Innovative Projects Realized

Fishing for Success Best Practices

Fishing for Success (F4S) is a community-based nonprofit social enterprise that works to transmit the intangible cultural heritage of Newfoundland & Labrador’s family fishery while advocating for an inclusive, gender-equitable & sustainable small-scale fishery that can help combat climate change and contribute to food sovereignty through better local seafood access. By partnering with academic researchers, ocean industry organizations, and other nonprofit groups, Fishing for Success has been able to magnify the impact of its work and highlight the very real benefits of fishing for everyone in our community. Programs of Fishing for Success have been copied and brought to places as far away as Japan, identified by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health as a “promising practice,” and recognized for the contribution to academic research by Memorial University of Newfoundland’s President’s Award for public engagement partnership. All this rapid growth and success, though, brings a challenge! This project will provide access for MITACS interns to learning and accessing connections within a dynamic social enterprise, while they contribute to its foundational success and future growth through the production of a Best Practices Guide that can be shared with other communities.

Creation of a research data base at Montfort: buisness plan and feasability evaluation

At the time being ISM uses the Montfort hospital databse to store and manage its research data.

ISM hopes to create its own database, so that it can improve efficiency of its operations and overcome delay and other managerial barriers.

Thus, the main project goal is to help the company develop a buisness model and plan that will evaluate the costs and feasability of creating a separate database in accordance with the needs of ISM researchers and team.

We wish to recruit a student that will grasp the ISM researchers and team needs in terms of data sotrage and management, then propose a buisness plan to evaluate the feasability of the project and its potential impact on the efficiency of operations.

Development of a Business and Marketing Plan for the PTRC

With the announcement by the Government of Canada of increasing measures to reduce CO2 and other GHG emissions to Net-zero, the PTRC has begun to reposition itself as a world-leader in CCUS to help the country, and international partners, reach aggressive targets by 2030 and 2050 respectively.

With the new realities of carbon pricing, taxes and (recently) the announcement of a federal tax incentive for CCUS in Canada, the PTRC is working towards a new business and marketing strategy that will achieve the following objectives (the chosen intern will help define and identify how to proceed with each):
• establish and develop new markets for its CO2 storage and MMV expertise across additional industries that have large set point sources of emissions
• work with existing clients in oil and gas, energy and academe to establish projects that will help Canadian companies reach their environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals
• identify and apply for funding from Canada’s government, and provincial/private sources, that match the PTRC’s wheelhouse or research and project expertise
• work to expand our participation in equity, diversity and inclusiveness in our practices and research activities, especially but not exclusively with indigenous groups
The main objective of this 6 month program for the intern of choice would be to work one-on-one with the new CEO and create a fully realized marketing and business plan to incorporates all of our policy goals (emissions reductions, EDI, ESG) and helps steer the company towards future success.

Supporting in Carbon Capture Project Development

At the International CCS Knowledge Centre (Knowledge Centre), we take climate action seriously. We are dedicated to advancing the understanding and use of large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) to manage greenhouse gas emissions globally.
We know that the world can’t get to net-zero starting from ground zero – so we provide the know-how to implement large-scale CCS projects as well as CCS optimization. We house experts who were instrumental in the development and operations of the Boundary Dam 3 CCS Facility, the authors of the comprehensive second-generation CCS study, known as the Shand CCS Feasibility Study, as well as the leaders in the Lehigh CCS Feasibility Study, examining the application of carbon capture on cement.
We offer practical, hands-on experience-based guidance, and technical advice for planning, design, construction, and operation of large-scale applications of CCS from thermal power to industrial processes.
One of the biggest challenges for deploying CCS to large emitters is the capital and operational costs of the CCS facility and the balance of the plant that is required to support the CCS operation. With this Mitacs funding, the interns will assist in the Knowledge Centre to perform pre-feasibility, feasibility and Front End Engineering Design (FEED) studies of CCS project development in the various sectors including industrial and power production. The interns will contribute their Knowledge in Process simulation (using Aspen Plus and Aspen Hysys) to improve process efficiency, perform cost estimation and find innovative, cost-effective means to improve and promote the deployment of CCS projects.

CEO

The adoption of innovative technologies is crucial in today’s business environment – driven by the ongoing pressure to acquire more customers by launching new services in a faster and more convenient way. But adopting new technologies always brings with it a slew of security challenges, making it harder to maintain a secure working environment that provides protection from cyber threats.
For many organizations it’s the security team that is most impacted by this kind of deliberation. When senior management opts to purchase new technologies, it is the security operations team that must find ways to monitor, identify, and intercept any anomalous behaviors or vulnerabilities that could be indicative of a cyber attack.
It’s a moving target – and it’s not the only challenge security teams deal with on a daily basis. There’s also the challenge of a continually changing threat landscape, with new kinds of attacks and different threat actors cropping up daily.
Moreover, the number of alerts that security teams are expected to handle on a daily basis is expected to continue to grow. And the sheer number of alerts leads to “alert fatigue” on the part of security teams, who can’t keep up with the workload.
The answer to this problem lies in leveraging automation, which plays a key role in lightening the load and improves efficiencies and accuracy – providing enrichment from both internal and external sources, the contextual information needed for analysts to identify and prioritize which alerts are high risk and need to be handled first.

