Innovative Projects Realized

Development of sector resources and information

The Manitoba Association of Newcomer Serving Organizations (MANSO), in partnership with the West Central Women’s Resource Centre (WCWRC), acts as an umbrella organization for settlement service providers in Manitoba. MANSO acts as a voice for the Manitoba settlement and integration sector, as well as supporting members through communication, networking and professional development activities. The work done during this internship, through policy advocacy, coordinating collaborative initiatives and professional development, will help provides support to the organizations that work directly with newcomers in Manitoba.

Market analysis to support the development of innovative housing

Matchpoint Development is a Vancouver-based developer that is dedicated to developing high-quality innovative housing in unique neighbourhood locations. Selecting the right locations and building a vibrant and livable community that meets the housing needs of existing and potential clients/residents, presents challenges as well as great opportunities. This project will help the company make informed decisions by providing market analysis/data.

MVP Development and User Validation for a Housing Technology Platform

Garrison Logic Inc. is a software development company with a focus on building property-technology solutions to revolutionize real estate development, operation, and transaction processes. Recognizing that inefficiencies in the housing sector are contributing to the housing affordability crisis, Garrison intends to address problems such as the lack of housing supply, slow and challenging entitlement processes for real estate developments, and the inability for small scale developers to scale, through the development of a research-backed digital platform.
One area that Garrison has identified as a first target of real estate process improvement as-of-right redevelopments. Proposed improvements to the current system include an automated and comprehensive tool that identifies properties with as-of-right redevelopment potentials; connects the community to share project intelligence; and connects owners of as-of-right projects to appropriate financing products. Garrison sees a solution to these issues as a major opportunity to improve some housing inefficiencies and create an opportunity for business expansion.
Garrison is partnering with Seneca in the design, development, and prototyping stages of the project. The intern will use brainstorming sessions, engage in iterative design, and develop a no-code MVP on Glide for user validation purposes.

Food Manager

I, as the Food Manager, will plan healthy lunches and food kits every week and will track, cost, and document donated foods. I will improve the efficiency and organization of cataloging the food donations. I will also ensure that volunteers may excel in their roles by learning their strengths and goals and improving volunteer training. I will also ensure that COVID-19 and food safety protocols are adhered to.

This project will support the organization by creating a safe and welcoming space for volunteers and maintaining the engagement of current volunteers. Through this project, food services for those who cannot stay at the organization’s location to eat may be improved. Further, to ensure the health and safety of everyone at Oak Table, the Food Manager will be responsible for ensuring that COVID-19 and food safety protocols are adhered to.

Settlement Resource Package and Settlement Outreach Project

As the Immigrant Centre is a settlement service provider, one of its roles would be to assist newcomers to Winnipeg with employment, language, Immigration guidance, and other services. One very important aspect of facilitating assistance to newcomers would be informing and recommending other organizations which can assist them with their specific needs. This project will compile all of the immigrant resources within the downtown area into a welcome kit to be given to new clients, so that at the very least, they will know what services and resources are available to them. A practical example would be: It is well known that newcomers go through various stages of mental and emotional strain when integrating into a new environment, but just being aware that there are counseling groups which they can attend could make all the difference in their transition. This project simply seeks to better market these services at the beginning stages of the Immigration process.

New Directions – Opikhiwawin

New Directions is a non profit community organization that provides extensive programming that serves specialized programs for children, youth, adults, and families from all walks of life. They offer a variety of services that range from residential placements, cultural programming, educational services, and more. The New Directions vision statement captures the framework of the organization by stating: “a community where all people have well-being, are honoured, and can dream”. This embodies the beauty of the Opikhiwawin Program offered through New Directions. Opikhiwawin is a program designed to provide cultural education opportunities to Indigenous adoptees and foster people. The Opikhiwawin program believes that all Indigenous fosters and adoptees has an inherent right to experience their culture. Due to the effects of colonization, First Nations people in Canada face challenges when seeking out cultural opportunites as cultural knowledge could be limited. Programs like Opikhiwawin seek to address those challenges and provide opportunities for Indigenous fosters and adoptees to experience their culture to build a positive sense of belonging.

Directory of Resources

The Manitoba Islamic Association (MIA) provides opportunities for Muslims in Winnipeg to practice their faith. The MIA provides community educational programs for children and families, charity help to those in need and social and cultural programs in addition to religious services. With the influx of immigrants and refugees MIA has become a hub for information for these two groups. There is a need to create this resource directory to be able to quickly direct individuals in need of these services. The goal of this project will focus on low income families, and ensuring that they are provided with basic necessities. Also, the project will enhance the service delivery of food programs and financial assistance programs through the MIA, which means faster service to people who are looking to apply for any program or assistance through MIA.

