Research Spotlight: Technology and Healthcare

Direct-to-consumer genetic testing, affordable virtual reality gaming for home use, AI-enabled home appliances and mRNA vaccines developed in quick response to a global pandemic have become part of daily life.

These technologies are among those revolutionizing the way healthcare is delivered and are giving rise to innovative and productive collaborations between clinicians, biologists, computer scientists and industry.

mRNA Technology

In 2023, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded jointly to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their discoveries that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. As noted by the Nobel Prize organization, “Through their ground-breaking findings, which have fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system, the laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times.”

Although messenger RNA, or mRNA, was discovered in the early 1960s and research into how mRNA could be delivered into cells was developed in the 1970s, it wasn’t until 2020, when COVID-19 became a global pandemic, that the first mRNA vaccine was made widely available. Thanks to advances in nanotechnology, where lipid nanoparticles were developed to wrap mRNA and allow entry into cells, the first mRNA vaccines were developed against the Ebola virus. This milestone, combined with decades of research and huge increases in funding released during the pandemic, allowed for the worldwide release of the first mRNA COVID vaccine.

Because mRNA vaccines are made in a lab using easily available materials, these vaccines are developed quickly and can be tested via large-scale clinical trials to demonstrate their safety and effectiveness. These vaccines can also be quickly modified to address new virus variants.

The ability to quickly develop very effective vaccines through the use of mRNA for COVID has spurred the development of additional mRNA vaccines for use in HIV, flu, Zika, rabies and to trigger the immune system to target cancer cells.

Virtual Reality/VR

American computer scientist and visual artist Jaron Lanier coined the term “virtual reality” in 1987.  Lanier and human-computer interaction pioneer Thomas G. Zimmerman left Atari in 1985 to found VPL Research, the first company to sell VR goggles and wired gloves. 

VR provides an immersive sensory experience that digitally simulates environments for applications in entertainment, education, architectural and urban design, engineering and robotics, archaeology and, increasingly, healthcare. Researchers and clinicians are exploring the use of VR to manage psychological and physical conditions including stress, anxiety, depression, dementia, autism, pain management and rehabilitation.

Healthcare providers have sought alternatives to opioids to address chronic pain as opioid addiction and death has become a worldwide crisis. In 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration authorized the marketing of a prescription home-use VR device to manage chronic low back pain.

At the Pain Studies Lab at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Dr. Diane Gromala, Canada Research Chair in Computational Technologies for Transforming Pain, leads a research group that conducts patient-centred research to study, invent and design technology systems for people who live with chronic pain. Systems and techniques employed in clinics and in patients’ homes include immersive virtual reality, immersive games, personal data capture and visualization, physiological sensing, wearable computing and mobile technologies and systems.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), anxiety disorders are the world’s most common mental disorders, affecting 301 million people in 2019.  The WHO predicts that by 2030, mental health conditions will be the leading cause of disease burden worldwide. Anxiety has traditionally been treated by a combination of psychotherapy and medication. Virtual reality is now being integrated with traditional therapies, safely immersing patients in a therapeutic environment to practice mindfulness, paced breathing and calming distraction to cope with anxiety and stress. 

Virtual Reality for Supporting the Treatment of Depression and Anxiety: Scoping Review, a paper by researchers in New Zealand and China published in the peer-reviewed journal JMIR Mental Health in 2021 noted: “Most studies demonstrated the use of VR to be effective for supporting the treatment of anxiety or depression in a range of settings and recommended its potential as a tool for use in a clinical environment.”

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

From disease detection and treatment recommendations to drug discovery and patient engagement, AI and machine learning promise to be game changers in healthcare. At the same time, governments around the world are concerned about the risks of AI. Representatives from 28 countries from across the globe including Canada, the UK, the US, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the EU met in the UK in November 2023 and identified, in the Bletchley Declaration, “the urgent need to understand and collectively manage potential risks through a new joint global effort to ensure that AI is developed and deployed in a safe, responsible way for the benefit of the global community.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) has noted that AI tools have the potential to transform the health sector by strengthening clinical trials, improving medical diagnosis and treatment and enhancing the skills of healthcare professionals. In response to the increasing use of AI for health, the WHO has released a new publication listing key regulatory considerations and emphasizing:

  • the importance of establishing AI systems’ safety and effectiveness;
  • rapidly making appropriate systems available to those who need them; and
  • fostering dialogue among stakeholders, including developers, regulators, manufacturers, health workers, and patients.

