Innovative Projects Realized

Feasibility and design analysis of a new user-centric product for making recycled 3D printing feedstock

The proposed project focuses on feasibility and design analysis of an innovative user-centric product for making recycled 3D printing feedstock. The support of this program will allow Shifting Shap3s to advance its R&D process and get one step closer to commercialization. Successful completion of the project will not only contribute to a more sustainable and environmentally friendly 3D printing industry, but also open new business opportunities for the partner organization in the form of a new product line that aligns with their corporate social responsibility goals.

Backyard Paradise

SunCo Sunspaces was founded in 1999 by three individuals familiar with the sunroom industry in Manitoba who wanted to bring back traditional values. We currently have our main sales dealership entitled Backyard Paradise by SunCo and 3 other dealerships across Manitoba and western Ontario. SunCo currently employs 19 employees and subtrades on a regular basis. SunCo Sunspaces developed a custom CRM platform that was utilized while in development until 2014. In 2014 CRM platforms like Salesforce and SuiteCRM developed to a point where they were viable options to continuing our proprietary software development. However, after 8 years of using Salesforce as a CRM, it has been determined that it’s limitations and lack of proper support, hinders project management, information transfer, and profitability. Therefore, it has been determined to create a fresh, new custom CRM developed to help our business grow to the next level.
The vision of this project is to create a custom CRM and inventory management system that are integrated with one another to facilitate the ease of use between the system. This would allow for easy access to data analytics and operations to accelerate innovation and business decisions. The custom solution will allow ease of information entry and retrieval in an industry specific format. It will manage sales leads and projects including scheduling and project management. The solution will allow bridge programming to other software utilized in our environment such as QuickBooks and Revit.

Implantation de l’opérationnalité de l’éco-conception en support à l’innovation de nos produits dans les groupes PTGC et PTSA de Premier Tech

Afin d’aller plus loin dans ses pratiques écoresponsables et pour pousser son innovation vers une zone moins conventionnelle, Premier Tech souhaite démarrer l’opérationnalisation de l’écoconception dans ses groupes Premier Tech Systèmes Automatisés (PTSA) et Premier Tech Producteurs et Consommateurs (PTGC) et pour suivre la ligne tracé par Premier Tech Eau et Environnement (PTWE). Le projet vise à intégrer l’analyse de cycle de vie comme aide à la conception pour les substrats de culture professionel et comme guide pour les décisions de design et d’intégration pour les solutions de nouveaux systèmes automatisés. Le stagiaire particpera à la collecte de données nécessaires à l’analyse de cycle de vie et collabora avec les équipiers de Premier Tech tout au long du projet.

Toward a commercial simulation tool for quantum chip design

Nanoacademic Technologies Inc., a scientific software development company based in Montréal, has recently developed and commercialized QTCAD®, a computer-aided design tool enabling to predict quantum hardware performance before prototyping and manufacturing phases, thus enabling to streamline the design workflow and minimize trial and error. While the tool currently focuses on spin qubits in semiconductors, extensions for alternative qubit technologies are currently being developed by Nanoacademic. In this Business Strategy Internship (BSI) project, the intern will facilitate entry to market of these software extensions through performance benchmarking, an improved Python Applications Programming Interface (API), tutorials for typical use cases determined from interactions with external beta testers, and integration into a chip-level simulation platform.

ToxBuster: Robust & Trustworthy Toxicity Detection

Hate speech and toxicity pose a serious threat in online spaces, particularly for marginalized communities. Detecting and preventing harmful speech in online games is challenging, and current methods lack transparency and reliability. To address this issue, this project aims to develop a robust and trustworthy toxicity detection model for in-game chat. On the robustness side, we will reiterate on an existing context-aware toxicity detection model to address four main areas: rare categories, continuous learning, adversarial learning, and human-in-the-loop. On the trustworthiness side, we will make our language models more transparent, explainable and observable to researchers and moderators. On the players side, we will design a system for accountability, and easy reversibility of decisions made. The results are expected to advance the field of continuous learning in NLP, bridge different areas of NLP and contribute to responsible and trustworthy Al.

The formation of Li rich pegmatites in northern Ontario

Development of new critical metals deposits are essential for the world to transition to a carbon neutral future. One important type of critical metal is lithium, essential for production lithium-ion batteries which are common in many consumer products including electric cars. This project will use a combination of geological mapping and in situ chemical analyses to better understand the formation of lithium bearing pegmatite deposits. This will lead to the development of an improved understanding of how these systems form both in northern Ontario and Canada more generally. It is hoped that this will lead to an increase in discovery of similar deposits that will provide the raw materials for the green energy transition.

