Innovative Projects Realized

Digitizing the Financial Advisory Process (Business) – AdvisorFlow

The goal of this project is to further digitize the financial advisory process for Canadian financial advisors and their clients. AdvisorFlow is an integrated software allowing financial advisors to streamline first-mile client discovery, document collection, report generation, and more. In its first year of operation, the focus was developing a minimum viable product and gauging market interest. Through hundreds of client discovery calls, the product was deemed valuable by many individual financial advisors, insurance brokers, and wealth management firms. Early adopters of the product were also constantly asked for feedback in order to continue enhancing and iterating the software. With AdvisorFlow developing a more user-friendly interface and entering the process of ISO 27001 certification (the international standard on how to manage information security), the product has become more appealing for enterprise firms. Upon re-engagement with many enterprise firms in the industry, they have expressed interest in signing with us.

The Power of Influence: How Canada Compares

Over the past decade, Japanese influence on North American pop culture has seen a noticeable increase. Examples can be seen from the world of street fashion, luxury goods, film/media production, and beyond. Japanese influence has, at times, even been considered the driving factor in the success of numerous North American brands/artists. Take, for example, the famous American clothing brand Supreme, which was picked up by Japanese street culture in the early 2000s, and sold for a staggering US$2.1B in 2021.

Additionally, in 2007 and 2018, American hip-hop sensation Kanye West collaborated with Japanese contemporary artist Takashi Murakami to design the cover album art for his third and ninth studio albums: Graduation, and Kids See Ghosts. The albums achieved over 5 million sales and 90 million streams, respectively.

But what has made Japanese products and designers so popular in the North American market? What is their secret, and how can it be used to promote the Canadian fashion, media, and design industries? How can we leverage the power of big data to understand these market trends, and extrapolate valuable information for Canadian firms? These are the fundamental questions that will be answered through this internship.

Nestabl Streaming Innovation Project

Nestabl Inc., based in Oakville, ON, is developing an innovative new streaming network dedicated to Home, with a focus on bringing together user generated content, and produced/curated video content in a dynamic, personalized way.
Nestabl’s Platform development will be completed in two phase, requiring four interns over a span of two terms total. During phase one – Interns will work on bringing Nestabl to various platforms including, Android, iOS, TVOS etc. The team will work on completing features critical for MVP. Phase 2 will involve building a recommendation system.

NSCAD Art factory and Wonder’neath Art Society

Wonder’neath Art Society is an artist-run, charitable organization that brings professional artists and community together, encouraging and promoting art as a tool for expression, connection and social transformation. Through the Open Studio Program Wonder’neath provides access to professional artists, materials, art making activities and instruction. In 2020, Wonder’neath moved to a new and significantly larger space that offers increased potential for programming and outreach to new communities and new partner organizations. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, almost all face to face public programming was paused, in this time Wonder’neath distributed 12,000 art making kits within the community. As the doors open to the public in this new space, Wonder’neath is able to once again engage directly with community and continue the process of growing into this new space with a larger and more diverse community.
The NSCAD Art Factory is rooted in a community-based model of arts pedagogy and engagement, driven by community needs and creative practices. Both Wonder’neath Art Society and NSCAD Art Factory are excited to partner in this internship program.

Profiling the therapeutic potential of fungi from Kapoose Creek

Kapoose Creek Wellness (KCW) is building a vertically integrated business to deliver products and services that take advantage of a growing market for the functional and medicinal potential of mushrooms. A key asset in this vision is 320 acres of land within a rainforest on the North Pacific Coast of Vancouver Island where exotic species of fungi abound. Further, KCW has invested in infrastructure, for example, roads, vehicles, housing and, most notably, a substantial research laboratory, in this remarkable setting. Thus, KCW is uniquely positioned to leverage the unique biodiversity of this extraordinary asset for drug discovery. Indeed, industrial-scale drug screening efforts with fungi have been relatively limited, making these organisms a rich source of relatively untapped pharmacology. The study herein proposes a systematic effort to explore the therapeutic potential of diverse fungi collected from at Kapoose Creek. Fungal species therein present a rich source of unexplored pharmacology and will be comprehensively profiled to enable natural product-based drug discovery.

ESG Integration, Measurement and Reporting for SMEs: A pilot for Cleantech companies in BC

The interns will assist with surveying the literature and prior work as it concerns reporting frameworks that capture the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) aspects of small, medium enterprise (SME) policies and performance in Canada. This review will inform an interview process with a pilot cluster of businesses to determine the challenges and constraints they face, specifically related to the implementation of non-financial reporting. Based upon a combination of the interviews and research, the interns will collaborate with their partner accelerator hub to create a module-based training program for small businesses in Canada to build background knowledge and capacity to operationalize ESG measurement and reporting practices. The ultimate result for participant companies will be a tangible organization report framework. In phase two the interns will partner with experts in the field to assist participant companies to improve ESG policies and reporting.