Enhancing the reliability and accuracy of AI-enabled diagnosis via complementarity-driven deferral to clinicians, a joint paper by Google DeepMind and Google Research published in Nature Medicine in July 2023, proposes Complementarity-driven Deferral-to-Clinical Workflow (CoDoC), an add-on tool for human-AI collaboration that learns when to trust a predictive AI’s diagnosis or defer to a clinician. CoDoC learns to establish the reliability of a predictive AI model as compared to a clinician’s decision and is designed to be used by non-machine learning experts. 

According to Krishnamurthy Dvijotham and Taylan Cemgil, on behalf of the CoDoC team, “CoDoC is a promising example of how we can harness the benefits of AI in combination with human strengths and expertise. We are working with external partners to rigorously evaluate our research and the system’s potential benefits. To bring technology like CoDoC safely to real-world medical settings, healthcare providers and manufacturers will also have to understand how clinicians interact differently with AI, and validate systems with specific medical AI tools and settings.”

An example of the use of AI to bring information to patients is AskEllyn.ai, which launched last week in Waterloo. The platform uses generative artificial intelligence to help people get answers to their questions about breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. AskEllyn was developed by Ellyn Winters-Robinson, using stories from her book Flat Please – Hold The Shame as the base for its large language model, in collaboration with Pat Belliveau, CEO of Catalyst Entertainment, marketing pro Ryan Burgio and software developer Christian Silvestru. For external resources, Winters-Robinson curated a list of third-party sites that the tool will recommend. Users are able to chat with Ellyn anytime, anywhere, and in any language to ask questions ranging from what to expect from chemotherapy to how to speak with friends and family about a diagnosis.

“AskEllyn is there to answer the thousands of questions patients have that doctors simply don’t have the time to answer,” says Winters-Robinson. She envisions the project as the first instance of Conversation Care, a new kind of healthcare that could include platforms for information about a range of conditions “so that no one diagnosed will ever walk alone,” she says.

Precision Medicine

Precision or personalized medicine is defined by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as “an innovative approach that takes into account individual differences in patients’ genes, environments, and lifestyles.”

This approach to treatment is applied by oncologists to classify cancers into precise types and subtypes and to choose treatments based on the DNA signature of an individual patient’s tumor. Oncologists also use cancer immunotherapy through the use of the patient’s immune system to stop or slow the growth of cancer, stop cancer from spreading to other parts of the body, help the immune system work better to destroy cancer cells and deliver toxins, such as radiation or chemotherapy, directly to cancer cells.

Another form of precision medicine is pharmacogenetics, a field of research at the crossroads of pharmaceuticals and genetics and a rapidly growing field in human genetics. Pharmacogenetics studies how a person’s genes affect how they respond to medications in order to help clinicians prescribe the drugs and doses best suited for each patient. Pharmacogenetics is also expected to contribute to advanced screening for disease, providing people with the opportunity to make lifestyle and environmental changes at an early age in order to avoid or lessen the severity of a genetic disease.

Precision medicine is also emerging as a course for identifying therapies for the 6,000–8,000 identified unique rare diseases, with approximately 80% of those diseases being genetic in origin. According to the paper Rare disease emerging as a global public health priority, published in Frontiers of Public Health in 2022, 3.5–5.9% of the world’s population, which corresponds to 263 to 446 million people worldwide, are affected by rare diseases.

In Canada, All for One, a pan-Canadian initiative, was launched in 2022 to increase access to genome-wide sequencing for diagnosis and treatment of genetic diseases. Led by Genome Canada, the initiative provides access to genome-wide sequencing for diagnosis and treatment of life-threatening genetic diseases. A key component of the All for One precision health initiative is the development of a Pan-Canadian Health Data Ecosystem, which connects and leverages genomic data across clinical sites to drive research breakthroughs in order to improve patient care. The ecosystem will enable data sharing between institutions, across jurisdictional boundaries, and between clinical and research settings, serving as a data solution to deliver precision health for rare genetic diseases.

