Innovative Projects Realized

1JustCity Development

1JustCity is a non-profit organization with three locations in Winnipeg’s inner-city that provide essential, low-barrier supports to individuals experiencing poverty, housing instability, and social isolation. Two interns (Megan Tessier and Kristee Kuz) aim to support the high demand for needs at 1JustCity from May 2026-August 2026. This project will support 1JustCity in addressing ongoing challenges by developing strategies and tools to expand programming, improve service delivery, and strengthen organizational capacity. It will focus on identifying opportunities to extend service hours, enhance program effectiveness, and build more structured pathways for community connection and support.

Autonomous Photonic Device Measurements

This project aims to make photonic device testing faster, safer, and more intelligent by combining artificial intelligence with advanced laboratory automation. University of Toronto students will work with Axiomatic AI to enhance AxMeasure, an autonomous measurement platform for complex optical and electro-optic experiments. Two undergraduate interns will help develop physics-based models of silicon photonic devices, design algorithms that choose the most informative next experiment, and build a structured knowledge system for laboratory instruments and measurement procedures. The project will also create tools to verify AI-generated measurement scripts and diagnose problems before they damage equipment or produce misleading results. By reducing manual effort and improving reliability, this work could accelerate the development of photonic technologies used in communications, data centers, sensing, and quantum systems. More broadly, it will help train highly qualified talent at the intersection of AI, photonics, and scientific automation.

Étude du patron d’accumulation de verglas sur les structures de signalisation aérienne standard à treillis de type A1

Les structures de signalisation aérienne sont essentielles à la sécurité routière. Elles doivent résister à des conditions climatiques extrêmes, notamment au verglas, dont l’épaisseur de conception donnée par la norme canadienne a doublé entre 2019 et 2024, passant de 31 mm à 66 mm. Cette augmentation soulève des défis majeurs : surcharge importante, instabilité et risques pour la sécurité.

L’objectif du projet est de déterminer comment le verglas s’accumule réellement sur les membrures des structures A1 (aluminium et acier galvanisé) et développer un modèle prédictif adapté pour améliorer la conception et la sécurité au Québec et au Canada.

Le projet consiste à réaliser des tests expérimentaux sur des échantillons représentatifs de taille réelle de structures de signalisation aérienne (diamètres de 25 à 356 mm) et d’analyser l’influence du diamètre des éléments et des conditions climatiques sur la formation du verglas. Ce projet est réalisé dans le laboratoire international des matériaux antigivre, leader mondial en givrage situé à l’Université du Québec à Chicoutimi.

Sunshine House

Sunshine house has expanded its services and programs over the last few years to better address the complex needs of the community. Sunshine House has expanded harm reduction services, begun offering transitional housing, added system navigators and plans to expand more into offering a range of housing types and supports in the next few years. This growth has brought additional complications and challenges. One of these is a clear need for a better coordinated outreach and communication system to serve the community and help frontline support.
This project acts to increase productivity and efficacy by offering needed support to the organization through more structured communications and outreach initiatives. The specific focus is on utilizing social media as an outreach tool, holding community tabling outreach sessions, and helping people prepare and understand how to represent themselves effectively with landlords, support systems and with government bodies such as Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and the Rental Tenancies Branch (RTB). To help address these challenges needs skills and expertise in community outreach, effective education and digital literacy.

Détection embarquée des panneaux de stationnement

Collecte de données spécifiques à partir d’images embarquées, géolocalisées. Traitement de l’information afin de rendre les données utilisables par divers services.

Resilient Minds

The Resilient Minds project aims to fill the settlement and counselling service gap among Black and newcomer youth, by offering community-based, culturally safe support, trauma-informed prevention workshops, peer mentorship, data-driven early-intervention tools, and youth-friendly spaces. The Outreach & Program Support Assistant for the project will expand engagement
by updating contact lists for community partners, developing outreach materials, developing and then supporting communication campaigns, and assisting with workshop logistics, scheduling, and on-site coordination. Additionally, the Data & Evaluation Assistant will refine data collection tools, manage attendance, analyze survey data, and produce monthly summaries and analysis that support program learning and funder applications and reporting.

