Innovative Projects Realized

Fresh Tracks & VR Product Development

Buffalo Buffalo is currently developing commercial Fresh Tracks, an innovative virtual reality game that combines skiing, music, and roguelike elements. This game offers an immersive VR experience where players navigate through mystical realms, guided by folklore narratives, and driven by a dynamic, original soundtrack. To bolster the development of Fresh Tracks, in addition to other concurrent projects at Buffalo Buffalo, we are seeking interns skilled in Art and Production. Their contributions will be instrumental in adding to the game’s visual aesthetics, production quality, and overall user experience. This collaborative effort is key to ensuring that Fresh Tracks not only stands out in the VR gaming market, benefiting Buffalo Buffalo through increased market presence and innovation in the burgeoning VR gaming industry.

Upgraded BSI – Strategy and Operations Intern

Upgraded uses software to help software, hardware, and venture-backed startups find and claim tax credits, grants, financing, technology savings & other hard-to-see opportunities. We’ve indexed thousands of savings opportunities to algorithmically recommend savings where they couldn’t find them before.

Upgraded aims to streamline client fulfillment processes using artificial intelligence (AI) to provide insights as well as streamline content and proposal creation. The core focus is ensuring that the content we generate is not generic but highly personalized and relevant to specific opportunities.

Upgraded plans to start with pilot process improvements that leverage
emerging AI technologies to draft applications, grants and proposals for clients. Using AI tools provides a rough draft on what the company should write when creating proposals, grants, applying discounts and drafting applications.

The overarching objective is to establish data collection processes, drafting methodologies and systems that enable executives and operations managers to execute proposals more efficiently with fewer resources. The ultimate goal of Upgraded’s approach is to create a comprehensive framework that includes data collection processes, drafting methodologies and systems.

These tools are designed to empower executives, and operations managers with the ability to
execute proposals with efficiency while requiring fewer human resources.

Using AI and ML to advance frailty detection and management

The combination of aging alongside chronic conditions such as primary biliary cholangitis leads to accelerated muscle mass loss that impacts physical function. At advanced stages, this is termed frailty. Frailty is one of the strongest predictors of poor clinical outcomes including death. In this project we will use multidimensional digital health data and artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to develop algorithms to predict frailty and tailor recommendations for frailty management.

Upgraded BSI – B2B Sales Optimization Intern

Upgraded uses software to help software, hardware, and venture-backed startups find and claim tax credits, grants, financing, technology savings & other hard-to-see opportunities.

Upgraded aims to streamline marketing processes using artificial intelligence (AI) to provide insights and streamline content creation. The core focus is ensuring that the content we generate is not generic but highly personalized and relevant to specific customer segments.

Upgraded emphasizes the activation of tailored content using Intelligent Email Marketing. Upgraded plans to start with pilot process improvements that leverages emerging AI technologies to reach clients.

Fund Student Operations Project

The operational framework of the University of Alberta Innovation Fund has been structured with a specific mandate to actively engage students. Sara Moore is set to spearhead the project, focusing on comprehensive development in all aspects of student involvement, encompassing management and organizational structuring.

A Marine Multi-Resource Usage Study for Possible Tidal Energy Installations in Campbell River, BC

This study will conduct a marine multi-stakeholder usage assessment for commercial, recreational and cultural purposes for potential tidal energy developments in Campbell River, BC. Tidal energy harnesses the daily movements of tides through confined waterways to produce electrical energy. Given that Campbell River is a busy multi-use marine port, planning estimates must be done in order to engage with stakeholders and assess what their concerns are around possible installations. Commercial users include, freighters, cruise ships, fishing boats, tugs and barges, ferries, and coast guard. Recreational users will include SCUBA diving, fishing, whale watching, pleasure boating, and kayaking. Cultural uses include First Nations traditional fishing areas, and possible archeological sites. Analysis and interviews will be conducted to produce several marine maps showing the areas of high usage and possible recommended areas for turbine deployment. Interview data will be used to quantify and qualify persons’ perceptions of risks and benefits associated with tidal energy in general and as it pertains to Campbell River.

Yukon Tourism Labour Force & Asset Analysis

Post-pandemic, two of the most significant issues facing Canada’s tourism industry are the lack of skilled workers and the shuttering of tourism businesses, which reduced the availability of products and experiences. These problems are often more pronounced in rural and remote destinations like the Yukon Territory, where only one location (Whitehorse) is considered urban and where the small population results in limited representation in national labour force and industry surveys. Therefore, the purpose of the proposed research is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of (a) labour market needs in the Yukon’s tourism sector and (b) tourism assets (built and natural) that exist post-pandemic.

