Innovative Projects Realized

Knowledge Recombination and Alliance Strategy in Science-based Businesses

Project Objectives: 1. To identify the best practices in knowledge recombination by comparing science-based multinational corporations and start-up firms. 2. To suggest refinements in alliance strategies for science-based multinational corporations and start-up firms. 3. To uncover processes and organizational structures to productively exploit the confluence of biotechnology and nanotechnology by MNCs. Post Doctoral Fellow Name: Dr. Varkey Jon Thomas Motivation for Research: Successful organizations create new knowledge by recombining knowledge from multiple sources and disciplines (Grant, 1996; Kogut & Zander, 1992). Firms in science-based industries, such as biotechnology for example, create radical new products and processes based on scientific knowledge from multiple disciplines. Biotechnology firms, which originated in the 1980s (Zucker et al., 1998), are now incorporating nanotechnology to create new products and processes with the potential to transform an industry in search of new therapies (Sharp et al., 2011). For example, biotechnology based drugs, which until recently could not cross membrane barriers inside the human body, can now be designed on the nano-scale, leading to a new class of targeted drug delivery therapies, particularly in oncology. Recombining knowledge from diverse disciplines is inherently uncertain and requires large, consistent financial commitments over long periods of time.

Web based GUI for Data and Machine Learning Modeling

AI Dynamics is building an end to end data platform for managing datasets used in machine learning workloads. The end goal is to provide a web based interface where users can import datasets with a variety of different data types (audio, image, video, DICOM, DNA, RNA, amino acid, text, numbers) and add annotations in preparation for machine learning model generation. The platform further provides an analysis of data by displaying data summarization and visualization and uses heuristics to suggest various data cleaning possibilities. When a user accepts these suggestions, the platform prepares the data for machine learning. The platform then recommends initial deep learning architectures and provides a visual interface for reconfiguration including advice on creating the most appropriate architecture for the dataset on hand. The platform then helps train the models and analyzes the results. The user has an opportunity to make changes to the data cleaning and deep learning (DL) architecture and study its impact on the results. While the end-to-end platform is now in place, there are many additional data cleaning, data preparation, and reconfiguration of deep learning options that need to be explored and tested on different types of datasets.

Developing an Indigenous Land Trust Model

Land trusts are not-for-profit organizations that are able to hold and protect private lands for long-term conservation purposes. They are one approach for Indigenous nations to protect their traditional territories, especially in areas dominated by private land. Different Indigenous nations are interested in establishing their own land trusts but various legal, financial and administrative issues make it challenging for them to be effective and support reconciliation. Outcomes from this research will help to alleviate barriers and propose better land trust models that can support Indigenous rights and long-term conservation while helping to build a conservation economy. Conservation is becoming an important economic driver in Indigenous communities, with benefits such as ecotourism, conservation finance and nature-based solutions, ecosystem services payments and sustainable resource use being incorporated into conservation plans. The Nature Conservancy of Canada will benefit directly from this exploratory work through learning how to better support Indigenous nations through amending its own land trust practices, concepts, and models, as well as from the partnerships that will be developed through this work.

Development of Edible Casings for Vegan Meat Applications

Plant based or vegan meat applications in the marketplace is experience a large market push, as demand for vegan products increases. To produce vegan sausages, casings are typically produced out of seaweed polysaccharides (e.g., carrageenan). However, this has limitations as clients are demanding increased criteria, such as locally grown or made from local Saskatchewan ingredients. This research project aims to develop a plant-based edible casing for potential vegan meat applications. Specifically, the project looks at using hemp and pulse protein ingredients as the main biopolymer in the development of an edible film, along with other film additives (e.g., plasticizer, crosslinking agents, etc.) The film will have sufficient mechanical strength and stretchability to withstand processing, have good control over water migration and good colour. The films will be prepared by casting, and then tested out for potential in a vegan sausage application at the Food Centre.

A Novel Bone Anabolic Treatment for critical size defects in rats

Often fractures don’t heal properly or large defects must be repaired in the bone due to accidents or disease. The drugs and treatments that are currently used to repair fractures are only partially effective. Mesentech Inc has developed a new drug that has shown a strong effect on bone formation in rats. In this project, we will test the effect of this drug in a rat model of normal healing and challenging healing. We will assess the effect of this drug, to accelerate normal healing and enhance challenging healing. We expect that the new drug will make the bones heal faster and better. This will open new treatment approaches to improve fracture healing.

Stock Investment Model

Investing has never been easier, but the majority of individuals still are reluctant to invest and those that do still face a fundamental problem. “What should I invest in?” It’s because the investment journey for a retail investor is broken and Utradea is proven to solve it.

For an average investor, prior to making an investment, they would conduct the following steps: ideation, comprehension, validation, and execution from different platforms – each servicing a specific need and is overcomplicated for the average user. On top of that, it would take months before someone found their suite of tools, platforms, and brokerages they’d like to work just to place one confident trade.

Investors require investment models to support their investment decision and investment process. Models should be automated to an extent, allow investors to spend time review the results, as opposed to trying to source the data and calculate in outcomes themselves. This investment model will help retail investors have a better understanding of investing, investment strategies, and will improve their investment outcomes.

