Innovative Projects Realized

Explore thousands of successful projects resulting from collaboration between organizations and post-secondary talent.

31133 Completed Projects

2940
AB
5159
BC
837
MB
685
NL
882
SK
9292
ON
9695
QC
97
PE
601
NB
1161
NS

Projects by Category

Achieving Circular Wastewater Management with Machine Learning

Effective wastewater treatment is essential to the health of the environment. When operating wastewater treatment plants, utilities must ensure that the treated water meets environmental regulations, while balancing competing needs to minimize the cost of running the plant against the maximizing resource recovery. Additionally, most wastewater treatment plants include a combination of physical, chemical, and biological processes, all of which are complex and which can change rapidly in response to changing conditions. Operators need reliable tools to predict the future state of the plant so that they can effectively operate the plant proactively – ensuring that environmental regulations are met without incurring massive costs, all while recovering resources from the wastewater. In this project we will use machine learning tools help generate insights from routinely monitored data in a wastewater treatment plant operated by the Ontario Clean Water Agency to support the operation and control of the plant.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Stephanie Gora;Usman Khan;Satinder Brar

Student:

Partner:

Ontario Clean Water Agency

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Construction and infrastructure; Utilities

University:

York University

Program:

Accelerate

Integrating Artificial Intelligence-based tools and citizen science to enhance biodiversity research and conservation of the charismatic praying mantises (Insecta: Mantodea).

Insects are a key component of ecosystems, economies and human cultures. The Montreal Insectarium seeks to connect the public to nature through engagement with insects, implementing educational programs and citizen science-based research to encourage their conservation. Charismatic species such as praying mantises are instrumental in this context, fostering knowledge of and positive attitudes towards insects through their aesthetic appeal and cultural and commercial value. However, despite the popularity of praying mantises, a historical lack of research has resulted in considerable knowledge gaps about their biodiversity and ecological relevance. This project will integrate artificial intelligence-based tools and citizen science to crowdsource data in order to overcome this data deficiency, raising praying mantises’ profile as flagship organisms for insect conservation and advancing insect biodiversity science. It will assist the Montreal Insectarium in strengthening and diversifying its public education programs to encourage individuals to take collective action in support of insect conservation.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Colin Robert Favret

Student:

Partner:

Ville de Montréal (Espace pour la vie)

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Arts, entertainment and recreation; Public administration; Utilities

University:

Université de Montréal

Program:

Accelerate

Développement et synthèse du polymère Lubrium

Le Lubrium est un polymère synthétique mimant l’activité d’une glycoprotéine naturelle, la lubricine (protéoglycan-4), qui est présente à différents endroits du corps humain, notamment à la surface des cartilages des articulations. En effet, l’arthrose est une pathologie très handicapante ayant un développement progressif avec des prévalences respectives de 20% (7 millions de cas) et 26% (78 millions de cas) au Canada et aux États-Unis respectivement. Bien que certains traitements soient présentement sur le marché afin de réduire les symptômes, aucun produit permettant de ralentir ou arrêter la progression de la maladie n’est encore proposé. L’absence d’options thérapeutiques efficaces et sécuritaires pour les patients souffrant d’arthrose, représente une opportunité importante quant à l’application du Lubrium. Pour répondre à ces enjeux, la présente demande propose la synthèse du polymère Lubrium sera optimisée pour permettra l’obtention dudit polymère en quantités suffisantes. Ceci permettra de poursuivre le développement du Lubrium vers sa commercialisation.

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Faculty Supervisor:

David Gendron

Student:

Partner:

Galenova

Discipline:

Physics

Sector:

Manufacturing; Professional, scientific and technical services; Wholesale trade

University:

Cégep de Thetford

Program:

Accelerate

Advancing Strategic Design for Identity Finding in the Financial Services Industry

PenderFund is a small and growing mutual fund company in an industry facing rapid changes. In order to thrive in the industry, the company needs to become more sophisticated in its sales and marketing techniques. In order to move to its next phase of growth, Pender must first investigate and determine what it stands for—finding a vision and mission to guide its growth. To navigate expected industry shake-ups, Pender must increase its brand awareness and strong reputation across Canada. Primary and secondary research using strategic design processes and the Ask.Try.Do. principles will provide the partner with a fully co-created communications platform on which to test brand awareness raising campaigns.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Moura Quayle

