Innovative Projects Realized

Anisotropie de l’aluminium suivant les chemins de déformation et taux de recristallisation

Afin de contrôler les propriétés mécaniques des pièces en aluminium, il est nécessaire de mieux comprendre l’effet de la déformation et de la recristallisation dans le processus de fabrication. Le présent projet documentera l’anisotropie de l’aluminium suivant différents chemins de déformation et taux de recristallisation. Le stagiaire pourra ainsi être initié à différentes techniques de caractérisation et contribuera à alimenter une base de données.

Rare Disease Detection

This project aims to improve a tool that helps doctors detect rare diseases by making it easier to find important information in patient records. The intern will work on creating a system that uses advanced computer models to organize and retrieve data from electronic medical records (EMR). By doing this, the tool will become more efficient at identifying signs of rare diseases. The intern will be guided by a team of experienced researchers, ensuring high-quality work and valuable learning. The expected benefit to the partner organization is a more powerful and accurate tool for detecting rare diseases, which can lead to better patient care and outcomes.

Addressing Basis Risk in Agricultural Index-Based Insurance

The objective of the proposed research is to design and implement an innovative IBI scheme capable of minimizing basis risk. Forage insurance will be used as an example to empirically examine the effective implementation of the IBI, through establishing an adequate relationship between the weather index and forage yield. Therefore, a second objective of the proposed research is to help increase producer demand for forage insurance. Using long term data on forage yield and insurance coverage, panel data econometrics and statistical methods will be used to assess the relationship between the index and the loss exposure. The research will consider alternative contract structures, such as multiple variable indices that are capable of incorporating extended dry periods during the critical growth phase, in addition to excess rainfall, for example. Further, other contract structure considerations will include analysis on spatial basis risk and the corresponding allocation of coverage to multiple rainfall stations. The feasibility of selective forage insurance schemes will be tested, through field experiments, group discussions and key informant interviews. This problem is of significant importance to the partner organization, Guy Carpenter & Company, as well as to producers, provincial crop insurance companies, federal and provincial governments, and reinsurers.

ESROP – Osaka University – Developing a Robot Manipulator to Cut Plant Leaves for Agricultural Research

This project focuses on developing a robotic arm manipulator capable of accurately cutting plant leaves for genetic analysis, improving the efficiency and precision of agricultural plant research. In current studies, researchers must manually cut leaves from hundreds of plants, a time-consuming process that introduces inconsistencies due to varying plant conditions over time. Automating this task will allow for faster, more reliable, and standardized sample collection, reducing human error and ensuring that all plants are processed under the same conditions.

To achieve this, the project will utilize an RGB-vision based system to help the robot accurately identify and target plant stems, which are too thin to be reliably detected by standard depth sensors. The robotic manipulator will need to operate with high accuracy, ensuring precise cuts without damaging the plant or disrupting the overall workflow.

By advancing robotic automation in life science research, this project will contribute to more efficient agricultural studies, particularly in understanding plant responses to drought. The work will also help improve laboratory automation by developing new methods for robotic control and motion planning. This collaboration will provide valuable insights into automation for plant science and precision agriculture, benefiting research efforts in both robotics and biology.

Bio-Vault 3: Design and prototyping of a full-scale low-embodied carbon structure using biochar-based composites

Building materials made from bio-based feedstock such as biochar requires less embodied energy and has carbon sequestration capacity. Their use in construction reduces the overall Global Warming Potential (GWP) of building materials, facilitates environmental repair, and reduces climate impacts from environmentally intensive industry sectors such as agriculture and aquaculture. Bio-based composites are typically low in strength. As a corrective, a method was investigated in a previous work to develop structural strength through intelligent planning, execution and material characterization by designing and physically prototyping a small-scale geometrically optimized structure using biochar-based composites. The work demonstrated a prove of concept that biochar-based composites can be used for structural applications. This proposed study will refine the means and method and apply them to a full-scale construction.

The general objective is to design and physically prototype a full-scale low-embodied carbon structure using biochar-based composites. The proposed methodology will analyze structural forces and GWP in a structural and low-carbon optimization design framework according to the sub-objectives: 1) Construction means and methods refinement, 2) Full-scale fabrication and installation.

L2M – Creditcliq

Creditcliq is a fintech solution designed to help newcomers to the U.S. and Canada access financial products like credit cards, loans, and rentals by sharing their home country credit history with local banks and credit unions.

L2M – Outport Reviews

Outport Reviews develops an affordable review management platform for Canadian SMBs that filters negative feedback before public posting. This project will validate market fit, optimize acquisition channels, and build strategic partnerships to strengthen Canadian businesses’ digital presence and competitiveness.

Advancing Digital Health: UX/UI Innovations for Gait Rehabilitation Technology

PROVA Innovations Ltd. is revolutionizing gait rehabilitation with WithinStride™, a smart insole that provides real-time gait analysis and biofeedback to help individuals improve mobility and reduce pain. This project focuses on enhancing the user experience (UX) and interface design of WithinStride™’s mobile and web platforms, ensuring that both clinicians and patients can seamlessly interact with the system for more effective rehabilitation.

