas it is often very difficult to get access to expert rehabilitation assessments and treatment. Travelling frequently to urban centres is usually out of the question. Rehabtronics has developed a workstation called ReJoyce that has the potential to be used as part of a virtual care program for patients who have had a stroke that affects one of their arms. The University of Alberta team has developed a virtual care platform that the ReJoyce workstation could be linked to enabling virtual rehabilitation sessions to be held. The intern in for this project will establish the regulatory requirements that need to be met to enable the ReJoyce workstation and a sensor the UofA team has developed, so that they can be introduced into routine clinical practice.

Increasing digital reach to strategically combat online hate speech in Canada

We have identified three objectives for this intern to complete during the project.
Objective 1: Create and execute a digital reach and content strategy
Objective 2: Grow audience by 25% through the execution of strategic media engagement
Objective 3: Research and write a case study white paper reflecting academic research on our product design mechanisms.

Building an Evidence Base for an Innovative Harm Reduction Program

Grenfell Ministries is a peer-led, Unitarian Universalist faith-based non-for-profit that addresses the needs of people pushed to the margins of our society. A pioneering harm-reduction organization based in Hamilton, Ontario, Grenfell is built and led entirely by people who have experienced substance use disorder and associated struggles with poverty, homelessness, incarceration, and mental health challenges. Having engaged with punitive, infantilizing and barrier-ridden abstinence-based policies and programs, Grenfell’s team built their model with choice, empowerment, and non-judgment at its heart. Their programs empower participants to choose their own path in addressing the challenges in their lives.

Grenfell Ministries partnered with Spark: a centre for social research innovation at McMaster University to rigorously evaluate the impacts on participants lives, and the broader social benefits of helping the socially marginalized improve their lives. Early evidence suggests their work is highly effective and may be appropriate to replicate broadly across locations. The process of building an evidence base that would support replication is long and difficult. This project will help the partners make critical steps to transition from a strong foundational base of evidence to a full randomized-controlled trial (considered a gold standard of evidence for a policy or program) that would allow Grenfell’s model – if proven to be as highly effective as early evidence suggests – to fundamentally alter social services provision for the most socially marginalized across Canada.

Automatisation de protocoles biologiques à l’aide d’un robot collaboratif

La robotique collaborative offre de nouvelles possibilités d’automatisation particulièrement intéressantes pour exécuter des protocoles complexes de biologie moléculaire en utilisant des instruments conventionnels en laboratoire. Ceci permet d’automatiser des protocoles impossibles ou difficiles à l’aide de plateformes robotiques habituellement employées en sciences biologiques, en utilisant plutôt un bras robotique UR3 offrant une liberté de mouvement semblable à celle d’un bras humain. Le stage proposé vise à automatiser un protocole d’évolution accélérée en laboratoire demandant des manipulations régulières s’étalant sur plusieurs jours afin d’optimiser des souches bactériennes utilisées par TATUM bioscience pour développer de nouveaux médicaments biologiques. Une interface graphique simple sera également élaborée pour laisser la possibilité au personnel de laboratoire ne connaissant pas la programmation informatique d’ajuster les paramètres des protocoles. La compagnie TATUM bioscience pourra ainsi évaluer la plateforme robotique pour des applications biotechnologiques difficiles en produisant des souches bactériennes d’intérêt. Cette démonstration ouvrira également la porte à l’automatisation d’autres protocoles de plus en plus complexes, ce qui pourrait s’avérer avantageux dans un contexte généralisé de pénurie de main d’oeuvre.

Prolonged Rat Heart Storage Using Sub-Zero Temperatures and Antifreeze Proteins: Feasibility Assessments

Heart transplantation depends on being able to move a donor heart from the location of harvest to the hospital where it will be implanted, and having the heart work once it is implanted. The time between excision and implantation is called the ischemic time. The safe ischemic time is about 4 to 6 hrs; hearts implanted after this interval have much less chance of survival. This safe ischemic time has not changed in > 30 years. Extending this ischemic time would allow transportation of donor hearts from longer distances, potentially increasing the number of matches between donors and recipients, thus increasing the number of transplants. In this experiment, we propose to test a novel method of storing hearts at sub-zero temperatures which should extend the time dramatically. Preliminary studies with a variety of tissues and cell lines have been very promising. This series of experiments to be supported by this grant will use a standard isolated rat heart preparation. If it proves successful, we will then test it in subsequent studies of more complex systems. The method involves the use of antifreeze proteins and other additives in a solution which will be flushed into the hearts of rats.