Post-breeding movement ecology of adult and juvenile songbirds using protected areas in eastern Georgian Bay, Ontario

The coasts of Georgian Bay (Lake Huron) are used extensively by migratory songbirds (including species at risk) for both breeding and migratory fueling. We will study how adult and juvenile songbirds use and move among islands and the mainland during the post-breeding period when juveniles are still developing and adults moult flight and body feathers. The research will occur in eastern Georgian Bay on properties owned by the Georgian Bay Land Trust. A PhD student will deploy radio tags on adult and juvenile birds, and then track the movements, habitat use, survival and migratory departure of the birds using manual and automated telemetry. This project will determine the importance of key protected areas in Georgian Bay to the health and sustainability of migratory songbird populations.

Kaira : Détection et caractérisation des changements du comportement financier

Le coach de bien-être financier de Kaira, qui prend la forme d’une application mobile, comprend le comportement et le profil financier de son utilisateur, grâce à une connexion à ses comptes bancaires, et découvre et approfondit la connaissance de son profil psychologique et de son attitude face à l’argent. L’ensemble de ces informations lui permet de fournir un conseil personnalisé et proactif lors d’événements pertinents, détectés notamment à partir des transactions enregistrées sur les comptes. À terme, l’application mobile doit comprendre un agent conversationnel pour discuter avec l’usager et extraire de ces conversations des informations contextuelles pertinentes permettant de comprendre certains comportements financiers. Ces dits comportements financiers peuvent de plus être identifiés au sein de ses données financières. Ainsi, du renforcement peut être fait dans le coaching de Kaira.

Degradation of compostable plastics with the FoodCycler: an on-site food waste recycler

This research will develop protocols and identify enzymes to break down compostable plastics using the FoodCycler system. The FoodCycler is a household device that accelerates the breakdown of organic waste, leaving behind a sterile soil-amendment-like by-product, and is a practical solution for rural, northern, and remote areas without municipal compost systems. Use of compostable plastics such as bioplastics could reduce the accumulation of fossil-fuel-based single-use plastics in our environment. Unfortunately, compostable plastic materials are not readily composted under normal food waste handling systems and are seen as contamination by many composting systems. Through this research we will identify commercially available enzymes along with processes to accelerate the degradation of compostable plastics in the FoodCycler system. Use of enzymes will be optimized in laboratory settings and then adapted for simple use with the FoodCycler. The research has broad applications in waste management and reducing CO2 emissions.

Building an affordable Security Operation Center (SOC)

Castellan Information Security provides scalable security services and products that can benefit all organizations of size and scope from smaller professional service firms to large corporate entities. Castellan provides solutions, products and professional services that will enable and empower you to protect your information in all forms (physical and digital) against internal and external threats.
Castellan wants to broaden its current service catalogue by offering Security Operation Centre (SOC) capabilities. To accomplish this, Castellan is planning to complete a Pre-study/research on the steps and resources needed for building an affordable SOC. This research will be the baseline to create the strategy and the design of the solution.

Experiences, Barriers, and Factors Influencing Career Advancement Among Internationally Educated Nurses in Home Care

The home care sector suffers from workforce inefficiencies with many of its healthcare providers not working to their full potential. This includes internationally educated nurses (IENs) who have obtained their education in a foreign country but are not certified in Canada. In addition to their professional expertise, IENs have multilingual and multicultural skills and perspectives, which position them to provide culturally competent care. Despite investments to improve hiring and integration practices, we still do not know about the effectiveness of career advancement initiatives for IENs in home care. IENs from disadvantaged groups face significant barriers to meaningful employment and are disproportionately affected. As part of an evaluation study of a career development program at VHA, this project aims to explore the experiences and challenges of IENs with career advancement and certification in Canada. This will inform homecare organizations to tailor programs to support career advancement and certification of IENs and leverage an underutilized human resource in healthcare.

A Community First Approach to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at See Change Initiative

The intern will work alongside the Organizational Development Operations Lead at See Change Initiative on the development of a DEI charter and the proposition of practical guidelines and training. To do so, she will perform a literature review, research some of the best practices which are currently being adopted by similar organizations, and conduct multiple interviews both within the organization (with employees and Board members) and potentially outside of it (with specialists in the DEI and cross-cultural management fields). She will be supervised by HEC Professor Gwyneth Edwards, whose expertise includes strategic management in an international context and knowledge transfer in international organizations. The partner organization, SeeChange Initiative, will benefit from the novel recommendations that ensue from her research, as most publicly available DEI research and guidelines are directed towards larger and for-profit businesses. The intern will be able to provide the non-profit organization with innovative and practical ways that they can embed a DEI lens, in a way that is truly culturally sensitive and aligned with the “Community First” approach at its core.