In the US, Vertex Exa-cel therapy, a treatment and potential cure for sickle cell disease has been found safe enough for clinical use and may receive federal approval this year. Sickle cell disease, an illness that afflicts more than 100,000 Americans, affects millions of people worldwide, most of whom have African ancestry. Caused by a gene mutation, the disease results in strokes, organ damage and episodes of severe pain. If approved, this treatment would be the first medicine to treat a genetic disease using CRISPR gene-editing.

Researcher Spotlight: Laura Hopkins

Dr. Laura Hopkins 
Gynecologic Oncologist, Saskatchewan Cancer Agency
Professor, College of Medicine, Division of Oncology, University of Saskatchewan 
Provincial Lead for Gynecologic Oncology

Laura Hopkins always knew she wanted to be a doctor. Growing up on a beef cattle farm north of Napanee, Ontario, she enjoyed sewing, knitting and making lace. She attributes her proficiency as a surgeon to the eye-hand coordination she developed doing these crafts.

After completing medical school at the University of Toronto, Laura trained as a resident at McMaster University, where evidence-based medicine was first practiced.  Described as one of the most important medical advances in the past 150 years, evidence-based medicine integrates the best research data with clinical expertise and patient values in order to use the best evidence to give patients the best possible care. Laura wanted to focus on clinical care and loved doing quality assurance projects to answer questions about how patient care could be improved. Her work to acquire evidence on how the use of antibiotics prior to cesarean delivery and the prophylactic prescription of anti-clotting agents for all cancer in-patients improved infection and clot rates was very rewarding – for Laura and for the patients who benefitted from these projects.

Laura sampled the field of electives during her residency and it was an obstetrician-gynecologist who served as the role model that led her to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology.  “She was the first happy doctor I had met,” says Laura. “I never looked back after working with her.” 

Laura was on a path to a career as a generalist obstetrician-gynecologist when she was encouraged to apply for a fellowship in gynecologic oncology. Gynecologic oncologists treat ovarian, cervical, uterine, and vulvar cancers and are a unique class of physicians who not only perform complex surgeries but also work with women through their entire course of treatment, including chemotherapy and palliative support. She was accepted to the program at the University of Toronto and says, “It was the right decision and best choice for me. There is immediate gratification in getting rid of a bad problem for a patient through surgery.”

Laura was recruited to Saskatchewan in September 2019 after 18 years at the Ottawa Hospital and the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. During her tenure at the University of Ottawa, she published papers, participated in committee work and served as undergraduate director, post-graduate director and division head. After almost two decades of this work, she looked for a change from the focus on medical education and started doing locums, covering for physicians on leave in Halifax and Saskatoon.

In late 2018, Saskatoon lost both of its gynecological oncologists due to exhausting workloads that resulted in burnout. Another resigned in Regina in June 2019, leaving just one permanent gynecological oncologist practicing in Saskatchewan. When the province began recruiting new physicians, Laura expressed interest and was hired as program lead to create a provincial model of care guidelines, quality improvement initiatives and clinical trials. She set up clinical programs in Saskatoon and Regina, and hired five additional gynecological oncologists to staff those programs. She opened clinical trials for women with cancer for the first time in Saskatchewan, achieved the best surgical wait times for gynecologic cancer in Canada, and inaugurated a robotic surgery program. With research funding provided by the federal government, matched by the provincial government and made available through Ovarian Cancer Canada, Laura set up a biobank for ovarian tumor tissue and an academic program.

In September 2023, Laura launched the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency’s first investigator-initiated trial. This is the first pragmatic trial in Canada that will feature patients, oncologists, pathologists and scientists working together to deliver personalized treatment options and improve quality of life. Ovarian cancer patients’ tumors will be tested for mutations that predict response to a new class of drugs, providing accurate, personalized, genomic information about each patient’s tumor and helping patients make informed choices about their care. A total of 100 patients from across Saskatchewan will be enrolled in the 2.5-year trial. “For the first time, we will be able to give ovarian cancer patients very specific information about their chances of responding to treatment,” notes Laura. “When I was in training, we used to talk about “bench to bedside” and cutting-edge care. But I was trained to guess about what chemo drugs were going to work and in what order to administer those drugs. Now we work with scientists who can run a 1,200-drug panel against cancer cells to find the right drugs to kill those cells.”

