Innovative Projects Realized

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

13270 Completed Projects

1072
AB
2795
BC
430
MB
106
NF
348
SK
4184
ON
2671
QC
43
PE
209
NB
474
NS

Projects by Category

10%
Computer science
9%
Engineering
1%
Engineering - biomedical
4%
Engineering - chemical / biological

Bacterial biosensors for detection of naphthenic acids and as high throughput bioremediation screening tools

Extracting oil from the Athabasca oil sands generates large volumes of processed water that is stored in vast tailings ponds. Due to the accumulation of numerous organic compounds, this water needs to be monitored and eventually treated. Bioremediation is the use of bacteria to degrade the contaminants in the wastewater and is a low cost, feasible approach to treat large volumes of water. This proposal aims to develop a new biosensor technology to detect naphthenic acids in water, one of the primary chemicals of concern. The biosensors consist of engineered bacteria that produce light (bioluminescence) in the presence of naphthenic acids. Compared to current methods, biosensors are rapid, simple, low cost and high throughput. Biosensors will also be used to screen thousands of bacterial isolates to identify bacteria and the genes that are used to degrade naphthenic acids. Our goal is to improve our understanding of using bacterial bioremediation to clean up the water stored in the tailings ponds.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Shawn Lewenza;Shawn Lewenza

Student:

Tyson Bookout

Partner:

Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.

Discipline:

Biology

Sector:

University:

Program:

Accelerate

A Toolkit for Analyzing Online Conversations for Solutions Based Policy Development

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2014 Synthesis Report states that “substantial [greenhouse gas] emissions reductions over the next few decades can reduce climate risks in the 21st century and beyond, increase prospects for effective adaptation, reduce the costs and challenges of mitigation in the longer term, and contribute to climate-resilient pathways for sustainable development.” Yet, despite this imperative, energy conversations in Canada have become fragmented and polarized (Kevins & Soroka, 2018; Lefsrud et al., 2015) for renewable (Hoberg, 2019) and non-renewable energy (Hoberg, 2018) alike. This research examines these fragmented narratives by developing (a) several curated data sets for use in text-analysis research, (b) automated methods and tools for multi-faceted document-similarity estimation and document clustering, and (c) thematic mapping and evolution analysis of textual data streams for incumbent energy sources (hydro, oil and gas, coal, nuclear) and nonincumbent energy sources (solar, wind, geothermal, biomass) by geography. Our objective is understanding (d) the vocabularies, speakers, interlinking of conversations, and associated topics/themes by geography that can (e) draw these narratives together to support solutions-based policy conversations

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Faculty Supervisor:

Lianne Lefsrud;Eleni Stroulia;Denilson Barbosa;Joel Gehman

Student:

Candelario Alfonso Gutierrez Gutierrez;Andrea Whittaker

Partner:

Canadian Energy & Climate Nexus

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Alberta

Program:

Accelerate

Assessing the impact of restoring semi-natural habitat on farmland on agricultural productivity

The goal of this project is to understand how habitat enhancements, such as semi-natural or natural native managed hedgerows, grass margins, and grassland set-asides impact both pollination and pest control in berry fields in the Delta, BC region. Our hypothesis is that the inclusion of these natural habitats will promote beneficial insect diversity. Beneficial insects include pollinators, such as bumble bees, and natural enemies, such as ladybugs that feed on aphids. Through the collaboration between UBC and DF&WT, we hope to provide our partner organization with up-to-date research to better inform their associated berry growers that will allow them to better manage their farms in such a way that will benefit both production and nature.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Claire Kremen;Juli Carrillo

Student:

Matthew Tsuruda;Carly McGregor

Partner:

Delta Farmland and Wildlife Trust

Discipline:

Environmental sciences

Sector:

University:

University of British Columbia

Program:

Accelerate

Probiotic Reduction of Biofilm and Viral and Microbial Spread in Built Environments through Air Purification and Humidity Control

Origen Air and the University of Victoria (UVic) will construct a controlled test environment inside a seven-meter shipping container with a greenhouse bio filter installed on the roof. It will connect to a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system servicing the interior of the shipping container. The system will include anti-viral surfactants and air purification/humidity control technologies, including probiotic fogging to destroy biofilms, genetically engineered pothos ivy biofiltration, activated carbon filtration, ultraviolet disinfection, and HEPA particle filtration. This experimental research initiative will focus on the reduction of viral transmission through controlled humidity, air purification, and surface sanitation to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and other viruses.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Phalguni Mukhopadhyaya

