Innovative Projects Realized

Explore thousands of successful projects resulting from collaboration between organizations and post-secondary talent.

31620 Completed Projects

2978
AB
5221
BC
856
MB
696
NL
899
SK
9419
ON
9858
QC
98
PE
619
NB
1192
NS

Projects by Category

Kisik clean energy solar photovoltaic power with Sayisi Dene First Nation

Sayisi Dene First Nation is a fly-in remote northern Manitoba community wanting to shift to clean energy. Kisik Clean Energy focuses for this project on shifting this diesel energy-dependent First Nation communities to solar energy integrating energy storage with lithium-ion batteries for assisting with microgrid technology. The Sun will soon deliver the Sayisi Dene community’s power, and the diesel generators can switch off to reduce the diesel used per year. All the feasibility and engineering work are to be done by Kisik staff with their contractors, with an Indigenous doctoral student from the University of Manitoba assisting with community engagement. Community engagement will help the community build their capacity and interest in solar energy. Community programs to ensure local well-trained staff receive the jobs and have back-up supports requires some training programs. This program will not be limited to the clean energy champions but extend to the community and school-aged children.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Shirley Thompson

Student:

Partner:

Kisik Marketing & Communication Ltd.

Discipline:

Business

Sector:

Utilities

University:

University of Manitoba

Program:

Accelerate

Designing and Prototyping an IoT System for Management and Predictive Maintenance of the Corn Fields at the Ottawa Smart Farm at AREA X.O

A Smart Farm is being setup at the Invest Ottawa AREA X.0 test facility premises with a financial contribution from the City of Ottawa. A local producer has planted corn on a demonstration field as well as on two further fields within the Ottawa smart farm (OSF). OSF enjoys the partnership of several local and global partners ranging from local producers to global agricultural technology and technology enterprises such as FarmersEdge, Trimble, and Microsoft. OSF wants to identify efficient platforms that enable local farmers to monitor the farming parameters of interest in order to optimize costs and support corn-farming decisions. Finally, as there is a flow of (eventually big) data that will be collected into the farming parameters, identified platforms must use a complete data management solution that drives the optimization of the farm costs and decisions.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Iluju Kiringa

Student:

Partner:

Invest Ottawa

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Information and cultural industries; Management of companies and enterprises; Professional, scientific and technical services; Transportation and warehousing

University:

University of Ottawa

Program:

Accelerate

Predicting Hydrological Impacts on Remote Infrastructure Using Satellite Imagery and Machine Learning

After 17 months of closure due to flooding and washouts, Arctic Gateway Group (AGG) took over operation of Hudson Bay Railroad (HBR) in September 2018 and reopened 29 washouts in 54 days. Servicing northern First Nations communities and the Port of Churchill, one of the most important aspects of the HBR is safety. As a result, water monitoring and management remains a critical priority for the company. In particular, the section of rail line known as the ‘Herchimer’ remains an isolated and difficult portion of the track to monitor. The University of Winnipeg and Arctic Gateway Group endeavor to use drone and satellite technology to monitor water near rail lines in order to mitigate impacts on northern and remote infrastructure which is increasingly impacted by the melt of permafrost, a situation expected to increase with climate changes. The introduction of technology and processes that can mitigate impacts of water on northern and remote infrastructure stands to increase the economy in Canada’s northern and arctic regions by providing reliable infrastructure that has become impacted by global warming.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Joni Storie;Christopher Henry;Christopher D Storie

Student:

Partner:

Arctic Gateway

Discipline:

Earth science

Sector:

Transportation and warehousing

University:

University of Winnipeg

Program:

Accelerate

The Plundering Nation-State: Non-Persian Peoples, Environmental Exploitation, and the Rise of Modern Iran (1911-1978)

In my project, I aim to shed light on how the construction of modern nation state in Iran resulted in the environmental marginalization of the indigenous population across the country. The modern state in Iran, I contend, is a product of annexation and plundering of the resources and lands of indigenous populations and minority groups such as the Arabs, the Kurds, the Baluchis and so on. In fact, I aim to show how the Persian in Iran came to dominate the whole country, marginalized non-Persian communities and manipulate their natural resources in the course of twentieth century. Modernization policies and foreign-led developmental projects, especially in the context of the Cold War, have been of great importance for the Persian elites to marginalize the resources of the stateless population in Iran. in my project I aim to construct this history.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Ariel Salzmann