Laura Hopkins holds nearly $5 million in active research grants spanning surgical quality and safety, precision medicine and new technologies in oncofertility. She is a clinician, educator, researcher and successful leader in building a strong gynecological oncology clinical and research program and team in Saskatchewan. Patient care remains her priority. “My passion is to provide excellent, compassionate, timely care for my patients through all stages of treatment,” she says.

Research Spotlight: Canada’s Computer Animation Innovations

Toy Story. Up. Monsters Inc. Shrek. Finding Nemo. WALL-E. Ice Age. The Incredibles.  Ratatouille. Cars. Frozen. Inside Out.  These fully computer-animated feature films have been nominated for and won Academy Awards and have transformed animation from a medium previously reserved for Saturday morning cartoons to one used by filmmakers to tell stories for people of all ages. Canadian researchers and software companies have played a significant role in developing the tools used by animators to tell those stories. Many of those animators are graduates of renowned computer animation programs from colleges and universities across Canada.

Canadian Firsts

As noted in this month’s Impact Story, the first fully computer-animated film was not produced by a Hollywood studio, but by the National Film Board of Canada. Hunger/La Faim was directed by Hungarian-born Peter Foldes using technology invented by two Canadians: Nestor Burtnyk, an electrical engineer and Dr. Marceli Wein, a physicist.  After its release in 1974, Hunger/La Faim was nominated for an Academy Award, in the Animated Shorts category and received many other international film awards including the Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival.  In 1997, Wein and Burtnyk received Technical Academy Awards in recognition of the impact of their work on computer animation in the film industry.

In 1984, The Adventures of André & Wally B., a computer-animated short produced by the Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Project, the predecessor of Pixar, was released at the annual SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference and sparked the film industry’s interest in computer-generated films. The technical lead for the film was Bill Reeves, a founding member of Pixar and a graduate of the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo and the Dynamic Graphics Project at the University of Toronto.  

Groundbreaking research and technology

The Computer Graphics Lab at the University of Waterloo and the Dynamic Graphics Project at the University of Toronto are two of the most influential computer graphics research laboratories in Canada.  

Kellogg S. (Kelly) Booth joined the Computer Science Department at the University of Waterloo in 1977 and John Beatty in 1978, and in 1979, they began a research group in Computer Graphics and Interaction. Together with Richard Bartels who joined the department in 1981, they formed the Computer Graphics Laboratory (CGL), one of the first in Canada. Marceli Wein was an adjunct professor of computer science in the lab.

Graduates of CGL, including Rob Krieger and Paul Breslin, would go on to win Academy Awards. 

The Dynamic Graphic Project (DGP) at the University of Toronto was founded in 1967 by Leslie Mezei. In 1972, He was joined by Ron Baecker, who coined the name Dynamic Graphics Project in 1974. DGP’s alumni are now on faculty at top universities around the world and at major industrial research labs, and, like Bill Reeves, have won Academy Awards for their ground-breaking work.

Tony de Peltrie, the first computer graphics animated character with synchronized speech, was first shown at the SIGGRAPH conference in 1985.  The short film, which was produced by four young programmers at the University of Montreal, shows the first animated human character to express emotion through facial expressions and body movements and received more than 20 international awards.  John Lasseter said about the film, “Years from now Tony de Peltrie will be looked upon as the landmark piece, where real, fleshy characters were first animated by computer.” 

Daniel Langlois, one of the creators of Tony de Peltrie, was an artist and programmer trained as a designer and computer animator for film. After the completion of the film, Langlois founded the company Softimage in Montreal. Softimage’s 3D animation package became an industry-standard in the 1990s, used by major visual effects studios and in films including The Matrix and Jurassic Park.  Softimage was also used extensively in the computer gaming industry and the company, along with Tony de Peltrie, is credited as one of the reasons Montreal has become one of the global centers of the computer gaming industry.

Recognition of the quality of computer animation by the film industry first came in 1988, when Pixar’s Tin Toy, became the first computer-animated film to receive an Academy Award.  And history was made again in 1991 when computer-generated image (CGI) backgrounds were fully integrated with hand-drawn animated characters using software from Toronto’s Alias Research in the ballroom scene in Beauty and the Beast.