Student:

Bohan Shao;Sarah Wenqin Qi

Partner:

Origen Air

Discipline:

Engineering - mechanical

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

University of Victoria

Program:

Accelerate

Concrete Masonry Unit Geometry for Improved Structural Efficiency, Sustainability, and Constructability

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario reports that the masonry rate group cost per insurance claim is 2.44 times that if all other construction class rate groups. Manual lifting of concrete masonry units is required for masonry construction, and the pay masons receive is often commensurate with the number of units laid per day. Researchers have shown that, when lifting concrete masonry units, lower back compression forces in masons exceed the specific safe action limit despite the fact that the manual lifting load cutoff is not exceeded. This suggests that some handling techniques are unsafe, but can be mitigated if the weight of the units can be decreased. A change to unit geometry can also reduce thermal bridging and increase insulation power and so improve the sustainability of masonry construction. A re-examination and revision of concrete masonry unit geometry is therefore proposed.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Lisa R Feldman

Student:

Olga Savkina

Partner:

Canada Masonry Design Centre

Discipline:

Engineering - civil

Sector:

Construction and infrastructure

University:

University of Saskatchewan

Program:

Accelerate

The Auxilium Network

High-altitude balloons are a promising technology for providing high-speed wireless internet in remote regions of Canada. In this project, we propose a simple, cheap and effective distributed control mechanism for the design of air-based wireless internet systems for deployment in remote regions of Canada. This technology could facilitate the availability of fast and reliable internet connection in remote regions of Canada. The main motivation is to improve the efficiency of the response to crisis situations such as the recent Covid-19 pandemic. The possibility of an outbreak of COVID-19 could be devastating in remote communities. The proposed technology is needed to improve emergency response to remote regions.
The problem considered is to force a fleet of balloons to achieve a formation that maximizes the connectivity for every user within a fixed geographical region, while maintaining ATC separation criteria from any other controlled or uncontrolled aircraft or airship. The balloons are assumed to be floating passively on wind currents in the stratosphere. To ensure connectivity, the balloons must be arranged in a formation that ensures that every user is close to at least one balloon. A model-free distributed control and optimization approach is developed for the design of the balloon formation control system.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Martin Guay

Student:

Telema Harry;Judith Ogwuru;Mohammad Jahvani

Partner:

Auxilium DMC

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Queen's University

Program:

Accelerate

Design and development of a hybrid aerial and ground robotic solution for environmental disinfection using ultra-violet radiation

Surface sanitization in public environments is of critical importance to reduce and limit the spread of pathogens such as covid-19. Studies show the RNA of the coronavirus can persist on a surface from few hours to a few days depending on the type of the surface. Hospitals, grocery stores, public transport vehicles, airports and airplanes are among places where continuous cleaning of different surfaces is required; however, the current methods such as manual cleaning with disinfectant wipes are limited in frequency and effectiveness. The problem is further exacerbated considering the high risk to the staff and shortage of supplies. Ultra-violet irradiation is a proven disinfection technology to inactivate microorganisms by damaging their DNA/RNA. In this project, we aim to take advantage of autonomous aerial and ground solutions to improve the agility of the disinfection process of public environments. To achieve this, we will design and develop unmanned aerial and ground vehicles capable of carrying UV emission devices that operate cooperatively and autonomously to disinfect indoor environments. The outcome of this project will significantly reduce the community spread of the covid-19 by increasing the frequency and efficiency of surface disinfection in high-risk public environments.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Shahriar Mirabbasi

Student:

Alex Dee;Haoqing Yang

Partner:

Avestec Technologies Inc

Discipline:

Sector:

University:

University of British Columbia

Program:

Accelerate

Intelligent Production Optimization in Real-Time by Implementing Hybrid Data-Physics Simulation

In day to day operations, oil producers need to optimize their production workflow to reduce operational costs. Building a physics-based reservoir model is costly and time-consuming and is not suitable to generate and compare many scenarios. The alternative procedure, Data-Driven Model, is fast enough; however, testing and validating the model is controversial. In this project, a hybrid data-physic framework will be developed, which meets the requirement to quantitatively describe the physical behavior of the reservoir and also predict its mechanism statistically. The model is fast and can be feed by real-time data and create many potential operational scenarios and recommend the most favorable ones.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Roman J Shor;Roberto Aguilera