Student:

Partner:

PenderFund Capital Management Inc

Discipline:

Business

Sector:

Finance and Insurance

University:

The University of British Columbia

Program:

Accelerate

Increasing Engagement and Reducing Barriers to Participation among Immigrant Voters in Canadian Big-City Elections

In this mixed-methods study, we aim to identify specific experiences and institutional barriers that prevent recent immigrants from engaging with and participating in municipal elections in the city of Calgary, Alberta. Using a systematic literature review and data from focus groups and in-depth interviews in Calgary, we will first develop a list of the concrete local factors that reduce interest and engagement in municipal elections among new Canadians. We will then use a large-scale public opinion survey to further test these factors and to explore (using experiments embedded in the survey) the likely effects of a suite of possible interventions to improve engagement and participation. Our intention is to develop a set of recommendations, based on high-quality local evidence, to mitigate barriers and inform effective voting program design in Calgary for the 2025 general election.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Jack Lucas

Student:

Partner:

City of Calgary

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Public administration; Utilities

University:

University of Calgary

Program:

Accelerate

Generative AI for Dynamic Environment Creation in VR & AR

This project will use state-of-the-art advancements in artificial intelligence in order to automate and enhance the creation of virtual environments in virtual and augmented reality. By building upon previous successes incorporating artificial intelligence into the creation of 2D environments to enhance and guide the algorithmic generation process. By allowing the incorporated AI to respond and learn from the guidance of preferences of a level designer or even an end user, this project will allow for the creation of environments that are tailored to the specific needs of digital media creation without a significant amount of overhead and time typically required for their creation. This has applications in generating so called ‘endless’ content which is popular in many interactive games. Nomad XR will benefit from the incorporation of this technology into its own projects, allowing Nomad XR to save time and money when generating content.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Michael Katchabaw

Student:

Partner:

Nomad XR

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Artificial Intelligence; Information and Communications Technology; Environmental Science and Technology

University:

The University of Western Ontario

Program:

Accelerate

Renewable Diesel fuel from Fischer–Tropsch synthesis

Greenfield Global has been developing a process that aims to convert renewable materials to produce sustainable jet fuel (SAF). In addition to SAF, it is possible to produce other fuels such as diesel. Greenfield Global has been awarded a federal government grant which aims at developing a novel process for the production of renewable diesel from agricultural wastes. A key process step in this project is Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis and upgrading to drop-in fuels particularly renewable diesel. Hence, the current proposal is crafted to support this project by focusing on FT-based diesel fuel. Diesel fuel produced via upgraded FT synthetic crude is characterized by its poor cold flow properties. To improve the cold flow properties of the FT diesel, different approaches are explored in order to meet the specifications of the Canadian Diesel Fuel Standard. This will be beneficial as the produced FT-based diesel fuel can be used in the agriculture industry and also provide energy resources to unconnected communities to the electricity grid.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Arno de Klerk

Student:

Partner:

Greenfield Global

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

University of Alberta

Program:

Elevate

Aligned Carbon Nanotube/Organic Semiconductor Heterojunction in Phototransistors

Photodetectors are one of the fundamental elements of optoelectronic circuits. Phototransistors produce current both by absorbing light and also taking advantage of the gate electrode to increase gain. Solution-processed electronics has many advantages, including low-cost and low-temperature fabrication. In thin-film transistors (TFTs), the channel can be made with carbon-based semiconductors such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs). CNTs are flexible, have mechanical strength, and require low processing temperatures. In a heterojunction with a polymer in a phototransistor, the polymer acts as the absorber to convert photons into electrical charges, and the CNTs transport the carriers to the terminals. The proposed research project will focus on studying inkjet printing of CNTs as a scalable, patterned thin-film deposition technique. We will study the effect of printed film morphology and CNT alignment during drying on the blend interfaces and phototransistor performance. Our hypothesis is that the CNT alignment will affect the transport of photogenerated carriers and charge transfer in the device.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Gerd Grau

Student:

Partner:

Karlsruher Institut für Technologie

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Education

University:

York University

Program:

Globalink Research Award

Characterizing groundwater-surface water interactions in constructed side-channel habitat along a gravel bed river floodplain