Alias Research was founded by Stephen Bingham, Nigel McGrath, Susan McKenna and David Springer in 1983 with initial funding from scientific research tax credits, the founders’ personal funds, and a $61,000 grant from Canada’s National Research Council.  Alias 1, the company’s first software package, was released in 1985 and in 1989, Alias 2 was used to produce The Abyss, which won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. In 1990, Alias’ PowerAnimator software was used to produce Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1991. Alias’ industry standard product, the 3D modeling and animation package, Maya, was delivered in 1998 and is recognized as the world’s premier 3D animation software, used on every film winning the Best Visual Effects Academy Award since 1997.

Toronto is also home to Side Effects Software (SideFX), founded by Kim Davidson and Greg Hermanovic.  Davidson and Hermanovic joined Omnibus, a pioneering company in the then-emerging world of computer graphics, in 1985 and immersed themselves in production by writing their own software and creating visual effects. 

They founded SideFX in 1987 and released the PRISMS software package, which was succeeded by Houdini 3D animation software.  Houdini is used by major visual effects companies and film studios for the creation of visual effects for films including Fantasia 2000, Frozen, Zootopia and Rio.  

SideFX technology and developers, including Kim Davison, Greg Hermanovic, Paul Breslin and Mark Elendt, have been recognized by the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences five times for Houdini and its technology, in 1998, 2003, 2012, and in 2019, where SideFX received the Award of Merit. In 2019, SideFX was awarded a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award.

Developing the next generation of animators

In addition to producing award-winning films and industry-standard 3D animation software, Canadian colleges are renowned for their work in graduating some of the best practitioners in the visual effects and computer animation business.

Sheridan College in Ontario houses the Faculty of Animation, Arts & Design (FAAD), Canada’s largest art school. Sheridan animation alumni have a long history of success at the Academy Awards, including Domee Shi, the first female director of the Pixar short, Bao, which received the award for Best Animated Short in 2019.

The Ian Gillespie Faculty of Design + Dynamic Media at Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECU) in British Columbia offers the Bachelor of Media Arts (BMA) Program with two animation streams: 2D + Experimental Animation and 3D Computer Animation. Graduates of these Animation BMA Programs have been recruited by major studios and organizations including DreamWorks Animation, Pixar, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), Universal, and the National Film Board of Canada.

The Faculty of Art at Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD U) in Toronto features an Experimental Animation Program that combines Contemporary Art with Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR), 2D and 3D, Digital Compositing, and Stop Motion. 

Université Laval in Quebec is home to the Faculty of Planning, Architecture, Art and Design (FAAAD), which houses the School of Design, where two courses of animation study include the Bachelor of Animated Arts and Science (BASA) and the Certificate in the Art and Science of Animation (CASA). 

The School of the Arts, Media, Performance, and Design (AMPD) and Lassonde School of Engineering at York University in Toronto offer a Digital Media Arts (DMA) Program. Digital Media Arts is Ontario’s only degree program that integrates Art, Engineering, and Computer Science. 

The School of Creative Arts & Animation at Seneca Polytechnic has several paths to study animation including the Animation Diploma and Graduate Certificates in 3D Animation and Game Art & Animation. 

Moviegoers and animation lovers everywhere benefit from the ground-breaking accomplishments of award-winning Canadian computer scientists, artists, educators, and animators. Canada has made major contributions to the field of computer animation. From the production of the revolutionary Hunger/La Faim, to innovative research conducted in computer graphics labs in universities across the country, and software used by visual effects and film studios around the world, Canada is truly a major player in the world of computer animation.

Researcher Spotlight: Mark Jones

Mark Jones
Digital Technology Educator, Writer and Producer Photo Credit: David Goldman

As a teenager in suburban Toronto in the 1980s, Mark Jones spent his evenings participating in rehearsals for school plays and musicals or avoiding homework by programming video games on his Atari 800 computer. Today, Mark is an award-winning 25-year veteran of the creative communications and digital technologies industries who has worked as a college teacher and administrator, producer, artist, and writer. And those high school interests have endured as themes in both his education and career paths.

Mark enrolled in the Theatre Program at York University, but left after two years when he understood that his future didn’t include a career as an actor. He joined Addison-Wesley, a publisher of textbooks and computer literature, where he received training in sales, customer service, marketing, and publicity. Mark also learned how to publish, which led to the launch of CyberStage Communications, a consumer arts magazine that he founded in 1994. CyberStage evolved from a printed publication, that Mark’s parents helped to place in bookstores across Toronto, to an internationally-available digital publication that featured original material that focussed on the intersection between art and technology.

