Innovative Projects Realized

Emerging Clean Energy Industry in Newfoundland and Labrador: Identifying and Addressing Policy and Supply Chain Issues

The overall objective of the project is to identify key policy and supply chain issues relating to Newfoundland and Labrador’s emerging clean energy industry including green hydrogen, the electricity grid, biomass and energy storage, and low-carbon fuels. The objective is to characterize these challenges in terms that can be easily understood and to also recommend actions that industry can take to address these issues.

Design of a Scalable Software Platform for Managing Large Energy System Models

This internship project, undertaken by two interns working in parallel, focuses on the continued development of a scalable software platform to support large-scale 4E (energy-electricity-economy-environment) system modelling. The project addresses a critical transition from reliance on semi-manual and spreadsheet-based workflows toward a proprietary, database-driven infrastructure that enables automation, reproducibility, and improved performance. Interns will contribute to stabilizing and operationalizing the current MVP modelling engine while helping evolve it into a state-of-the-art platform capable of structured high-performance data management, advanced analytics (e.g., sensitivity analysis, cost comparison), and integration with dashboards and other models. This work represents a foundational architectural transformation requiring a combination of software engineering, data engineering, cloud architecture, and energy-economy modelling expertise, ultimately supporting the long-term goal of developing a robust, client-facing platform.

Development of an Intelligent Sensor-Integrated Ergonomic Seating Prototype for Adaptive Sitting Support

This project focuses on developing a new version of an ergonomic seating device called BackRelief, in collaboration with a Montreal-based company, Confo Inno. Many people spend long hours sitting, which can lead to discomfort and back problems, especially when posture does not change throughout the day. The goal of this project is to design and build a prototype of a smarter seat that not only supports better posture but can also sense how a person is sitting and gently prompt them to move when needed. The device will combine a specially designed seat shape with embedded sensors and simple feedback features. For the partner organization, this project will help advance their current product into a more innovative and competitive solution, supporting future product development and potential commercialization in the growing ergonomic and workplace wellness market.

Scaling Medication Safety and Enriching Data Interoperability Across McGill University Health Centre

This project aims to develop machine learning tools that automatically translate and standardize hospital medication data into internationally recognized formats. Today, much of this mapping work is manual, time-consuming, and prone to inconsistencies. The intern will build and evaluate AI models that improve how medication records are matched to standardized drug vocabularies and flagged for potential errors. For NURA Medical, this will reduce pharmacist review time, improve data accuracy, and strengthen the company’s ability to deploy scalable, AI-assisted medication safety and interoperability solutions across hospital partners.

Développement de formulations à base polyurethanes

Sous la supervision de chimistes, la ou le stagiaire participera activement au développement d’une gamme de vêtements de protection écologiques. Plus précisément, le projet consiste au développement d’enduits à base de polyuréthanes permettant l’obtention de propriétés telles que la résistance au feu, de l’imperméabilité et la protection chimique. Les tâches consisteront donc à :
– Rechercher des matériaux de remplacement aux produits actuels et rencontrer des fournisseurs, le cas échéant ;
– Réaliser les mélanges au laboratoire et produire des échantillons “lab-scale” ;
– Participer aux tests de performance et de caractérisation des différents échantillons ;
– Documenter les différentes étapes et résultats du projet.

Advancing GBA+ capacity through case studies in Burnaby

The Civic Innovation Lab Society was co-founded in 2022 by the City of Burnaby and Simon Fraser University to serve as a long-term accelerator of Burnaby-focused research and community engagement. The Lab’s mandate is to advance education through the provision of collaborative learning and research opportunities and to contribute to the economic, social and environmental well-being of Burnaby’s community members.
The City of Burnaby is committed to using new training and resources to build more equitable and inclusive community plans that reflect the needs of diverse communities. Since 2023, Burnaby has been formalizing the use of Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+), a systematic method employed by federal and provincial governments to evaluate systemic inequalities to understand how policies, programs, and initiatives may affect diverse groups of community members (Government of Canada, n.d.). The GBA+ framework can inform all stages of a plan’s development and has been cited as a promising practice for cities to move transportation equity work from ‘rhetoric to reality’ (Williams et al. 2023).
While studies have called for wider and deeper uptake of GBA+ in local policies across Canada, GBA+ remains a topic of research focus and critical analysis (Cameron & Tedds, 2023). The GBA+ work in the City of Burnaby is still early in its evolution, and research is warranted to help them proceed in an evidence-based way. Using a bike learning zone and a transportation policy review as case studies, this research will advance GBA+ work within the City of Burnaby in transportation and urban and social planning. The CapaCITY/É research team, the Mitacs Umbrella holder, aims to support cities by improving sustainable transportation options, while keeping a focus on equity (Winters et al. 2024). Learnings from this proposed research will provide findings of interest to the broader CapaCITY/É research team and city partners across Canada.