The Fertility Partners

During the summer of 2022, I will be partnering with The Fertility Partners in Toronto, to further develop my understanding of finance while gaining real-world experience in the finance industry. The Fertility Partners is a private equity-backed search fund that acquires, partners with, and aids fertility clinics in their day-to-day operations. During my tenure at the firm, I will be helping the finance team to complete two key projects, as well as differing day-to-day activities. The first project is to improve the cash position and working capital management in the business. I will research frameworks and think around cash and working capital balances for small businesses and healthcare clinics. I will then develop a fertility clinic-specific framework. Then, apply the framework to the owned clinics and present findings and insights. I will also research tools and software’s that can be used to support the ongoing management. Then support the implementation of these tools. The second project is to improve the financial reporting by first gaining insights from current operations. Then research, analyze and recommend software selection and support implementation of software to improve financial reporting for the business.

Fusion de mesures de capteurs pour l’estimation des mouvements du corps humain

Le professeur Patrick Boissy et son équipe à l’Institut interdisciplinaire d’innovation technologique (3IT) utilisent pour des fins de recherche en actimétrie, diverses centrales inertielles permettant de mesurer l’orientation de segments du corps humain et d’estimer l’amplitude et la variation des mouvements. Ce projet vise, entre autres, à supporter ces recherches en maximisant la précision de ces estimations grâce au développement et à l’application d’un logiciel de fusion et filtrage dynamique de mesures de capteurs. Ce type de logiciel, utilisé fréquemment dans le domaine de la navigation (satellites, robots mobiles, drones, etc.), sera adapté aux besoins spécifiques du groupe de recherche et ensuite appliqué à un protocole de mesures cliniques. Un autre objectif tout aussi important est d’augmenter via ces activités les performances et les capacités actuels du logiciel de fusion de mesures de capteurs conçu et utilisé courramment par NGC Aérospatiale Ltée afin d’en faire profiter l’entreprise dans le cadre d’activités reliées au domaine biomédical et connexes à celle-ci. Le résultat recherché à la fin de ce projet est une démonstration du concept appliqué à la biomécanique clinique. Une telle démonstration contribuera à la démarche de diversification des activitiés de NGC dans le domaine de la biomécanique et du médical.

Developing data transfer pipelines for a cloud-based digital twin prototyping system

Digital twin technology creates a digital replica of a physical object, such as a human, device, system, or process that mirrors the actual process with full knowledge of its historical performance. It has the advantage of enabling agility and convergence of understanding to support more effective decision-making and resource allocation optimization. Aleo Canada (noted as Aleo in the following) is a subsidiary of the Ellipse Ingénieurie Group (France and Canada) with approximately 150 employees globally, specializing in providing engineering software and Information Technology services for critical engineering systems (e.g., aircraft, transportation, and manufacturing). Aiming at developing the cutting-edge digital twin technology, Aleo and University of Guelph has collaboratively developed a prototyping digital twin software platform that enables semi-synchoronized motion between physical device and its digital twin via Google Cloud, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, and 3D simulation. The developed software prototype has two deficits. First, it only supports uni-directional data communication from remote user interface (i.e., webpage) to physical machine rather than the other way around. Second, the tested device is overly simplified and it cannot reflect the complexity of real manufacturing scenarios.

Exploring Social Spaces in Tower Living

As towers get bigger and bigger they form their own structure and systems, which have become a monoculture and an old paradigm. Exploring Social Spaces in Tower Living reimagines the skyscraper as a connected, imaginative and resilient entity in its community. We seek to understand what kinds of programs and spaces bring people together. We ask: How can we make our tower shared spaces be more responsive to today’s social needs?

We propose a three-part study that looks at contemporary towers, built or in a planning process, in Europe, Asia and North America. We will collect, analyze and present data of 50 projects on a comparable ground using highly graphic communication tools.

Firstly, we will conduct a precedent study of projects that are mixed-use and have a focus on innovative shared amenities. We will compare the mix of amenities and programming and their placement within the tower. A presentation to Matchpoint will narrow down the 50 projects to 4-8 projects which we will investigate further in the next stage.

Secondly, 4-8 projects will inform three schematic proposals focusing on diverse amenities that could form part of a final design.

Development and launch of a rules-based engine for medical billing software

In collaboration with our Chief Technical Officer and our Advisory team, the intern will help develop and launch the rules-based engine that optimizes and validates diagnosis and billing codes. This work will involve review of various documents, including but not limited to billing reference guides, the provincial health insurance plan schedule of benefits (e.g., OHIP Schedule of Benefits), extraction of specific information (e.g., submission criteria, keywords, payment conditions) from these documents, and the devleopment of a database codifying this information for inclusion in our software.

We are aiming to launch our billing solution at various academic health family health teams in Ontario beginning June 2022. Completion of the tasks associated with this innovation project will play a critical role in helping us meet this goal.