Innovative Projects Realized

Empire Company (Sobeys) Strategy Internship

Empire Company is headquartered in Nova Scotia. They average $26.6B in annual sales, and break up their business operations into two categories: 1) Food Retailing (Sobeys, Farm Boy, FreshCo, Thrify Foods) & Related Businesses (Lawtons Pharmacy, Fuel & Convenience (Sobeys Express), Wholesale, and Liquor) and 2) Investments/Operations. The purpose of this project is to re-imagine the delivery of Empire’s services through COVID-19. This project will specifically focus on the Fuel & Convenience (F&C) related business. How do we re-imagine the F&C business in the midst of a pandemic, to become the number one F&C provider throughout the nation? Convenience stores are notoriously known for their over-priced, unhealthy, and unappealing appearance. How can we flip this orthodox, and create a convenience store never seen before in Canada? Through this project, I will create a strategic plan for the growth and value-creation for the F&C business. This includes a size-up, strategy, and execution development phase as outlined in detail in the proposal. This also includes creating a plan of action (with risks/challenges/mitigation/timeline) to put this strategy into action in the fall. With 350 current locations, we aim to grow the F&C business to every province.

Co-op Marketing and Communications Assistant

The COVID-19 crisis is compounding many of the mental health challenges the vulnerable youth in our program already face. We, and our school district partners, have seen an increase in anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, addictions, and trauma. A number of families have lost income and are experiencing food insecurity, heightened anxiety, and hopelessness. In response, Take a Hike pivoted: We moved all programming online and proactively engaged youth.
As a result, we have a new online offering. An intern would add valuable skills, time, and energy to our team and assist us in moving forward with planned marketing and communications projects.

Below is a (shortened) list of activities the intern could be involved with and develop. We would be happy to tailor the scope of the internship to meet the ability of the intern.
– Google Analytics data collection and reporting
– Search engine keyword research to optimise new content on website and reach our key audiences with information regarding mental health services available across BC
– Target audience research and benchmark research – i.e. compiling data around best times to post on each platform for our various stakeholders
– Updating website content for SEO. We use Squarespace and it is quite straightforward to TOBECONTINUED

Examining the watershed-scale spatial distribution of cold water refugia in an Atlantic salmon river basin

The Atlantic salmon is unable to regulate its body temperature, and is therefore at risk from the negative effects of climate change. During summer heatwaves when river water exceeds 23°, Atlantic salmon become thermally stressed and move into small cold water patches in order to survive. Thesepatches are known as ‘thermal refugia’ and are thought to be significant in allowing salmon to survive increased water temperatures. Although thermal refugia have been studied in the past, previous research has only looked at the behaviour of fish around isolated cold water patches, and no-one hasconducted a detailed study analysing the distribution of thermal refugia within an entire watershed and their effect on salmon populations.

Marketing Management

OneCup AI specializes in the marriage of artificial intelligence and agriculture. We are creating a platform for ranchers to track, identify and monitor their livestock with the click of a button. The agricultural sector is a traditionally non-technology based industry, we need to show them how BETSY our AI can enhance their lives, productivity and bottom line. I am looking for a student who is passionate about marketing and finding the best solutions and platforms to showcase BETSY. The ability to research and write relevant media content, organize and deploy internal newsletters and communication with channel partners is crucial. We will be working with a wide base of operators who are often not as technologically advanced, who may also have reluctance to adding new technologies to their businesses. We need to appeal to the entire food value chain at an individual level. This person will be in charge of updating social media channels, developing print and ad materials and sourcing the best and most cost effective advertising channels. A self starter, with a positive attitude and a willingness to step outside the box and assist in the launch of this revolutionary product is essential.

Digital Marketing Coordinator

COVID-19 has changed our world irrevocably and affecting families, communities, and businesses and Major Tom has been no exception. Major Tom has always enjoyed working with UBC students, they bring fresh perspectives and enthusiasm to our agency. They work closely with our company founders and president, giving them a unique learning experience and providing valuable industry insight. We have pivoted strategically as a business working on new initiatives including an e-commerce store (Tin Can Shop) and a number of client sprint projects. These initiatives give students an opportunity to work on something new, to learn what it means to adapt a business model, and to see how an agency can react to a changing climate while planning for a successful future. They will have every opportunity to voice their ideas, share their perspectives, and learn how to strategically analyze business opportunities.

