Innovative Projects Realized

Identifying the practices and policies of improving digital equity among vulnerable communities in Calgary

Access to digital technologies and ensuring digital equity has never been crucial before the pandemic. Digital equity is ‘a condition in which all individuals and communities have the information technology capacity needed for full participation in our society, democracy, and economy.’ Digital Equity is necessary for civic and cultural participation, employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential services. Pandemic-induced restrictions and subsequent lockdowns have diminished (in person) social interactions and resulted in increased dependency on digital technologies, which had already placed disproportionate burdens on marginalized groups. While many research and projects are now shifting their focus on the economic recovery of the post-pandemic phase, how the pandemic is deepening the digital divide, marginalizing the vulnerable groups, and re-enforcing the systematic exclusion is remained severely understudied. Therefore, we attempt to explore in this study the current state of the digital divide (which is often considered as a complex social-political challenge) and how it has impacted the social interaction, economic activity, and mental well-being of the city dwellers.

Production line for personalized camping car cabinets

Today’s customer desire more and more personalized products and often want to get involved in the design of them. The manufacturing of personalized furniture is a good example of this trend. NavCamper is a SME in Quebec, producing personalized camping cars. The production of personalized cabinets for these camping cars is currently very labour intensive. To remain cost efficient and address the issue of shortage of personal to hire, NavCamper wants to automate the production. The aim of the project is to develop the needed elements (manufacturing equipment and software) that will allow to automate the production in costly manner of fully personalized wooden cabinets. The challenge is that each cabinet is unique, in size, shape color, wood finish etc. The production line will be able to handle this diversity and streamline the production of these personalized cabinets.

Ungulate Knowledge Gathering Forum

The intern will work alongside the Splatsin government to plan, implement, and document a precedent setting Ungulate Knowledge Gathering Forum (hereafter: Forum), taking place in Enderby, British Columbia at the Splatsin Community center on February 17th-19th, 2022. There are three central objectives of the Forum coinciding with each of the three days: (1) conduct semi-structured interviews with Splatsin knowledge-holders to archive the histories, cultural values, and observed information pertaining to caribou and non-caribou ungulates (NCU), such as moose and white-tailed deer in Splatsin traditional territory, British Columbia. (2) document a population benchmark or desired abundance level of caribou and NCU’s the Splatsin are collectively intent in realizing within their traditional territory for the next 100 years. (3) Lastly, foster an ethical space of joint learning where Indigenous and Western knowledge are shared interchangeably in a round-table setting to ultimately support Splatsin-led caribou recovery actions. The primary benefit to the partner organization includes equipping ABMI with a novel, precedent setting approach to monitor and understand wildlife populations through the process of reconciliation.

Synthesis of Arabinoxylan and Furfurals from Oat Hulls

The proposed research aims at overcoming the issues with oat hulls waste management by developing green processes for its conversion to higher value chemicals. The intern will be investigating hydrothermal extraction and microwave assisted hydrolysis system for the extraction of hemicellulose and its conversion to arabinoxylan and furfurals. Richardson Milling Limited (RML) is a global leader in oat milling. Richardson Milling whole grain oat groats are produced by cleaning, dehulling and kiln toasting high quality raw oats. Raw oat may contain in an average 25% hulls and could vary between 20 – 36%. The hulls represent a significant volume of by-product from oat milling operations. Currently, the oat hulls are of low value and incurs additional cost to Richardson for its safe disposal. The efficient and environmentally friendly methods for handling oat hulls and its conversion to higher value products will greatly enhance the sustainability of oat milling operations.

Managing Requirements in Software Ecosystems

The general objective of this project is to identify what the existing practices and associated challenges that orchestrators face when coordinating and managing requirements in the software ecosystem, placing an emphasis on third-party integration partnerships. This includes investigating the relevant stakeholders including customers, third-party integrations, other successful software ecosystems, competitors, and the platform itself. The goal is to develop suggestions and prototypes to convey ways for the partner company to make
improvements on its platform or organization so that to operate within a successful software ecosystem.

Towards understanding people’s interactions with a video question-answering AI system

In recent years, there has been a rise in the development of interactive AI systems and applications where the user follows a procedure to complete a task, including (instructional) fitness and cooking apps to name a few examples. Most of these efforts focus around video question-answering (QA), where a system is built to answer questions a user asks when watching an instructional video. However, little is understood of the usability of these interactive AI technologies and what types of questions a user might ask in a realistic scenario, when they are following the procedure, in an instructional video.
In this project we aim to observe the user in real time, where they are actually asked to follow a procedure demonstrated in a video, and interact with it via asking questions. Our goal is to understand the nature of the questions that users would ask, and whether they would find it beneficial to be able to interact with such an AI system via natural language queries.