Études de makerspaces et centre d’innovation en Europe

Afin de permettre à la Zone Technum de pleinement jouer son rôle de catalyseur d’innovation à Bromont et de co-création de nouvelles technologies, il est impératif d’installer dans son district un espace d’innovation en électronique de classe mondiale. Déjà, le C2Mi brille comme laboratoire de microélectronique et pourrait être un lieu propice à la création d’un espace d’innovation en électronique.
Il serait bon pour ce futur espace prometteur de s’inspirer des bonnes pratiques et tendances constatées au sein des fablabs et des makerspaces qui sont des tiers-lieux de type atelier de fabrication numérique.
Les fablabs et makerspaces foisonnent à travers le monde, mais sont de qualité bien inégale. Certains makerspaces et fablabs ne sont rien de plus que des ateliers glorifiés de fabrication mécanique. Par exemple, leur liste d’équipements varie d’incomplète à peu utile pour la conception et le prototypage de produits en électronique. D’autres, au contraire, sont des moteurs de développement d’entreprises et d’innovation, et propulsent l’essor de leur ville.
L’objectif étant de découvrir lesquels pourraient vraiment servir d’exemple à Technum et au C2Mi.

Dimonoff : Prédiction dynamique d’occupation d’espace de stationnement en milieu urbain

D’ici les trente prochaines années, il est anticipé que les deux tiers de la population mondiale résideront en milieu urbain. Cette statistique presse les villes à organiser leurs infrastructures dans une logique sans précédent afin de conserver ou d’améliorer la qualité de vie des citoyens. La rapidité avec laquelle la population croît et l’indisponibilité des informations de mobilité aux gestionnaires de stationnement et automobilistes causent d’innombrables problématiques de gestion. Dimonoff en tant que chef de file mondial dans le domaine de l’IoT relié aux technologies urbaines désire
contribuer à fournir des solutions. C’est dans ce contexte que la solution Mobilité a été lancée, basée sur une plateforme IoT complète et de capteurs connectés. Cette solution Mobilité permet une meilleure connaissance des données de mobilité que ce soit pour trouver des stationnements de façon plus rapide, surveiller et contrôler à distance les différents espaces de stationnement ou encore un meilleur suivi des accès aux zones restreintes.
Dans ce contexte, nous cherchons à résoudre une problématique importante qui réside dans la difficulté de prédire l’occupation des espaces de stationnement. Les modèles de prédictions actuels sont simplistes et requièrent souvent l’intervention humaine pour la prise de décision. L’objectif est donc de développer un modèle de prédiction plus dynamique, capable de s’adapter aux différents facteurs environnementaux, géographiques, démographiques, sociaux et économiques. La plateforme contient des données d’occupations de milliers d’espaces de stationnements situés à Québec et Montréal. Les données d’occupation proviennent de capteurs individuels et/ou de barrières d’accès. Autres que les informations d’occupations, nous y trouvons des données telles que la localisation, la météorologie et des données d’accès tels les types d’utilisateurs.

Extraction of oil from sea buckthorn berries

Baylis Farms (Baylis), located in Smithfalls, has successfully planted 3,000 to 4,000 sea buckthorn shrubs on 9 acres. Looking to be a certified organic raw material supplier of sea buckthorn oil, Baylis has reached out to Seneca’s School of Biological Science and Applied Chemistry to investigate and optimize their existing pulping process and develop a cost-effective process for extraction of oil from the berry juice. This valuable natural ingredient has strong market demand in the cosmetic industry; loaded with antioxidants, the oil from the berry is an appealing ingredient for anti-aging and anti- wrinkle products. The project will consist of two primary objectives, first to improve the pulping process to obtain a cost-effective, high throughput process and second to investigate alternative oil extraction processes. The method used for the execution of the project will be a combination of specific types of known and/or newly investigated technologies. The expected project deliverables are two new processes for Baylis Farms; these combined processes will support Baylis in converting their, primary harvesting business, to include distribution of the berry oil to raw material suppliers in the cosmetic industry as well as other distributors working with naturopathic product manufacturers.

Computer Science Internship

This project will focus on the software development and service deployment of an artificial intelligence interface aimed to capture body measurements to facilitate sizing and fit for apparel production.The technology and IT industry is rapidly growing in Canada, and a lot of emphasis is laid on development in the artificial intelligence space. This project is aimed at helping reshape the retail fashion industry by enabling the use of virtual fitting rooms to assist in e-commerce sales, enhance customer experience and improve customer satisfaction rate. This project include programming, testing, debugging using tools like Kotlin and Swift and developing beta testing and reliability models in 3D APIs such as OpenGI, Vulkan and Metal. This internship will be an opportunity for Milo get hands on experience in AI product development and app development.