Equity Research Intern

Interns are important to the future success of our company as they will contribute to the workflow and output necessary to fulfill an influx of client requests, ultimately reducing customer churn during uncertain financial and economic times. Interns will work directly with Analysts across sectors and gain in-depth knowledge of the financial markets in the US and Canada.

Business Management Intern

OneCup AI specializes in the marriage of artificial intelligence and agriculture. We are creating a platform for ranchers to track, identify and monitor their livestock with the click of a button. The ideal candidate will have the ability to create a detailed business analysis, outlining any problems and possible solutions, assist with the budgeting and forecasting given that we will be developing and launching BETSY IoT into the commercial market in the fall. Business Management intern will be in charge of the business structure, financial analysis, researching grants, business partnerships, and grant writing as well as assisting in the investor and beta location relations in advance of the fall commercial launch.

GLJ Ltd. – Business Development Intern

GLJ has been working on several market entry strategies internationally and into other areas of the energy industry. However, do to the COVID-19 pandemic, that work has been stunted. It is our desire for the intern(s) to identify methods in order to overcome this obstacle. Though we have been a successful company for decades in the oil and gas industry, entry into new markets requires business insights and acumen than are not a position of strength.

Cebas Fluid Solver

This project seeks to develop a fluid solver that is capable of simulating the interaction between low viscosity fluids and solid objects, such as pouring down water from a water pitcher onto the ground. Fluid effects such as splashing water are widely used in video game and film industry. As a visual effect solution provider, Cebas Visual Technology is very interested to develop fluid solver, and such a development experience is beneficial for the intern student.

Musculoskeletal Model Development and Biomechanical Evaluation of the Levitation Knee Brace

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a debilitating musculoskeletal disease affecting approximately 1/3 of Canadians over the age of 25. Knee braces are often prescribed for OA patients to restore joint function and reduce pain in an attempt to avoid or delay knee replacement surgery. Most braces are designed to offload one side of the knee, however, more than 95% of knee OA patients have OA that affects more than one compartment of their joint. Spring Loaded Technology has designed the Levitation™ “Tri-Compartment Unloader” knee brace to reduce forces in all three compartments of the knee. This study aims to determine how effectively the brace offloads the knee joint by developing and using a musculoskeletal model along with several data analysis techniques. These evaluations of the Levitation knee brace are needed to prove efficacy of the device, which will contribute to growth and market success for Spring Loaded Technology.

Blockchain-based secure transaction logging system

Smart-city platform developed by B-CITI company stores sensitive information of platform users (citizens) in a database to provide them services. The proposed research project’s aim is to build a system that records each user interaction with the database. The records are immutable and, easily linkable and traceable. The records can be used as forensics evidence for proving and validating the integrity of the data in the database. For this, we use permissioned blockchain that is managed by multiple untrusted entities to generate trust in the system. The entities include B-CITI, city corporation and citizens. Consensus mechanism among the untrusted entities guarantees trusted execution of the system. The developed system is used by B-CITI in their future implementations of the platform.

Augmenting Movies with Interactive Narrative Agent

Netflix recently released an interactive movie that brings the concept of interactive media from video games into movie form. In contrast to the passive viewing experience with conventional movies, the interaction brings viewers into the movie scenes for an immersive experience. However, existing interactive movies are still scripted. Though there have been proposals towards freeform conversational for games and agent-directed interaction, viewers are still not in control of the story development. In this project, our objective is to transform characters in a movie into interactive objects offering viewers a real interactive experience, neither pre-scripted nor pre-filmed. We will propose and develop a self-learning avatar shadowing a selected character to learn the story from the perspective of the shadowed character. We will augment a movie with the avatar to offer interaction with a character. This proof-of-concept will shed light on turning all characters alive to offer viewers unlimited interactive experience.