Jolie Gan – Using Artifical Intelligence (AI) to comparatively analyze social determinants of health affecting market access of cellular agriculture products among rural communities in Canada versus Southeast Asia

An imminent challenge jointly felt in Asia and Canada is the issue of food scarcity, food insecurity, and lack of sustainable food options, particularly in rural communities To mitigate this issue, a number of Asian cellular agriculture companies have developed unique business practices and operating procedures and have created effective alternate market access pathways to reach rural communities in Asia and to offer these communities sustainable food options at accessible and competitive prices, while remaining mindful of structural and cultural considerations.

There are a number of overlapping determinants affecting rural groups in Asia and Canada: many of these identified practices can also be modified and applied in a Canadian context to support the expansion of Canada’s cellular agriculture industry. Through this project, the intern will utilize artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, machine learning, and data synthesis tools, to comparatively analyze and identify social determinants affecting rural access to cellular agriculture products, adopted business practices and methods utilized by Asian cellular agriculture companies to address said determinants, and tailor these learnings to fit the context of the Canadian cellular agriculture innovation sphere. The intern will resume her position with the CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency), following the conclusion of this project, providing guaranteed opportunities for key findings to be presented to and implemented by federal decision-makers. This project holds great promise as a bridge directly linking the tried and true business and innovation practices in Asia to support the growth and development of Canada’s up-and-coming innovation sector.

Développement d’un outil d’aide à la décision basé sur des données industrielles pour l’amélioration du rendement de production de fromage frais

Kraft Heinz Canada est la filiale canadienne de la société Kraft Heinz. L’usine située au cœur de l’île de Montréal fabrique une grande variété de produits de la marque (beurre, fromage, produits laitiers secs, concentrés, etc.). Contrairement aux autres filiales du groupe, basé sur une production univariée, la pluralité du mix produit de l’usine montréalaise offre une certaine flexibilité et robustesse des lignes de production mais complexifie également les processus de gestion et de production. Face à l’engouement des consommateurs pour les produits locaux et la volonté du gouvernement québécois pour une grande autonomie alimentaire depuis la pandémie Covid-19 (Fonds de solidarité FTQ, 2022; Gouvernement du Québec, 2021; Morissette, 2022), l’entreprise veut innover.
Le projet a ainsi pour but de développer un outil d’aide à la décision pour ajuster les paramètres machines dans un processus de transformation agroalimentaire afin de maximiser les rendements de production.

University of Toronto Mississauga Digital Health Technologies Internship

This project will focus on the evolution of data models through the improvement of internal tooling to allow data self-service along with the operationalization of production-grade data pipelines in the field of bioinformatics, due to the immense amount of growth in the volume of data being produced from genome sequencing. With public data repositories that contain molecular, biochemical, metabolic, disease, and taxonomic data now becoming incredibly granular, researchers can increasingly make important decisions on how to better understand diseases. The field of bioinformatics as a whole is critical to solving diseases, and this field is advancing quickly with BenchSci on the forefront of this advancement.

Career Trek

Career Trek is a non-profit organization that seeks to connect kids to opportunities and experiences in a variety of occupations where they can develop life long interests and passions. Through school and post-secondary partnerships Career Trek introduces children in Grades 5-6 to different experiences simulating a variety of possible career paths and opportunities.
I will be working directly with Lori Schmitt in the planning workshops, organizing the locations and sites, helping structure and create different activities, and the daily schedule. I will be documenting the work as it unfolds, and keeping track of the challenges face, how they are overcome, lessons learned, and making recommendations for smoother operations in the future.

Managing environmental impacts of emerging technologies in Canada: electrochemical lithium refining

Several approaches have been developed to reduce GHG emissions, and a portfolio of technologies will likely be needed (IPCC, 2018). We propose to investigate a novel technology that may play a role in Canada’s economy decarbonization: on-site battery-grade lithium refining developed by Mangrove Lithium. However, the environmental impacts are still not clearly reported, which may result in unforeseen environmental burdens if impactful methods are deployed on a large scale. Therefore, estimating the environmental impacts at the early stage of development allows for a deep understanding of the potential burdens and opportunities for mitigation. Lithium demand is forecasted to increase in the near future to electrify several sectors of economy, and this project intends to assess and inform mitigation of the associated environmental impacts.

Novel one-dimensional linkers for advanced inorganic polymers

Modern society heavily relies upon synthetic polymers, mainly based on carbon-based backbones and thus linked to a fossil-based industry. Polymers with non-carbon elements in there main chain are rather uncommon. Only polysiloxanes, known as silicones and polyphosphazenes have industrial and societal relevance. This project aims to investigate whether novel one-dimensional P,N-based polymers can be accessed using bisiminophosphoranes, a class of compounds that is unknown. Bringing together the expertise of the Hering-Junghans group in the isolation of highly reactive phosphorus species, with the Chitnis labs experience in the construction of novel P,N-materials the introduction of novel P,N- and P,B-based polymers with potential applications in sensing technologies and heterobimetallic catalysis.