In 2000, Mark shifted his focus to digital arts education in his role as Executive Director of OnTarget, an Ontario-wide initiative that provided career development and education support programs for the digital technologies industries. He also continued his studies by completing his undergraduate degree at York University and earning an M.A. in Communication and Culture from Toronto Metropolitan and York Universities.

Through OnTarget’s partnerships with colleges, Mark started to teach courses on Interactive Media Business and Interface Design on a part-time basis at Seneca College in 2001. Mark’s background and experience in education, media, animation, and digital content and his focus on the connection between art and technology led to positions as Coordinator of the school’s Animation Centre, Associate Chair, and now Chair of the School of Creative Arts and Animation, overseeing programs in animation, new media, graphic design, photography, acting and music.

Seneca’s program features a cross-disciplinary model that recognizes the changing conditions in the industry, with a focus on developing student ability in animation art for any specialization rather than for a specific type of production. Under Mark’s direction, Seneca has worked with industry to understand the need for graduates to have traditional art skills as their foundation. The School of Creative Arts and Animation at Seneca operates as art school that teaches animation using technology as appropriate rather than a school that teaches animation software.  In addition to his role as Chair of the School of Creative Arts and Animation, Mark was also integral in founding and is Director of the Seneca Film Institute (SFI), which operates within Seneca’s Faculty of Communication, Art & Design. SFI will work with students across more than 30 programs, providing them with the skills and experiences that will allow them to thrive in Canada’s film industry. 

From his participation in theatre and computer gaming as a high school student, to his studies in and writing about culture and communication, his work at OnTarget, and his successful career at Seneca as a teacher, producer, and administrator, Mark has been immersed in the digital media industry for decades.  He is a founding board member of The Toronto Animation Arts Festival International (TAAFI) and was an executive producer of the animated short Subconscious Password, which won several awards including the Grand Prix at Annecy in 2013 and the Canadian Screen Award in 2014 for Best Animated Short. His work has been recognized by industry awards including the ITAC Hero of the Year Award and the Canadian New Media Award as Industry Advocate of the Year.  

Mark is most proud of Seneca’s happy, successful students who talk about their experience at Seneca as delivering high-quality education, and, as importantly, a supportive community.  Through his work at Seneca, he has played an extraordinary role in training animation and special effects professionals working around the world, including alumni who have worked on films including Coco, The Shape of Water, Toy Story 4, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – all of which have won Academy Awards for animation or special effects.

Mark will continue his work in education in his new position as Dean of the Faculty of Animation, Arts & Design (FAAD), effective Aug. 28. Sheridan College, Canada’s largest art school, is internationally recognized for outstanding programs that train performers, animators, filmmakers, designers, and artists and Mark looks forward to working with the students, faculty, and staff in this role.

Mark’s career path and his experience working with students lead him to provide advice regarding careers in the digital arts. “If you’re a parent, and your son or daughter is expressing an interest in a career related to media, design, or art, support it and discover it with them. The most persistent job myth in Canada today is that a career in these industries is not a route to prosperity.”

Research Spotlight: Research Impact at Collision 2023

Profound Impact Presents Research Impact at Collision 2023

This month’s Research Spotlight focuses on Research Impact, Profound Impact’s research matchmaking product. As the company that connects great people to do great things, Profound Impact was proud to present and demonstrate our Research Impact product at Collision in Toronto on June 26 – 29, 2023. The annual Collision conference brings together global technology leaders and companies, high-potential start-ups and top journalists to participate in more than 20 content tracks that cover topics including corporate innovation, health, finance, sustainability, start-ups, venture capital and the future of work.  

Profound Impact had the opportunity to participate in the Alpha Startup Program which connects early-stage companies with outstanding potential to the world’s most influential people and companies. Our CEO, Sherry Shannon-Vanstone, was selected to participate in the PITCH competition and was chosen to advance to the top ten from over 500 startups! Sherry also teamed up with Deloitte partner Jigna Shah on the AWS Collision stage to present the benefits of using Research Impact to meet the challenges of making those connections.