Innovative Investment Education

Innovative Investment Education

Investing has never been easier, but the retail investment journey is broken. This is even more difficult to answer because investors are overwhelmed with information, don’t trust most online sources, and it feels like it is a solo endeavor. An intuitive platform that supports retail investors through their entire investment journey, from ideation to validation to placing a trade. Utradea is a self-sustaining and balanced ecosystem of curated content, investment analytics, and social engagement

Overview: What is the innovation project about?
Developing an innovative model to educate investors through their investment process. We want to develop an educational model that provides new and intermedia investors with the information they need t feel confident through their investment journey. This will eb done through several touchpoints and features on the Utradea platform

What is the main goal of the company (a final product, software, knowledge in a specific area, etc)?
Create an intuitive and engaging model that provides investors with information they need to become better investors. It will be components and features throughout the platform that support this journey.

Innovation: We are leveraging learning/educational techniques and playing it to financial concepts in a way that is engaging and intuitive especially for new investors.

What methodology/techniques are to be used?
Feature Driven Development (FDD) – This is an agile approach to development It is customer-centric, iterative, and incremental, with the goal of delivering tangible software results often and efficiently.

Authority Score Optimization

For an average investor, prior to making an investment, they would conduct the following steps: ideation, comprehension, validation, and execution from different platforms – each servicing a specific need and is overcomplicated for the average user. On top of that, it would take months before someone found their suite of tools, platforms, and brokerages they’d like to work just to place one confident trade.

One of Utradea’s main value proposition is the ability for users to share investment ideas and content on the platform with other users. When a user contributes investment content to the platform, they are eligible to receive monetary compensation for their contribution. This is like YouTube where people can post videos and receive payouts based on the number of views, etc. Utradea has developed a proprietary payout model to reward these users, know as contributors, for their investment information contribution to the platform. The main component of this model is known as the Authority Score. The Authority Score tracks a number of metrics related to contributor and their content (i.e. length of content, quality of content, number of views, directional correctness, etc.) The Authority Score determines the payout a contributor is eligible to receive.

The purpose behind this model is to find a balance between incentivizing contributors to contribute content to Utradea, while reducing the total payout. The Authority Score model is preliminary in nature and needs to be tested, refined, and optimized to find the ideal balance between contributor regards and payout reduction.

Guys’ Healthy Living Atlantic Canada: Bridges Institute and Public Schools in Atlantic Canada

Bridges Institute is a counselling centre in Nova Scotia with a mission to help people practice healthy, loving and respectful relationships with their partners and families. Bridges seeks to prevent domestic violence. Changing traditional male role norms may not only increase healthy help-seeking behaviours but may play an upstream role in the prevention of domestic violence (Flood, 2019). Bridges Institute, in partnership with Nova Scotia’s Status of Women, and a faculty member from St Francis Xavier University, share a commitment to prevent domestic violence. This work has been supported over the last three years by Nova Scotia’s action plan to prevent domestic violence, with an understanding that engaging men and boys in normalizing help-seeking and building healthy masculinity and relationships can contribute to preventing violence against women and girls. A recent school-based pilot intervention successfully dropped traditional adolescent male norms for more than 100 boys in public schools across Nova Scotia. This partnership continues today with the roll out of a series of interventions for grades 5 to 12 boys’ in Nova Scotia. Our work is a direct opportunity to overcome the challenges described above and increase the positive mental health of boys from grades 5 to 10, increase the capacity and long-term sustainability of Bridges staff and school-based staff to successfully facilitate boys’ intervention programming, and potentially reduce domestic violence long-term. The intern’s key role will be to work with Bridges Institute and their partners to create a best practice model and manual.

Orion Business Development Plan

SkyIT is an innovator within the rapidly changing fleet management world. SkyIT has developed Orion as an enterprise fleet management solution specialized within the aviation industry. The SkyIT-Orion Software has leveraged its privileged access in the global aviation market to create a one-of-a-kind system that focuses on environmental impact mitigation and changing regulatory environments while reducing costs for fleet operators. SkyIT is the only providers of such a unique platform that match specific organizational challenges while putting Governance, Environment, and Sustainability at the center of the decision for our clients. SkyIT’s Orion technology has been engineered to be one of the most reliable integrated software systems on the market, optimizing and progressing fleet performance in the aviation industry. Orion’s primary goal is to increase efficiency through innovative and forward-thinking technology at a reduced cost. This is all made possible by actively responding to altering environmental regulations by monitoring and measuring GHG emissions.

SlicerAR: software platform for augmented reality medical visualization

The project’s aim is to develop SlicerAR, free open-source software infrastructure for rendering native scenes (medical images, anatomical structures, etc.) on the augmented reality devices within the 3D Slicer (www.slicer.org) medical image analysis platform, to allow end-user applications to display anatomical models overlaid on the real-world view.

Closing the (Para)diplomatic Gap: Explaining Variation in Global Paradiplomat

The research project seeks to understand why some regional governments (the governmental level below central states) are more internationally active than others, a phenomenon known as paradiplomacy. I hypothesize this variation is influenced by the presence/absence of a patron state. A patron state is a foreign state which acts as an advocate of a region’s paradiplomacy, opening doors to other foreign partnerships and opportunities for more intensive international activities.

To test this theory, I compare two regional governments (Flanders and Wallonia) with different levels of international activity and different approaches to foreign patronage: Flanders clearly has a patron (the Netherlands), while Wallonia has an absent or unidentified patron (likely France).

To investigate the link between the theorized cause (foreign patronage) and effect (the intensity of a region’s international activities), I will spend the research internship gathering and analyzing primary data from two main sources: (1) semi-structured interviews with Flemish, Walloon, Belgian, Dutch, and French policymakers connected to paradiplomacy; (2) archival material from the Belgian, Dutch, and French national archives. I expect to find evidence suggesting Flanders’ and Wallonia’s international activities are influenced by their different approaches to foreign patronage.