Innovative Projects Realized

Biophysical characterization of synthesized fluorescently labeled biologically relevant phospholipids

The chemical synthesis of lipids with defined fatty acid side chains in terms of chain length and the degree of saturation/unsaturation is important to provide high-quality products for life science research. When dyes are added to the lipids, they can be used to a variety of biomedically relevant experiments by measuring be color and amount of signal collected in a light detector. Moreover, very important lipids need to be isolated and purified from natural sources. One class of these lipids, called plasmalogens, has become very important to better understand brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
The intern will perform detailed analyses of these synthetic and isolated lipids. These studies will provide a better understanding of the structure and function of lipids and their role in biomembranes. The partner organization will benefit from a series of optimized protocols to produce biologically highly relevant molecules with the potential for new markets.

Salts & West Growth Strategy Project

This project is aimed at supporting Salts & West (S&W) in improving its online presence and exposure, social media marketing, and customer service strategies which is expected to have a positive impact on sales and growth. An increase in sales and growth will result in the need for more help (i.e. job creation) and thus a ripple effect on the local economy and individual income levels. The project will involve (but not limited to) partnering and collaborating with other businesses and organizations, researching of best practices and the developing of guidelines, procedures and staff training and customer service manual for the company.

County of Lennox & Addington

The County of Lennox & Addington is an upper tier municipality located in Eastern Ontario. Their offices are located in Napanee, ON. The Lennox and Addington Economic Development Office is a team of Economic Development professionals who focus on improving the economy of the County. They provide business coaching to help their businesses succeed, encourage new business development and attract visitors and residents to ensure a strong and diversified economic base. COVID-19 has created many challenges for the businesses and economy of Lennox and Addington County. To assist with the County’s economic recovery and to determine new opportunities, Lennox & Addington County launched an Economic Development Task Force. The Task Force focuses on four main sectors of the economy: Manufacturing/Trades, Agri-Food/Beverages, Tourism/Residential Attraction, and Retail/Restaurants. Each sector is represented by Lennox and Addington business leaders. These sectors represent the four largest sectors in the County and are also sectors that have faced unique challenges and opportunities as a result of the pandemic.

Criterium Group project

The project will support the Social Impacta & Digital Transition initiatives of United Way of Calgary and Area (UWCA). It will enable UWCA to optimize business processes & move away from paper to a digital for donations. Currently, most donations are made with a paper pledge form that is touched multiple times and is subject to inefficiencies & error. The team will use half their time to strategy development for other clients and the other half supporting UWCA.

Project Delivery Associate

AltaML is looking for a highly motivated Project Delivery Associate to help in the planning and delivery of transformative projects to address business problems for our clients using predictions and machine learning.

Vog App Developers – Marketing Coordinator

Strategic analysis was completed over the past 3 weeks that increasing brand recognition will be an important factor in Vog’s continued growth. The intern will work with the Digital Marketing Consultant to review the existing brand story and develop a new narrative that increases market competitiveness. In the post-COVID world businesses need to have trusted digital solutions to interact with customers and increase business efficiencies. It’s crucial that when they look to implement new technologies, Vog is top of mind. The intern will work with the digital marketing consultant to write blog posts and create a brand narrative around Vog. This will primarily include writing blog posts on upcoming issues, technologies, and industry events, and narratives about Vog’s past successes.

The student will also have the opportunity to support on client project work to gain a better understanding of the industry and development process.

Enterprise4Good – Social Media Marketing Intern (1)

COVID is assumed to benefit the reusable marketplace. As homeowners are stuck in their homes there is a resurgence of renovation activity which would benefit the Good4U store. In addition, when money is tight there are now even more purchasers in the marketplace looking for bargains to save money. As mentioned previously, instead of profits benefited an owner, proceeds from the Good4U store will benefit the quality of life for some of the most vulnerable people in our community…children with disabilities and seniors with memory care issues.

Privacy Analysis of Mobile Analytics

Many companies require the gathering of user behavioural data from mobile devices and device applications in order to: i) improve their products, ii) monitor their systems, iii) engage in targeted marketing, etc. Significant privacy concerns exist with the measurement and storage of such data. In general, existing research highlights that data anonymization can be insufficient to fully address these risks, i.e. that anonymized data can be clustered and correlated with external sources to reveal private information. The emerging legal and statutory frameworks around privacy entail that there is beginning to be a strong need to be able to quantify privacy issues in terms of their resultant business risks, as well as a need to be able to properly restructure business solutions to mitigate these risks.

Enterprise4Good – Social Media Marketing Intern (2)

COVID is assumed to benefit the reusable marketplace. As homeowners are stuck in their homes there is a resurgence of renovation activity which would benefit the Good4U store. In addition, when money is tight there are now even more purchasers in the marketplace looking for bargains to save money. As mentioned previously, instead of profits benefited an owner, proceeds from the Good4U store will benefit the quality of life for some of the most vulnerable people in our community…children with disabilities and seniors with memory care issues.

Evaluation of pollinator restoration and management in The Meadoway

The purpose of this project is to identify bees and evaluate plant-pollinator networks based on the biomonitoring surveys conducted at the Meadoway in 2020 in partnership with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA). The aim of these surveys is to develop a baseline understanding of bee diversity in the Meadoway and evaluate the impacts of restoration, as well, to improve these practices for restoration by TRCA into the future. The intern will conduct timed bee surveys at the Meadoway at sites 1-3 years post restoration and on specific flowers. Bees will be identified to species level and used to develop a synoptic collection for the Meadoway. The plant-pollinator networks will allow the intern to rank plants present in the Meadoway based on attractiveness and value to wild bees. This information will be available to TRCA for their ongoing projects that target biodiversity conservation in public spaces.

Measuring and Quantifying Mobile User Quality of Experience

The objective of this research is to develop an on-device, quality of experience (QoE) measurement suite, for Android based mobile devices. As mobile devices become the predominant method with which the world accesses the internet, it becomes increasingly important to understand the complex interaction between applications, mobile OS’s, the networks they run on, and the behaviours of a user base at large. Doing so with mobile devices raises a set of issues that aren’t present with traditional PC’s, and as such haven’t been explored thoroughly. This process of understanding will facilitatemaintaining, and improving upon, the end user’s derived value through their experience with their mobile device. The suite to be developed here, and the work that will go into developing it, will aide inevaluating the degree to which the aforementioned information can be collected.

Mobile Hearing Tests

This project is to focus on building an application which can be used to perform a hearing test on a mobile device (such as an iPhone or iPad). The intern is to implement a white-label (brand-free and easily reusable) application which can be easily distributed by doctor’s offices and hearing centers with their specific brand and information. The intern will use mathematical techniques to help gather and analyze user information more efficiently in order to provide a fast, accurate assessment of the user’s hearing and direct the user for further diagnosis if necessary. The benefit to the partner organization is the creation of an application which with minimal modification can be marketed to hospitals, hearing centers, and other medical-related fields. In addition the company will gain valuable benefits from working with academic partners such as access to sophisticated analysis and simulation software (such as MATLAB).