Innovative Projects Realized

Understanding Chinas Role in Canada’s Economic Independence from the United States

With the recent geopolitical frictions between Canada and China impacting businesses, there have been discussions about reducing the trade an investment between the two markets. However, China-related interactions generated more than $55 billion of cumulative GDP in 2018, and as of 2020, Statistics Canada demonstrated that there was $31.7 billion in trade (2) between the two countries. This provides an opportunity to lessen Canada’s vulnerability to American economic mishaps and protectionist trade policy. This innovation project will explore the economic effects of Canada’s divergence from trade with China and the long-term implications of its continuation. The project will provide quantitative evidence to increase awareness and build a macroeconomic knowledge foundation for those looking to help Canada achieve independence from the U.S. The Cansbridge Fellowship seeks to gain an understanding of this situation with hopes of contributing to the expansion of Canada’s innovation sector.

Social media rebrand and development of innovative shareable infographics

eMotors Direct requires innovative infographics to educate potential customers of our blog posts and our products. The intern will research our products and blog posts to gain an understanding of those products and help clients become better informed. Creating innovative infographics will help clients become more informed and will position the company as an expert-in-our-field.
Objective 1 – Educate customers on who we are, how we can help them cut costs, and their industry in general.
Objective 2 – Grow social media follower count and engagement.
Objective 3 – Increase website traffic from social channels.
The intern will use Monday.com to keep track of projects and tasks and Canva and the Adobe suite to create designs.
Deliverables
Create new and updated social media templates – helps us create social media graphics quickly and on-brand for when we don’t have a graphic designer on staff.
Research shareable infographics and create a report on findings.
Brainstorm and create a Style Guide for approval and for future reference.
Create shareable infographics from blog content to share on social channels and post to blog.
If there is time, the intern might help with redoing some sales material (brochures and other assets) to better match our brand.

Smart Sheet: Pressure Ulcer Prevention Technology

Pressure ulcers are a major health concern around the world, affecting individuals living with spinal cord injury (SCI) in particular. Pressure ulcers occur when the blood supply to the skin and underlying tissue is compromised, leading to cell death and potentially fatal infections. In this project, we are developing a soft, flexible and stretchable pressure sensing sheet for pressure ulcer prevention. The device is designed for wheelchair use, where it covers the entire seating area over the cushion. It measures pressure continuously over long periods of time and collects the pressure data of the users. The data collected will be displayed on smart devices as a pressure heatmap for users to view. A prevention algorithm developed based on the relationship between externally applied pressure, tissue oxygenation and intrinsic factors, enables the device to predict high-risk pressure ulcer locations for each user, and alerting them prior to any ulceration. The success and envisioned use of this device will prevent one of the most burdensome, costly and fatal secondary medical conditions, improving the quality of life of individuals susceptible and reducing the healthcare cost.

Clarivent Bubble Helmet

Many methods for providing respiratory support to patients are currently in use, however more
commonly available techniques such as Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) are not
appropriate for ventilation of patients with airborne infectious diseases due to the risk of
aerosolization endangering other patients and hospital staff. Clarivent is working with BCIT to further develop a sealed device to provide non-invasive positive pressure ventilation (NIPPV)
to patients and allow for the provision of respiratory therapy with widely available methods
such as CPAP, while minimizing the risk of infection for other patients and staff.

CommNeeds Pilot Launch

CommNeeds is a community resource-sharing platform that enables, local businesses, startups, small home-based entrepreneurs and community members to access skills and resources available in their vicinity. CommNeeds nurture micro-economy with the exchange of services locally and also establish a mechanism to equip the future workforce with the skills and experience they need. COVID and other economic factors have motivated people to explore their passions and seek opportunities to expand their income and social network.
CommNeeds was in a Beta phase when COVID started and lost the traction and resources required to go live and take its market share. Over the last two years this market segment has seen significant growth and saturation with the competing platforms. CommNeeds is looking to reevaluate its Go to Market Strategy and market positioning. We are seeking help from a business student with an innovation background to help innovate and transform in the response to the changing market conditions. The intern will work with our development team to assess new market domains that the current product can fill and also create/define potential niche and differentiators that will put our platform in a strong position to influence the market and drive adaptation.

Mortgage Brokers Ottawa Vision Project

A critical part of our success in building one of the largest Brokerages in Canada has been the ability to attract and retain excellent Mortgage Agents, and assist them in their individual success. A key element of that retention and acquisition and assistance has been the power of our proprietary software systems. Our current system functionality is best in class providing a fully integrated, easy to use Client Relationship Management (CRM) program within the system in order to generate more business. As we are continuously adding features to our existing system we are finding it does not integrate well with new features that we would like to add to it. The new internship will help us create an entirely new system based on current technologies. The new system will be fully integrated and easy to use CRM program.

