Innovative Projects Realized

Tailoring Microencapsulation Strategies for New Applications

The application of microencapsulation technology provides for separation between reactives and curatives, allowing 2-part systems such as adhesives, to be formulated and applied with the inherent stability of a 1-part system. Release and subsequent curing can be controlled to occur “on demand”, for example upon the mechanical fastening of a screw, which results in capsule rupture. This is often highly dependent on the careful design of a specific system. With the aim of capitalizing on new product opportunities that are not compatible with the current microencapsulation process, this project will involve a fundamental study of the encapsulation process and the role of materials sets in the properties of the resulting microcapsules. The effects of these material sets as well as processing conditions on the properties of the products including rate of curing, thermal and environmental stability, adhesive strength, and mechanical properties will be studied. This knowledge will lead to a new level of predictability in microcapsule formation, thereby enabling the rational design of microcapsules, which will in turn accelerate the development of new products.

Strategy Marketing Internship

StilwaterAI is a growing startup developing AI assistants to help businesses improve efficiency, decision-making, and productivity. While the company has strong technical capabilities and proven solutions, it faces challenges in reaching its target audience due to limited sales infrastructure, minimal brand visibility, and absence of a clear marketing strategy.
This project is designed to establish a scalable, data-driven sales and marketing framework that goes beyond day-to-day operations. Key focus areas include:
Targeted Marketing Campaigns: Identify high-potential customer personas and launch persona-specific campaigns using LinkedIn, email outreach, and content marketing.
AI-Enhanced Outreach: Implement AI-driven systems to segment audiences, personalize messaging, and automate follow-ups.
Standardized Sales Process: Build repeatable workflows with clear KPIs to improve lead conversion and shorten sales cycles.
Internal AI Assistant: Develop a single AI-powered tool to automate a repetitive internal task (e.g., lead capture, proposal creation, or content brand-conformance).

Expertise required: Marketing strategy, persona development, lead generation, CRM integration, and AI workflow development.

Optimisation numérique du site web de L’Interval

L’Interval est une coopérative de plein air située dans les Laurentides qui propose divers types d’hébergement (chalets, gîtes, auberge, terrains de camping) et de nombreuses activités en nature. Bien que très appréciée par ses visiteurs, l’organisation reste peu connue en ligne et son taux d’occupation varie fortement selon les saisons. Ce projet vise à accroître la visibilité de L’Interval et à faciliter les réservations en modernisant son site web. Les efforts porteront sur l’optimisation du référencement naturel, afin que l’organisation apparaisse plus facilement dans les moteurs de recherche, et sur l’amélioration de l’expérience utilisateur, pour simplifier la navigation et le parcours de réservation. Ces améliorations permettront d’attirer davantage de visiteurs, de fidéliser la clientèle et de soutenir la mission sociale de L’Interval, qui est de rendre l’accès au plein air plus inclusif et accessible pour tous.

Improving efficiency and complexity of reporting for epidemiological insights and disease trends

Globally, there have been challenges in pulling together data, analyses, epidemiological insights, and unusual infection disease trends into comprehensive and regular reporting, that support pharmaceutical and life sciences organizations with timely intelligence for decision making. BlueDot has the knowledge and expertise to bring together these insights in a highly visual, easily understandable regular reporting format, by leveraging proprietary and publicly available data. However, there are challenges in scaling across diseases and locations to meet the growing demand for this content, as well as limited resourcing to improve upon processes, analyses, and methods to deepen our insights and improve efficiency.
Through the previous MITACS project, BlueDot began developing the infrastructure for the regular reporting format, by automating data pipelines and repeatable analyses and processes; in this project the interns will be helping with continuing to build out automated repeatable analyses across diseases and locations and incorporate more complex analyses to meet the variety of needs of our clients.
This project has several challenges and opportunities that interns with subject matter expertise and experience with relevant data can help with and learn from. BlueDot has started to develop a foundation for the regular reporting project, and the epidemic intelligence team has previously greatly benefitted from student support. They can be helpful every step of the way – determining usability of new data sources for communication of disease trends, thinking about how the data can be used for generating actionable insights, producing these regular reports with support from senior team members, including more complex analyses, and improving the overall processes for report generation and automation.

L2M – Contactless InfraRed Sleep System

For this proposed project we aim to collaborate with the University of Toronto, Mitacs, and the partnered organization to further develop, refine, and bring to market our novel Contactless Infrared Sleep System (CIRSS). Our novel invention uses advanced specialized infrared imaging to measure key psychophysiological signals including heart rate, heart rate variability, stress, breathing rate, emotion, and more. To date, sleep, sleep health, and sleep pathology remain a growing area of research and public health with over 30% of adults reporting sleep problems. Our innovation addresses significant challenges current clinical monitoring system pose (e.g., accessibility, disruptive to natural sleep, often limited to clinical settings). Through this internship, I aim to improve our current prototype models based on stakeholder and expert feedback, apply for patents, commence large scale studies, and establish a startup company centred around our novel invention. Through this internship, we aim to establish a collaborative relationship with our partnered organization(s) to advance this novel, ground breaking, evidence based invention which has immense commercial and public potential.

L2M-A Triboelectric Nanogenerator-Based Strategy to Minimize Battery Dependence in Ocean Sensing

We are developing a self-powered ocean-energy system that reduces reliance on conventional batteries by using triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) to harvest energy from ocean waves, currents, and wind. Unlike many existing technologies that struggle with low-frequency and unpredictable motion, TENGs are lightweight, low-cost, and highly efficient at capturing irregular, low-frequency energy. With nearly 70 % of Earth’s surface covered by oceans, this vast and underused resource can power marine sensors, weather buoys, and environmental monitoring equipment where frequent battery replacement is costly and logistically difficult.