Student:

Partner:

University of Sussex

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Indigenous Affairs; Natural Resources; Water

University:

Queen's University

Program:

Globalink Research Award

Kitigay: Indigenous food systems research with Brokenhead Ojibway Nation, Manitoba

This research documents the social impact of an Indigenous food systems development and education program called Kitigay. Kitigay means to plant in Ojibway to describe planting food but also ideas and education. This proposed participatory research supports farm and wild rice paddy design, implementation, training, and food product marketing in the First Nation of Brokenhead Ojibway Nation. This research explores how community-led Indigenous food systems education and projects can meet communities’ needs and priorities to foster Indigenous food sovereignty and self-determination. The study will also analyze the impact of the farm and capacity building on the Kitigay participants’ food security, educational outcomes and sustainable livelihoods. A baseline survey will initially provide a needs analysis to help put in place the required supports for students. Six-month and post-program longitudinal surveys will follow up this baseline to see the program’s medium and long-term impacts on participants. This study will be part of the national longitudinal study of at-risk youth in work-integrated social enterprises. Finally, the research will analyze farm and rice paddy designs and conduct field trials to ensure that the regenerative approach chosen is successful.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Shirley Thompson

Student:

Partner:

Brokenhead Ojibway Nation

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Management of companies and enterprises

University:

University of Manitoba

Program:

Accelerate

Improvement in the quality of dissolving pulp

The dissolving pulp produced by Neucel Specialty Cellulose is a grade of pulp with high purity of alpha cellulose and used as the raw material to manufacture synthetic fibers, plastic materials, etc. The viscosity of pulp, one of the crucial factors, is undesirably decreased in the bleaching process, particularly in the hot alkali extraction stage, due to the so-called peeling reactions. Our research will minimize the peeling reactions with borol treatment, therefore will increase the pulp viscosity and upgrade the current product. The project will start with a lab study to investigate the borol treatment possibility and optimize treatment conditions. If positive results are confirmed, mill trials will follow to further optimize the condition and process design, monitor its effects on the pulp quality and overall production, and eventually integrate the borol treatment into the current mill operation system.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Yonghao Ni

Student:

Partner:

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

University of New Brunswick

Program:

Accelerate

School-based physical activity promotion in Mexican adolescents

The proposed research is a study to test the effectiveness of a health promotion campaign to increase physical activity delivered via WhatsApp to Mexican adolescents. We believe that adolescents who receive three weekly PA promotion messages via WhatsApp will increase their physical activity. Youth aged 15-17 will be recruited from three regional high schools. Changes in physical activity will be assessed with wrist accelerometers (i.e. fitbits) from the University of Guadalajara. Youth will be divided into two groups: 1) Control, which will receive unrelated messages 3x weekly (e.g., messages about recycling) and; 2) physical activity promotion 3x weekly. The two groups will be measured again at 12 weeks. I will take into account the age, sex, and gender of the youth and see if any of these factors influence the effects of the health promotion campaign. All COVID-19 precautions recommended by the local public health officials will be followed.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Lucie Lévesque

Student:

Partner:

Universidad de Guadalajara

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Education

University:

Queen's University

Program:

Globalink Research Award

Causal Reinforcement Learning in Robotics Applications

Our goal is to create an environment for the robots to participate in a cooperative situation and collaborate with other robots and human on cooperating task. Games like Hanabi and Block Stacking problems are good examples of goal-oriented and cooperation focused problem-solving tasks that will lead us to implement an algorithm that can be applied on intelligent systems.
In this project our aim is to create a real environment using our tools and equipment at Queen’s University Lab to cooperate with the robot arm (Sawyer) and reach the task goals. Considering the fact that human and robot interaction creates an uncertain environment we are looking to solve the issue by developing the algorithms with human causal learning abilities.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Sidney Givigi