Development of an AI Virtual Fitting Room

Currently, one of the primary barriers to purchase through our website is the virtual fitting process, which requires a live virtual meeting with a stylist. Developing an artificial intelligence that would capture body measurements would allow us to streamline the fitting process for our customer, resulting in an increase in customer experience and sales.
The primary negative impact on clothing companies that sell online is caused by customer returns. This project would allow us to ensure fit and eliminate the need for returns. Other online fashion retailers would benefit from this technology as well.
The number one cause of a fashion company bankruptcy is due to inventory and the inability to correctly project how much product will be needed, often resulting in an overstock which is wasted. This project would better allow us to produce garments as they are ordered with no overstock resulting in no wasted product.

Optimization of Honey Bee Queen Production Practices for Greater Productivity, Performance and Profitability

Honey bees are known to be responsible for one in every three bites of food we take. The queen bee plays a basic role in the honey bee colony. She is the mother of all members of the colony that develop during her life. She also plays a critically important role within the honey bee colony. In much of Canada, beekeepers rely on importing mated honey bee queens to make increases and replace winter killed colonies. In 2021 over 260,000 queens were imported mainly from the USA to support maintaining the 810,000 colonies kept in Canada. Unlike the rest of Canada, Saskatchewan beekeepers have been very progressive in producing their own honey bee queens and replacement colonies. Central to the success of making new healthy colonies is a quality queen. This project is focused on defining, developing, an improved process for producing high quality bee queens in Saskatchewan. This project will not only promote collaboration among sectors, but also within the beekeeping industry members. It will also provide an opportunity to post-secondary students to integrate learning and professional and field skills to enhance their exposure and experience to be prepared for a real working environment with the beekeeping industry. High quality produced queens will enable beekeepers to keep healthy bees, decrease reliance on imports, reduce the cost of production, and enhance crop pollination and food security.

Corn root growth and rhizosphere bacterial taxa from the biological promoter Humic Land under field conditions

Humic Land is a 100% organic fertilizer that was produced from black peat using innovative technology that protects live soil microorganisms. It contains complex organic compounds known as humic substances and a microbial consortia that can biologically promote the growth of field crops. When Humic Land is applied to corn in a nitrogen-limited environment, the corn grows more lateral roots. A possible explanation is that Humic Land contains bacteria from the family Oxalobacteraceae, such as Massilia spp. that readily colonizes corn roots, leading to more lateral root growth and nitrogen uptake. As these corn root-bacteria interactions were observed in controlled experiments, this study seeks to establish that the relationship also exists in corn fields, through a replicated field research trial. Results will demonstrate the potential efficacy of Humic Land as a biological growth promotor for commercial corn production in Canada.

Student Support for West Central Women’s Resource Centre

This project will work with the Anti-Racism in Sport (ARISC) team to develop a reporting mechanism for targets and witnesses of racist incidents in sport in Winnipeg and provide administrative support for the campaign. In addition to this, some objectives I am to participate in include; Co-developing a Racism in Sport Reporting Tool, where I will Conduct research of reporting tools for racist incidents (types, structures, questions to ask, supports needed, resources needed). Work with an Advisory Committee to develop and design the infrastructure. Work with partners to develop the reporting tool, and pilot and evaluate the tool

Simple Perfusion Reconstruction Algorithm (SPIRAL) Clinical Research Study

The delivery of stroke treatment requires simple, quick, and accurate imaging to make fast treatment decisions. Computed tomography angiography (CTA) is required to identify a large vessel occlusion (LVO) and medium vessel occlusion (MeVO) before removal (recanalization) by tPA and/or endovascular thrombectomy (EVT). The CTA can detect where the artery is blocked reliably by an expert specialist but misdiagnosis is common among non-experts. Another separate scan called CT perfusion that involves giving a further injection of dye. It is the CTP that can show areas of reduced blood flow to the brain and can help make treatment decisions about the benefit and safety of unblocking the artery. However, CTP have significant limitations that include treatment delay because of the additional scan, potential kidney damage from the dye, and cancer risk because of exposure to more radiation.

In addressing these limitations, we have developed the SPIRAL (Simple PerfusIon Reconstruction ALgorithm), which is a novel imaging technique created from multiple CT angiograms that can detect large vessel occlusions and visualize the areas in the brain most severely affected by the stroke and is a quicker, safer and cheaper alternative to CTP. In this study, we will modify and apply

Verified Engagement Platform Backend Implementation, Integration, and Commercialization

The past two years have shown increasing distrust through online division, polarizing protests and strikes, and destructive riots. This problem has gotten worse due to our unverified, disorganized, and time consuming citizen and stakeholder engagement systems, especially social media, focus groups and town halls, and voting. In order to solve the problem of increasing distrust by implementing a platform that provides verified, targeted, and ongoing proactive engagement, Veras Technologies Inc. will work with intern Mohammed Rakeeb to implement, integrate, and commercialize a verified citizen and stakeholder engagement platform. The intern will first create and update a minimum viable product backend and facial recognition system using AWS (Amazon Web Services) to onboard early users and sell to early adopters. Then the intern will connect the old backend of the platform to the blockchain and AI backend, developed by other interns in a different Mitacs project. Veras hopes to use this project to implement, integrate, and commercialize their product. The intern hopes to utilize this project to grow his technical, professional, and interdisciplinary skills that will provide himself a professional work environment foundation to advance the transferable skills needed to have a successful career after university graduation.