On the former floodplain of the Mamquam River in Squamish, British Columbia are a series of side-channels that were constructed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada in 1983-1996. These channels were built to restore some of the side-channel habitat that was lost following the dyking of the Mamquam River mainstem for flood protection. The Mamquam side-channels are highly productive chum (Onchorhynchus keta) and coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) habitat, however the channels typically go dry in the summer when there is very little to no rain. This results in stranding events for juvenile coho salmon that remain in the channels throughout the summer. There is concern amongst the community that nearby irrigation by the Squamish Valley Golf Course is causing the side-channels to go dry. This study is investigating this concern by monitoring the spatial and temporal distribution of water flow in the side-channels and the groundwater throughout the summer. Findings from this study will inform future restoration actions in the side-channels.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Craig Orr;Shawn Chartrand

Student:

Partner:

Squamish River Watershed Society

Discipline:

Earth science

Sector:

Agriculture; Other services (except public administration)

University:

Simon Fraser University

Program:

Accelerate

Study and development of egg substitutes in baked goods and emulsions

Plant-based analogues are considered a sustainable alternative to animal products due to their minimal environmental impact. Commonly used egg substitutes range from apple sauce and other pureed fruits and vegetables to flax and chia seed gels, to leavening agents. Aquafaba, the leftover liquid from cooking pulses, has recently gained a lot of attention in the vegan community due to its foaming and emulsifying ability, making it an ideal egg substitute. Rigorous research studies on the use of aquafaba in baked goods and emulsions, however, is minimal. This project will investigate the molecular interactions responsible for the unique properties of aquafaba made of different pulses. Understanding these interactions will allow for the development of egg substitutes made from a combination of pulses, with or without added protein, tailored for specific purposes such angel and sponge cakes, and emulsions such as mayonnaise and margarine. The choice of food products represents minimal and rich cakes, oil-in-water, and water-in-oil emulsions, essentially surveying a large category of foodstuffs requiring replacers.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Thamara Laredo

Student:

Partner:

Odessa National Academy of Food Technologies

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Agriculture and Food; Sustainability & the Environment

University:

Lakehead University

Program:

Globalink Research Award

Mobile Devices for Market Research with Reporting and Predictive Analysis

eThor is a startup company that develops applications for mobile devices in the area of e-commerce for wholesale and retail customers, initially in the restaurant industry. The internships proposed in this application relate to the expansion of data gathering, data mining and social network capabilities for the applications development. The data gathered will be transformed into a unified structure. The data will then be used in a classification and network evolution phase that will be used to predict the growth areas where applications could be profitably developed. Advanced predictive analytical techniques will be employed. The system produced will be integrated into the eThor framework to enable its use in developing robust productions applications. In this work the interns will acquire skills during the development phase and also learn to interact with a new dynamic start-up company.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Reda Alhajj

Student:

Partner:

eThor

Discipline:

Earth science

Sector:

New and Digital Media; Technology

University:

University of Calgary

Program:

Accelerate

Ecological Interaction Perception in Multi-Talker Environments

The process of identifying someone is talking to you and listening to that talker is one of the most complicated tasks people perform every day. This task is still not well-solved for robotics and it represents one of the fundamental barriers to effective human-robot interaction. For both humans and robots, several social cues must be observed and processed, and then natural language understanding performed to first determine that a speaker is talking to an observer. Next, the observer must attend to and recognize what a speaker is saying. The proposed project will break this process down into individual components and attempt to solve it using a combination of pre-existing and novel techniques to 1) identify talkers in an environment, 2) determine which if any talks are addressing the observer, and 3) perceive and recognize the speech of talkers addressing the observer. With the proposed project, we aim to produce a robotics system capable of identifying when speech is directed at the system, and then perceiving that speech in a natural environment.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Matthew Tata

Student:

Partner:

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Lethbridge

Program:

Globalink Research Award

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Mitacs — Return on Innovation

Mitacs is funded by the Government of Canada, the Government of Alberta, the Government of British Columbia, Research Manitoba, the Government of New Brunswick, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Government of Nova Scotia, the Government of Ontario, Innovation PEI, the Government of Quebec, the Government of Saskatchewan, and the Government of Yukon.