Student:

Raya Matoorian

Partner:

PetroGem

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

University:

University of Calgary

Program:

Accelerate

Discovery of ligands for disrupting the SARS-CoV-2 interactome with human proteins using multipronged genetically encoded technologies

The proposed project will accelerate the drug development capabilities of 48Hour Discovery INC (48HD) to find high affinity drug candidates for treatment of COVID. The deliverable for this project will be high potential new drug candidates from 48HD’s drug discovery pipeline for COVID and other targets using unique molecular libraries of 48HD. The libraries are stable and resilient to stimulated gastrointestinal conditions and thus, the discovery platform will provide potentially oral and bioavailable therapeutics. In addition, 48HD has COVID collaborations with two research groups at the University of Alberta as well as with a number of companies in Canada and the United States in the who also have COVID related drug discovery programs underwa

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Faculty Supervisor:

Ratmir Derda;Matthew Macauley

Student:

Arunika Ekanayake

Partner:

48Hour Discovery

Discipline:

Chemistry

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of Alberta

Program:

Impacts of invasive European Cattail on Invertebrate Communities in the Fraser River estuary

Estuaries are important ecosystems which provide us with many benefits, some of which include storing carbon, dampening the impacts of rising sea levels, and are areas of high biodiversity. The Fraser River estuary in the lower mainland of British Columbia is seeing alteration from human presence, including the introduction of invasive species. One invasive species of interest is the European Cattail (Typha angustifolia) and its hybrid TyphaXGlauca. It grows in dense stands where it outcompetes native vegetation, but we don’t know what impact this is having on sediment dwelling insects and crustaceans, which are important food sources for residents of the estuary such as salmon. In partnership with Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC), this study will investigate the differences in invertebrate communities between invasive and native vegetation dominated stands. The information gained from this study can be used by DUC to help further their restoration of the estuary for juvenile salmonids.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Kim Ives

Student:

Jan Lee

Partner:

Ducks Unlimited Canada

Discipline:

Environmental sciences

Sector:

University:

British Columbia Institute of Technology

Program:

Accelerate

Mobile Applications to Facilitate Physician-to-Physicain Consultation

In the Nova Scotia healthcare system (and indeed across Canada), waitlists remain a major problem, particularly with regards to access to specialty care services. Virtual Hallway is a novel telehealth solution to this problem, providing an online platform which allows for rapid doctor-to-doctor communication with the goal of fast-tracking and improving patient care and reducing waitlist times.
The goal of this project is to design and apply the first prototype of a mobile application for the Virtual Hallway platform. This would allow for even more rapid telephone consultations between doctors right on the doctors’ own cell phones. This design follows all Canadian healthcare laws and prioritizes personal health information safety and security accordingly. It would work by allowing family doctors to log in on their cell phone, choose which specialist they need to talk to, and to book a date/time that is convenient to both them and the specialist. It also takes care of all the documentation and billing for both the family doctor and the specialist so they can focus on the patient care while also being appropriately paid for their work.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Rita Orji

Student:

Ashfaq A Zamil Adib

Partner:

Virtual Hallway

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Health care and social assistance

University:

Dalhousie University

Program:

Accelerate

Advanced coupled geomechanical tool for design and performance analysis of infrastructure affected by frost action

In this project, an advanced coupled geomechanical Finite Element (FE) numerical code will be developed to address the limitations of existing modeling tools in investigating the performance of infrastructure affected by frost action. For this purpose, a novel geomechanical constitutive model will be developed in the framework of the critical-state model for rate-dependent deformations of soils subjected to frost action and permafrost degradation. The constitutive models to be developed will be implemented in an in-house FE software. The implemented model and the robustness of the multiphysics FE code will be verified/validated by experimental data as well as field measurements conducted by Manitoba Infrastructure, Manitoba Hydro, KGS Group, and other industry and provincial collaborators to monitor the integrity of infrastructure subjected to frost action. An AI-based framework to predict the ground surface temperature from the atmospheric projections and under different climate change scenarios will be employed as an add-in in the software. Furthermore, the modeling features related to popular mitigation strategies such as low-albedo surfacing and thermosiphons will be included.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Pooneh Maghoul

Student:

Marziyeh Fathalikhani;Dana Amini Baneh

Partner:

GeoSustain Inc

Discipline:

Engineering - civil

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of Manitoba

Program:

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