Evaluating the Impact of an Intergenerational Childcare Model on Children’s Health and Development

There is a critical lack of evidence on how intergenerational care models can be effectively implemented, evaluated, and sustained at scale in Canadian long-term care settings. There is limited knowledge on operational feasibility, fidelity, acceptability, and long-term sustainability, and much of the existing literature focuses on small-scale or community-based initiatives, with limited examination of these factors. The partnership between Perley Health and Andrew Fleck Children’s Services to establish an on-site Early Learning and Childcare Centre presents a unique opportunity to address critical gaps in the Canadian literature through rigorous, context-sensitive evaluation.
The goal of the partnership between Andrew Fleck Children’s Services and Perley Health is to establish, implement, and evaluate a purpose-built intergenerational Early Learning Childcare Centre within a long-term care home, integrating residents and children through structured programming. The objectives of this project are to: (1) assess feasibility, including staff engagement and organizational readiness; (2) evaluate fidelity, reach, and dose of the intergenerational program; (3) examine acceptability, appropriateness, and perceived value among participants, families, staff, and leadership; (4) identify barriers and facilitators to implementation using an implementation science framework; and (5) explore preliminary outcomes on well-being, social connectedness, and quality of life for older adults and children.

Internet Society Manitoba

This project supports digital inclusion in Winnipeg’s North End through website improvement, network and hardware support, computer refurbishment, and digital literacy training for schools, Indigenous learners, and newcomer families.

Creative Community Convergence

Our project has two focuses: to bring resourceful program events to the St.Matthews and Daniel McIntyre communities, and new funding streams to the West End Resource Centre’s programs. The goal is to get people excited, involved, and aware of what resources are available to them. We’ll plan and run events that showcase local talent, create fun experiences, and build community connections. Our partner organization will benefit by gaining more visibility, attracting new audiences, and strengthening their ties with the community. This can lead to more support and opportunities for collaboration in the future. The partner organization will also benefit from new funds to enrich their programs, support more people than before, and gather more resources to thrive as a not-for-profit.

Prédiction équitable du cancer du poumon par fusion de modèles de fondation visuels et d’enrichissement clinique par LLM

BrainInnov Inc. développe des systèmes d’aide à la décision en imagerie médicale. Le cancer du poumon est le plus meurtrier au Canada, avec un taux de survie de seulement 4 % sur 5 ans lorsqu’il est détecté tardivement, contre 63 % en cas de dépistage précoce (Statistique Canada, 2022). Ce cancer engendre des coûts annuels de 6 milliards de dollars (House of Commons, 2011), et 70 % des patients sont diagnostiqués à un stade avancé (Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, 2020). Bien que certaines approches combinent déjà imagerie et données cliniques pour la prédiction du risque, elles se limitent généralement à intégrer ces données de manière brute, sans exploiter le potentiel de raisonnement clinique structuré que permettent les avancées récentes en grands modèles de langage. BrainInnov explore une approche novatrice : utiliser des grands modèles de langage (LLM) pour transformer ces données cliniques codées en raisonnement clinique structuré, puis fusionner ce raisonnement avec l’analyse d’imagerie. Des résultats préliminaires prometteurs valident cette direction. Ce projet permettra à BrainInnov de (1) développer un système de prédiction combinant intelligence artificielle visuelle et raisonnement clinique automatisé, (2) garantir l’équité de ce système pour tous les sous-groupes de la population, et (3) publier les résultats dans une conférence scientifique de premier plan, positionnant l’entreprise à la frontière de l’IA médicale responsable.

Multi-input, Multi-output Adaptive Controller

Video games are an excellent way for kids to have fun while developing fine motor skills, building community, and improving problem-solving skills. The controllers for standard gaming systems are often inaccessible to those with disabilities. The current adaptive video game devices for users with power wheelchairs have a prominent knowledge and service gap. The devices do not always meet the unique needs of the user since they depend on a single input and output, limiting the complexity of gameplay the user can experience. This project’s research aims to enable the creation of adaptive video game controllers for users with disabilities without compromising gameplay complexity. By creating a novel multi-input, multi-output adaptive device that allows users to play using custom controls from a power wheelchair. This will help the RCC provide improved services to children with disabilities, as multiple clients have requested improved adaptive devices for video games.

Collective Impact Models and Community Change

Parks and recreation systems play a vital role in supporting healthy, inclusive, and sustainable communities across Canada. The Canadian Parks and Recreation Association is proud to support the renewal of The Framework for Recreation in Canada. This national policy, provides a vision for how recreation contributes to wellbeing, community vitality, and quality of life for all Canadians. This project, in partnership with CPRA, will explore how a “collective impact” approach can support this next phase of work. Collective impact brings organizations together around a shared goal, using common measurement systems and coordinated strategies to create meaningful, large-scale change. Through a systematic review of academic and practitioner research, this project will identify best practices, challenges, and lessons learned from collective impact initiatives in Canada and internationally. The findings will be used to develop practical tools for the parks and recreation sector, including a collective impact implementation framework, approaches to shared measurement, and recommendations for governance and coordination. Ultimately, this research will help strengthen collaboration across the sector and support more effective responses to complex challenges such as public health, climate change, and equitable access to recreation—contributing to stronger, more connected communities across Canada.