Student:

Partner:

Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Education

University:

Queen's University

Program:

Globalink Research Award

Numerical optimization of the capture efficiency of domestic range hoods

Cooking activities are the main source of indoor pollutant emissions. Domestic range hoods are the most efficient technology to ensure a good indoor air quality. Running low efficient hoods at high air flowrates during and after cooking may ensure low concentrations of indoor pollutants in the kitchen, while being high energy demanding and noisy and leading to depressurize airtight. It is then of prime importance to develop numerical and experimental methodologies to first evaluate the capture efficiency of existing hoods and then to define new scenarios for future labelling purpose. A better insight into the flow dynamics and pollutant concentration is deemed necessary to achieve those objectives. This project aims mainly at developing a new optimization tool to propose the optimal range hood and fan configuration in terms of capture efficiency and to test experimentally this new design according to the existing standards.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Sébastien Poncet;Hachimi Fellouah

Student:

Partner:

Venmar Ventilation ULC

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

Université de Sherbrooke

Program:

Accelerate

Diversity and Abundance of Ground-dwelling Arthropods in Canadian Prairie Agroecosystems

This project aims to evaluate ground-dwelling arthropods which are present in restored semi-natural grasslands, preserved grassland environments, and prairie agricultural fields that contain prairie potholes. Insects and other arthropods collected with pitfall traps in these areas will be identified, pinned, and stored in an extensive collection. Specimens collected from the agricultural fields containing prairie potholes will provide an idea of arthropods that local and migratory waterfowl may feed upon in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR). Those collected from restored semi-natural and preserved grassland sites will be directly compared to determine if semi-restored grasslands are
effective at imitating natural environments. All specimens will be added to a large-scale database that can be used to perform statistical analyses to determine trends and relationships. Additionally, this project presents one of the largest general collecting efforts in Saskatchewan to date, facilitating large-scale understanding of arthropods present within the province.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Sean Michael Prager

Student:

Partner:

Ducks Unlimited Canada (MB)

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Agriculture and Food; Life Sciences (not health); Environmental Science and Technology

University:

University of Saskatchewan

Program:

Accelerate

The Intersection of Indigenous Knowledge and Western Science for Species at Risk and Endemics

Different ways of seeing the world will be sought to help inform how we plan to live with the world. Landscapes, species, all need their ‘part’ of the world and this project will aim to bring indigenous ways of knowing and being into how we give part of the world to them. Various First Nations in the Yukon will be co-producers of this project along every step of the way. The end goal being to create ways of protecting biological diversity and cultural diversity.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Fiona Schmiegelow

Student:

Partner:

Wildlife Conservation Society Canada (Whitehorse, YT)

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Agriculture; Other services (except public administration)

University:

University of Alberta

Program:

Accelerate

Brand Positioning Strategy using Hedonic Pricing Analysis: A Study of Facial Recognition and Identity Solution Market

The facial recognition and identity solution industry was a USD 3.4 billion market in 2019 which is growing at a rate of 14.5%. Unsurprisingly, this untapped market is a target market for different technology firms but such lucrative markets also have some issues due to the ‘young’ nature of the sector. The main difficulty is the absence of any established reference brand with which a new entrant firm can map their brand and position it in the market. Business analytics techniques can come in handy in such situations by developing a model that provides a snap-shot of product features that are contributing to the value brand in this competitive market. A firm can plan its strategic marketing initiatives such as brand positioning strategy, sales pitch preparation, and promotional activities according to the results of the analytics model to gain an early competitive advantage in this novel market.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Fredrik Odegaard

Student:

Partner:

Applied Recognition Corp

Discipline:

Business

Sector:

Information and cultural industries; Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

The University of Western Ontario

Program:

Accelerate

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Mitacs — Return on Innovation

Mitacs is funded by the Government of Canada, the Government of Alberta, the Government of British Columbia, Research Manitoba, the Government of New Brunswick, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Government of Nova Scotia, the Government of Ontario, Innovation PEI, the Government of Quebec, the Government of Saskatchewan, and the Government of Yukon.