Extended-life cold-trap: Zero Point Cryogenics

Zero Point Cryogenics is Canada’s manufacturers of dilution refrigerators, the cryogenic platform for enabling quantum technologies. To advance our product offerings, we need to innovate beyond what is currently offered on the market. Through this Mitacs internship, Zero Point Cryogenics will work with the University of Alberta to develop a new feature for our dilution refrigerators, which we expect to patent and add to our product line.

In-process product inspection with computer vision and artificial intelligence

In this project, we investigate deep-learning-based artificial intelligence technologies for automated in-process part inspection for advanced manufacturing. We will experiment with state-of-the-art computer vision and machine learning technologies, applied to a camera capture of a manufactured product part while the part is being made. In this way, product defects can be detected early, saving time from a human inspector to examine the part manually with a magnifier, enhancing safety and productivity of manufacturing factories in Canada and beyound.

PD Enterprises Ltd. (Micro-Mobility E-Bike Project)

Parkdick Enterprises Ltd. (PDI) under its RYDE brand, will be launching an E-Bike micro-mobility sharing program on Manitoulin Island, Ontario, which is set to launch in Spring 2022. The link to the project details and launch is located here: https://www.manitoulincycling.com/e-bikes/. This will be our inaugural project which uses E-Bikes and docking station technology, where riders can rent an E-Bike at a charging station with a mobile application, and end their ride by reparking at a charging station. The project seeks to solve “last mile” transportation issues, provide greener and healthier transportation alternatives, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and increase tourism initiatives. Given that this is our inaugural project, we require assistance in marketing/business development, and accounting/finance. This is why we plan on hiring a marketing/business development intern to grow awareness of the bike program in Manitoulin, and structure community initiatives that highlight health & safety, as well as an accounting/finance intern that will assist us with tracking payments, setting up wire payments, and provide financial modeling on the success of the program. It is our goal that this inaugural program will grow micro-mobility infrastructure within Canada, grow tourism within Canada, promote a more healthy and active lifestyle, and provide a platform for our organization to work with other organizations/municipalities in the future.

Seleste App Development

Seleste needs to develop an app to integrate with our hardware. For this project we need interns to help us develop this app which includes two major components. First is the React Native app where interns will develop our partner integrations. This includes companies like Be My Eyes and Aira which provide services that we will offer through our glasses. They will also develop integrations with Azure A.I to enable A.I features on our glasses. Our interface is going to be unique from most since our users are visually impaired and it is incredibly important to create an interface that is simple, accessible and easy-to-use with a screen reader. The second part of the app involves enabling our video-calls from the glasses. This will include creating custom libraries to integrate our low-level code into our core app. Both parts of this project will be a core part of Seleste’s IP and value proposition. Successful completion of both parts of this project will allow us to start shipping out our initial pair of glasses and run a successful pilot study.

Multi-scale Feature Pyramid Fusion for Object Detection + Image Space to Vector Space Transformer

This project’s objective is to show the utility of data from passenger cars in developing semi and fully automated driving. The challenge at hand is designing and developing artificial intelligence that can accurately and efficiently filter the most critical driving scenarios detected in a fleet.

Analysis of diseases and bugs in a Farm using AI data and models-VisionBox Inc

VisionBox Inc aims to make farming amiable by providing farmers with easy-to-use technologies to focus on agriculture without worrying about threats from disease or bugs in the farm. We are making an AI application for the farmer to detect all the threats in a traditional farm or greenhouse.

VISIONARY FARM is a platform showing a realistic view of the farm with all the spots having threats and the ability to implement custom and recommended solutions and view their effect in simulation.
The aim of this project with the intern is to analyze the statistical and visual data from the farm and get insights from them.

Homeowner Building Health Platform

This digital design project involves creating a platform that brings building health and wellness resources to homeowners. Healthy Home certification programs are emerging and there are many home builders and developers certified as sustainable contractors.
This tool will allow participants to create homes that are designed to provide clean indoor air and ample natural light and to use safe building materials to ensure comfort and good health, reduce our energy and water consumption, thereby lowering utility bills each month, among other financial benefits. Using the strategies suggested, homeowners can have a net-positive impact on their communities.
The project goal is to support homeowners to feel confident that their homes are also designed, constructed, and operated to be resilient in adverse conditions and are developed with proactive design planning for potential impacts of disease, pollution, catastrophic weather, and other threats to human health
• Health: homes are designed to maximize indoor fresh air and minimize exposure to airborne toxins and pollutants, making it healthier and more comfortable.
• Savings: homes use less energy and water, which means lower utility bills.
• Value: With proper planning, homes can be built for the same cost as non-green homes and could qualify for discounted homeowner’s insurance, tax breaks, and other incentives.
• For better homes, accountability makes a difference. Through a carefully managed, independent, third-party verification system, certification will be an option that affirms the integrity of green building commitments Third-party validation helps guarantee that each project saves energy, water, and other resources, reducing overall environmental impact.