By optimizing the visualization of gait data, improving accessibility, and streamlining digital workflows, this project will increase user adoption and engagement, making telehealth rehabilitation more intuitive and impactful. Led by Andrew Iammancini, this initiative will refine the front-end development of WithinStride™, incorporating usability testing and clinician feedback to create a responsive, patient-friendly digital experience.

This project supports Canada’s growing digital health and med-tech ecosystem, helping drive innovation in home-based rehabilitation while reducing healthcare costs and improving patient outcomes.

Summer student internships at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum: developing practical skills for students, and strengthening partnership with the University of Regina

The Friends of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum would like to offer a series of summer student internships that bring university students and recent graduates into a museum setting, to gain hands-on experience alongside research scientists and curatorial staff at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. This experience will focus on developing collections across multiple units at the museum, including Archaeology, Ethnology, Palaeontology, Invertebrate Zoology, and Vertebrate Zoology. The internships will cover a wide range of topics that connect the museum to multiple departments at the University of Regina. Each unit will conduct an internship project that focuses on collections at the museum, and getting students to help build these collections through activities such as identification, cataloguing, rehousing, preparing, and collecting in the field. Beyond the focus on training students, these activities will differ from the day-to-day activities of the museum in that the collections involved will largely be targets for future research projects (setting up for collaborations between museum curators and other academic partners or co-supervised graduate students), or the work will address roadblocks that are making the museum collections inaccessible to a wider range of researchers and the public. These training opportunities are important because they provide experience that is not currently available in a university setting, and they prepare students for a wider range of careers. Removing collections roadblocks is important because it allows a wider range of researchers to use the data associated with museum collections, and address research questions relevant to Canada. It also allows these researchers to contribute to collections at the museum, ensuring that their data and research materials are preserved in perpetuity and made freely available to everyone.

Social Media and Marketing Plan for Community Futures

Community Futures Ventures, located in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, recently hired a new General Manager and moved to a new, more visible, location. These changes offer Community Futures Ventures (CFV) an opportunity to promote their services more widely within Yorkton and east central Saskatchewan. CFV’s greatest challenge is exposure and awareness within the community. While Community Futures Saskatchewan hosts a website with links to each local Community Futures branch, CFV in Yorkton has no social media presence and only limited digital marketing. CFV’s website, www.cfsask.ca/ventures, has multiple outdated or blank pages and much of the content is text-focused. At the same time, CFV is working with cumbersome administrative processes that require streamlining and organizing. The purpose of this project is to develop a strategic communication, digital marketing, and social media plan to promote CFV as a local, approachable, and convenient resource for loans, training, advice, and programs for entrepreneurs in east central Saskatchewan. The intern will also be ideally situated to assess the current administrative processes and develop streamlined processes for CFV. The Mitacs intern will gain hands-on experience in working as a marketing professional and insight into marketing as a career while learning valuable transferable skills, such as communication, problem solving, and teamwork.

Building Software for delivering real-time climate risk analytics and projected financial losses

At Resilio Climate Solutions, we are developing a cutting-edge software platform for climate risk analytics to help organizations proactively assess and manage climate-related physical risks. This project aims to create a data-driven, AI-powered solution that provides actionable insights for municipalities, financial institutions, and insurance companies.
Through this initiative, a software intern will contribute to the development of advanced computational models and user-friendly visualization tools, enabling decision-makers to integrate climate risk intelligence into their planning and operations. The project will involve real-time data processing, predictive modeling, and an intuitive dashboard to present climate risk assessments effectively.
With climate change driving more frequent and severe weather events, decision-makers need access to reliable, science-based risk assessments to protect communities, assets, and investments. This software solution will empower stakeholders with predictive modeling, scenario analysis, and user-friendly data visualization to integrate climate resilience into their planning and operations.
The funding will support hiring a software intern who will contribute to the development of key system components, including data integration, and interface optimization. The intern will gain hands-on experience at the intersection of climate technology, AI, and infrastructure resilience, contributing to a solution that has the potential to mitigate financial and social risks associated with climate change.

Manufacturability Improvements and Assembly Workflow Design for Harvest Platform

The Harvest Platform is a fuel-less, carbon-free water heating solution designed to replace traditional gas-based heating systems in restaurant and hotel environments. The technology harvests and recycles waste heat from commercial cooking appliances, such as ovens and fryers, to reduce operating costs and greenhouse gas emissions in a cost-effective and scalable way. Based on a decade of research and development, Harvest Systems was spun out of McMaster University proceeding a successful research collaboration with Pizza Pizza Ltd and Thermal Electronic Corp, along with additional funding support from NSERC and OCE (now known as OCI). Currently, Harvest Systems Inc is focused on the $10.7 billion restaurant and hotel industry, where the platform acts as a drop-in replacement for traditional water heaters. As a pioneering Canadian manufacturer of waste heat recovery systems, Harvest Systems envisions a greener future by transforming waste heat into a valuable commodity. To achieve this vision, Harvest Systems has been actively engaged in pilot projects to demonstrate the technology in various restaurant environments and poised to launch their first commercial product in 2025. To meet the expected sales projections, this project will focus on improving component manufacturability and assembly workflow to reduce fabrication time and cost; thus allowing Harvest Systems to quickly scale production to meet the growing needs of the hospitality industry.