Investigations of oral microbiome and mental health in children and adolescents

Mental health is a pressing health issue in today’s society that requires more research to better prevent, identify, and mental health disorders in children and adolescence. Our pilot data suggests that bacterial in our mouths (the oral microbiome) may play an important role in mental health but requires further investigation in larger more diversity populations and the use o more advanced research methods to fully explore this relationship. Therefore, the proposed study will use cutting-edge microbiome methods to study the relationship between the oral microbiome and mental health in children and adolescence. The partner organization will benefit by collaborating with experts in oral microbiome sequencing and analysis as a potentially new way to tackle the mental health crisis.

Outil prédictif de la génération de résidus dans un contexte de logistique inverse (année 1)

Cette proposition de recherche a pour but de definir les bases methodologiques necessaires a l’atteinte d’objectifs de developpement d’outils d’aide a la prevision de la generation de residus industriels, et d’aide a la confection de tournees de vehicules dans un contexte de logistiques inverse et de collecte de residus industrielle. Autrement dit, cette proposition est
l’etape initiale de la recherche pour atteindre ces objectifs. La seconde etape concerna plus particulierement le developpement et la validation des outils prototypes d’aide a la decision, soit un modele predictif des quantites et attributs des residus generes, et un outil de confection de routes de collecte robustes qui integre !’incertitude de la prediction des quantites et attributs des residus a collecter.

Procédé et matériaux pour une machine de captage de CO2 atmosphérique

Les technologies Skyrenu inc. (Skyrenu) développe une technologie de captage de CO2 directement de l’air, afin d’atténuer les émissions de gaz à effet de serre. La technologie développée utilise un procédé cyclique d’adsorption dans lequel un matériau adsorbant fonctionnalisé subit des cycles d’adsorption/désorption pour capturer et libérer le CO2. Dans le cadre de ce projet, deux défis seront principalement relevés; soit premièrement la sélection des paramètres du procédé d’adsorption/régénération, et deuxièmement d’évaluer la stabilité à long terme des matériaux adsorbants sélectionnés. Pour le premier objectif, un stagiaire expérimentera un prototype de laboratoire pleinement fonctionnel pour le captage de CO2 directement de l’air à l’échelle de 10 tCO2/an avec différents paramètres dans un environnement représentatif des conditions réelles d’utilisation. Pour le deuxième objectif, un autre stagiaire procédera à du vieillissement accéléré des deux matériaux adsorbants sélectionnés avec un banc de tests de cyclage accélérés d’adsorption/régénération.

Benefits assessment of a retrofitted training aircraft with a Rotax 916 iS

Pilot training plays an important role in the aerospace industry and must also be aligned with the industry’s objective to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Electrification of training aircraft is a solution already being implemented by training services such as CAE. However, current battery technology is limiting the potential benefits of a direct retrofit aircraft with battery. Therefore, electric aircraft are mainly used for operations close to the airfields such as touch-and-go missions. To support the full training curriculum, part of the aircraft fleet must thus remain equipped with internal combustion engines. Most trainer aircraft fleets are currently equipped with outdated engine technology which could be replaced by modern technology enabling more fuel-efficient operation thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and further reducing the carbon footprint of the overall fleet.

Dynamic Modeling with Empirical Data forHydropower Decision Support

Long-term decision making strategic investment planning under the condition of great uncertainty is of great importance to power utilities such as Manitoba Hydro. However, existing analysis methods lack the definition of clear formal methods to define the framework for these uncertainties nor to coordinate the decision-making methodologies to support the definition of robust investment programme planning. Dynamic modeling with empirical data could be of use to reduce the degree of uncertainties. This project will address the long-term decision making problem that Manitoba Hydro is currently facing, using dynamic modeling, model filtering techniques and practical data fusion. The expected outcome of this project would be a novel but broadly applicable approach to dynamically exploit real data for decision making, execute in-time model intervention simulation, and visualize data in appropriate formats to support decision makers in assessing the options. An implementation of this approach will also be provided, with an eye towards use by senior analysts in Manitoba Hydro to test and evaluate their strategies against issues related to this long-term decision making problem.