Winnipeg Childrens Access Agency

The Winnipeg Children’s Access Agency (WCAA) is a non-profit charitable organization that provides supervised visitation and exchange services for families impacted by intimate partner violence, high-conflict separation, and child welfare involvement. WCAA is the only organization in Manitoba mandated by the courts to deliver these services. This project will help WCAA to expand and enhance their programming by integrating trauma informed practices into their existing programming and at the same time pilot STRIVE Supervised Family Time, a trauma-informed, strength-based model designed to improve the quality of parent–child interactions during supervised visits. In order to enhance programming WCAA is looking for research on best practices as well as assistance implementing, documenting and evaluating STRIVE.

West Broadway Community Land Trust Planning Internship

The West Broadway Community Land Trust (WBCLT) is launching in the spring of 2026 and will hold its first AGM in May. The organization is building a land trust model from the ground up that is suited to the housing market and community priorities identified in the WBCLT’s business plan and community planning sessions last. To assist this development, West Broadway Community Organization will partner with the University of Manitoba’s School of Planning to host Robyn Tayes, a Masters-level planning intern, to support coordination and to build key reference documents for the WBCLT. From May to August 2026, Robyn will create a member’s guide to the WBCLT and will assist in the coordination of community outreach and members committees.

Lakeview Insurance Marketing and Brand Awareness

Lakeview Insurance is a family-owned insurance business that provides personal, commercial, farm, church, charity, and aviation insurance solutions throughout Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta. The Yorkton branch of Lakeview Insurance has nine long-term employees with expertise in tailoring insurance solutions to their clients needs and ensuring assets are protected. However, the way they have conducted their business has changed little in the past decade and most of their marketing and brand awareness efforts are accomplished through trade shows, community involvement, and face-to-face sales calls.
Lakeview Insurance understands that business and marketing have evolved. Clients expect businesses to use digital marketing and social media presence to advertise and inform clients about the insurance industry and services offered by a broker. The current staff at Lakeview Insurance in Yorkton wants to align their business with client behaviour and expectations, but they do not have the expertise in-house to create and launch a digital marketing strategy/social media campaign. Thus, Lakeview Insurance is in need of an intern to develop a marketing and brand awareness strategy for digital spaces.
Lakeview Insurance needs a strategic digital marketing and social media plan that will connect with existing clients and attract new clients using current digital marketing trends and technology. The intent of the project is to develop a strategic digital marketing and social media plan that will increase brand awareness online, improve social media presence, and build customer relationships through new media. Lakeview Insurance does have a website, but they do not have a comprehensive digital marketing strategy that encompasses all forms of online branding and awareness. The current Lakeview staff seeks an intern to create and support a more current perspective on digital and social media marketing trends to help shift Lakeview Insurance’s marketing strategies to meet the expectations of current consumers.

Developing and Mobilizing Knowledge on the Black Health Primer for Public Health Professionals

This project will support the Black Health Education Collaborative (BHEC) in expanding the Black Health Primer by developing a practical Public Health Toolkit that helps learners and professionals apply knowledge about anti-Black racism and Black health in real-world public health settings. The interns will create discipline-specific guides, case studies, infographics, and implementation resources that translate course learning into actionable steps for policy, programs, research, and practice. The project will be carried out through research, interest holder feedback, content development, and pilot testing of the resources. The expected benefit to BHEC is the creation of high-quality, ready-to-use materials that strengthen the impact, reach, usability, and uptake of the Black Health Primer among public health audiences across Canada, while supporting BHEC’s mission to transform health professional education and advance health equity.

Cartographie et automatisation des processus d’affaires

Chez Carange Solutions, on a développé une plateforme d’IA générative spécialement conçue pour assurer la conformité du monde municipal (Munia) et automatiser certains de leurs processus. Avec ce projet, on veut améliorer notre capacité d’analyse de données pour mieux servir nos clients municipaux et optimiser nos opérations internes.

On aura deux stagiaires qui travailleront en équipe: le premier analysera et documentera les processus municipaux et les besoins de nos clients en matière de conformité et d’automatisation, tandis que le second créera des outils automatisés pour optimiser nos systèmes. Les bénéfices qu’on attend sont importants: on pourra traiter plus rapidement les informations, réduire les tâches manuelles répétitives, et produire automatiquement des rapports et tableaux de bord. Ces améliorations nous permettront de bonifier notre plateforme d’IA générative et de mieux accompagner les municipalités québécoises dans leur transformation numérique.

Virtual ISA and Compiling for Quantum Hardware

This project studies the vISA, and associated compilation pipeline for quantum hardware architecture, working to improve its feature set and efficiency. It will also investigate hardware constraints such as qubit connectivity, by studying qubit mapping and routing across the memory and compute regions.