Shred Capital – Venture Pipeline for Innovative Startups

During the internship at Shred Capital, the Business Strategy intern will work closely with the core team to create an innovative and quantitative investment funnel to dynamically gauge investment prospects. They will help create documentation, reports, and automated tables – utilizing quantitative and qualitative metrics – to provide a deeper level of understanding about our clients and startups in general. Multiple Canadian investors and companies showed a huge interest in identifying whether success in Government Funding Programs (Canada Media Fund, NRC-IRAP, and others) has a correlation with successful investments and future growth. This piece of research has never been conducted in Canada, and only possible for the organizations like Shred Capital that worked with our clients very closely in both directions and have enough data to analyze if there is a correlation.

Etude de marché de la géolocalisation des baleines dans l’industrie maritime européenne

Ship strikes are one of the leading causes of whale deaths. Thanks to artificial intelligence, Whale Seeker has created a technology capable of simplifying the monitoring of whales to reduce ship strikes. Recently created in Montreal, Whale Seeker is a B-Corp certified company that is not yet established in Europe, and would like to have a market study of potential customers.
This project will allow us to understand the the motivations and expectations of the european maritime industry regarding issues related to the protection of cetaceans. Thus, my project consists in conducting an european market study for the company. Thanks to this work, Whale Seeker will be able to better identify their future potential customers and achieve an optimal positioning.
Whales play a key role in the quest to reduce greenhouse gases because they store a very large quantity of carbon and promote the growth of phytoplankton. This work will combine the challenges of maritime freight in a context of global warming, with the protection of endangered species.

DRAGONFLY Knowledge Mobilization

This project will support usage of the knowledge gained through the DRAGONFLY project, which is a quality improvement initiative undertaken by Sage Seniors Association to improve the quality of care for older adults experiencing frailty. DRAGONFLY aims to support practice change through three core elements: frailty identification, geriatric assessment, and tailored interventions. This project addresses knowledge translation and mobilization of the results and outcomes of this important work. It will therefore help Sage Seniors Association by supporting utility of the DRAGONFLY project, so that community-based seniors serving organizations are better positioned to identify frailty and address complex social and health factors which contribute to frailty.

HR Employee Portal Development

This project is focused on designing and developing a brand-new, secure, and confidential digital HR portal for Crossroads International using Microsoft SharePoint to promote an online employee engagement platform with various modules such as employee information, HR documents, templates, forms etc., that will streamline and centralize data for easier employee access.
Crossroads International has grown in size and complexity in the past two years as an international cooperation organization. The organization’s focus is gender equality and, more specifically, bringing about a world where the rights of women and girls are fulfilled. But due to the Covid-19 pandemic and most of their employees working remotely, the HR department was faced with unprecedented complexity in employee rewards, policies, and procedures. Thus, a digital employee portal will be created to overcome this difficulty and support their employees with accurate, clear, and accessible information.

Financialization of Housing Lab: Prototype Phase Internship

The financial system that surrounds housing affordability is complex. It includes renters and owners, developers, investors, financiers and policy makers. It is influenced by market forces, economic policies, and individual beliefs and behaviours.

The Financialization of Housing Lab, led by Social Innovation Canada (CSI Institute) in partnership with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and MaRS, uses social innovation lab approaches and methodologies to identify opportunities, address barriers and co-develop solutions to enable adequate,
affordable housing for Canadians that have been a result of financialization.

Fireweed Food Co-op Process Evaluation and Implementation

The Fireweed Food Co-op is a non-profit community service cooperative whose mission is to reduce barriers to, and increase participation in the local food system for all people from producers to eaters. In early 2020, Fireweed Food Co-op initiated their pilot year for the Food Hub (a social enterprise project of theirs), which was also the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. This pilot year saw lower sales to restaurants than anticipated due to COVID-19’s impacts on that sector. To adapt, we focused more on supplying to retailers who have seen increases in sales due to COVID-19, and to community organizations, many of whom have received additional funding to provide meals to vulnerable individuals impacted by the pandemic. This has helped to bolster sales for our farmer producer members for the majority of whom the food hub was an additional source of revenue during COVID-19.

However, our findings from operating a pilot food distribution project through a pandemic have also shown us the instability of our market and globalized food systems, and the need to reinvest in our local food supply chain infrastructure.