Security Investigation and Solutions to Online Advertising Fraud Problems

The market share of online advertising, also known as Internet advertising, has been increasing dramatically in recent years. On the other hand, malicious behaviors, such as click fraud, have degraded the effectiveness of online advertising. Via fraud clicks, a considerable amount of revenues have been lost to fraud conductors. For instance, based on a report published by PricewaterhouseCoopers, click fraud accounts for as much as 36% of all advertising clicks, which costs defrauded advertisers hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Due to the complexity of advertising networks, it is challenging to combat the online advertising fraud problems. To understand the technical landscape, this proposal will first conduct systematic research to investigate the problems. Following that, the proposed research will develop a fraud detection scheme and integrate the fraud detection and partner organization’s leading software protection technologies. With these new technologies, the partner organization will be able to develop new products and services which go toward enhancing the security of online advertising.

Self-Efficacy for Creative Innovators in Canada

The research project involves studying how incubator programs help artists become successful entrepreneurs in the music industry. Incubators are places where artists get training, support, and resources to build their careers. The interns will collect and analyze data to understand how these programs impact artists’ growth, creativity, and business skills. By examining these effects, the interns will learn about the music industry and gain hands-on experience in research. The expected benefit for the partner organization is to better understand what makes these incubator programs effective. This can lead to improved support for artists and help shape future programs to ensure they meet artists’ needs. Ultimately, the research aims to boost artists’ success and foster a more vibrant and inclusive music industry.

L2M – AI-Driven Cybersecurity for Ocean Critical Infrastructure

This project will develop an AI-powered cybersecurity system to help protect important ocean infrastructure, starting with offshore energy systems such as oil and gas, wind and tidal farms. These facilities are becoming a key part of Canada’s clean energy future but are also vulnerable to cyberattacks that could cause costly shutdowns or disruptions. The project will create tools that can detect unusual activity, test different attack scenarios in a safe digital environment, and suggest quick responses to keep systems running securely. For the partner organization, this work will provide a clear business model, a prototype system, and direct input from industry stakeholders, helping them move closer to offering a unique product that improves the safety, reliability, and trust in Canada’s offshore energy and ocean infrastructure.

Linguistic Cues for the Extraction and Synthesis of Speech in Extreme Noise

Malaspina Labs Inc. develops algorithms for enhancing speech in extremely noisy audio signals for real-time applications such as hearing aids and mobile devices. Many classical approaches to speech enhancement are not applicable to these domains because of severe hardware and psychoacoustics constraints such as far-field, single microphone use cases (no beamforming), <=10 millisecond latency between input and output (1/10th the time of a blink of an eye) due to bone conduction acoustic feedback, <=40 MIPs CPU processing requirements (1/100th of the processing power of a smartphone) due to battery life constraints, and <=100 Kilobyte algorithm memory requirements (1 millionth of the memory of a current generation smartphone) due to target device memory constraints. The proposed project aims to extend Malaspina’s proprietary algorithms by exploiting linguistic cues to infer or constrain the detection of speech components in extreme noise while respecting the constraints of the target devices.

Revitalisation socio-territoriale en contexte nordique (suite)

Le projet se poursuivra cet hiver dans la municipalité de Baie-Johan-Beetz, une petite communauté nordique d’environ 80 habitant·e·s située sur la Côte-Nord du Québec. Comme plusieurs villages éloignés, elle fait face à des défis importants : centralisation des services, pénurie de logements, vieillissement de la population et difficultés à attirer de nouveaux résident·e·s.
Depuis quelques années, la municipalité travaille à revitaliser son territoire grâce à différentes initiatives comme le développement résidentiel, le marketing territorial et des projets portés par la communauté. Toutefois, un manque de ressources humaines rend difficile le suivi et la mise en œuvre de ces projets.

Ce deuxième stage permettra de poursuivre le travail engagé à l’automne, en continuant de soutenir l’équipe municipale dans ses tâches quotidiennes (gestion du site web, archives, communication, etc.) tout en approfondissant l’analyse des projets de revitalisation. Cette nouvelle étape visera aussi à identifier des idées ou des partenaires inspirants ailleurs pour aider la municipalité à faire avancer certains dossiers.

Pour la municipalité, le stage représente un appui concret et un regard extérieur utile. Pour la stagiaire, c’est une occasion de renforcer ses compétences en géographie, en développement local et en collaboration avec un milieu nordique.

L2M – Clean Hydrogen and Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement through Bipolar Membrane Electrodialysis

This project aims to advance a clean technology that uses an electrodialysis process to remove acidity from seawater while producing green hydrogen. Using seawater and renewable electricity, the system removes excess acidity, encouraging ocean carbon uptake. The result is de-acidified seawater capable of absorbing more carbon dioxide, while simultaneously producing green hydrogen as a valuable co-product. This approach addresses ocean acidification, accelerates the natural carbon cycle, and generates a carbon-free fuel. Our modular, cost-effective system can integrate with existing ocean infrastructure for scalable climate and energy impact. It has potential applications in hydrogen-intensive industries such as coastal refineries, desalination plants, green steel, and shipping. With Canada’s vast coastline, renewable energy potential, and leadership in clean technology, this project aligns with national priorities by combining climate restoration with clean energy production, supporting Canada’s net-zero ambitions.