Profound Impact launched as a data and analytics company to work with universities to empower their alumni and students on their career journeys. Research Impact was developed to help those universities connect with industry partners and government granting agencies. Connections between industry and universities are essential as researchers seek industry partners for research programs and industry looks to researchers for insight into long-term research directions to develop strategic development road maps. On average, it takes 17 years for fundamental research to move to commercial practice.  Global issues like climate change, water contamination, public health, energy, food insecurity and cybersecurity can’t wait more than a decade for the application of groundbreaking research results. A different approach, featuring collaboration between researchers and industry, is required to accelerate innovation.

Over $300 billion in global research funding is available annually for 8.8 million researchers and hundreds of thousands of industry partners around the world. But there are challenges in making connections between researchers and industry partners, knowing where to look for the right funding programs and understanding eligibility requirements.

How do companies navigate the challenges of finding academic research partners and applying for grants? How do researchers find all of the funding programs relevant to their areas of expertise? Without effective tools, many hours are spent researching available funding programs, attempting to reach out to funding agencies and submitting applications for grants in programs that are oversubscribed and competitive without necessarily meeting eligibility requirements.

What if there was an automatic way to match academic and industry researchers to each other and to funding programs? Research Impact combines private and public data using Al and data analytic tools to optimize research funding opportunities.

As demonstrated by the Profound Research team at our booth at Collision, Research Impact features an easy-to-use dashboard that manages researcher areas of focus, funding opportunities, grant deadlines, historical funding matches and industry projects. The tool’s automatic loading of grant programs and researcher profiles, streamlined and targeted communication with researchers and the use of AI and machine learning to make appropriate matches greatly simplifies the process for applying for research funding. The increased efficiency and resulting additional access to funding opportunities can save as much as 80% of the time previously spent by academics, university funding offices and industry researchers.

Profound Impact’s presentations of Research Impact’s power to provide research organizations and industry partners with an increased share of grant funding and a resulting boost in institutional rankings were met with great interest and enthusiasm by Collision’s national and international audience.  We look forward to working with universities, research institutions, industry researchers and funding partners to deploy Research Impact in their organizations.

Research Spotlight: Health Informatics

Health Informatics – Digital Health Research and Applications

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic, sending the world into lockdown. After just over three years, 5 million cases and over 52,000 deaths from COVID-19 confirmed in Canada, the WHO downgraded the pandemic on May 4, 2023, determining that COVID-19 is now an established and ongoing health issue that no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. 

As the country dealt with a record number of hospitalizations, ICU capacity crises, scarcity of PPE for healthcare workers, and ongoing lockdowns, the innovative delivery of healthcare in Canada became vital. In its report, Onward and Upwards, Digital Talent Outlook 2025, ICTC, the Information and Communications Technology Council, notes that Canada has experienced a significant increase in the adoption of digital healthcare since the advent of COVID-19.  And in 2020, the federal government announced an investment of $240.5 million to accelerate the use of virtual tools and digital approaches to support Canadians to meet healthcare needs.

The Canadian Medical Association defines three classes of health technology: virtual care, analysis of large amounts of health data to support diagnoses and treatment decision-making, and the use of technology in the delivery of healthcare. Telehealth services, centralized electronic healthcare records, wearables and sensors, cloud technology, and the use of big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are becoming core elements of healthcare in Canada. When lockdowns necessitated virtual care sessions with physicians, visits to doctors’ offices in Ontario declined by almost 80%. Virtual care accounted for 70% of all primary care physician appointments, establishing virtual healthcare as a norm. 

Information and communication technologies are key to the management of all aspects of healthcare, including patient records, laboratory and radiology information systems, physician order entry, and clinical monitoring. And an extraordinary amount of complex data is generated as the health technology sector becomes more digitized. According to the Competition Bureau of Canada, approximately 30% of all data in the world is generated by the healthcare industry. With this expansion of the use of technology and resulting data comes the need for health information users with the expertise to make the best use of the data and ensure its reliability and security.  

The National Institutes of Health Informatics (NIHI), Canada’s first national organization dedicated to fostering Health Informatics innovation, research, and education, notes the need for fundamental and applied research in Health Informatics on “the definition of the content of the electronic health record, mechanisms for deriving, representing, and executing care guidelines, usable technologies for knowledge-guided order entry, effective and usable clinical decision support systems, methods for customizing interactive systems to different user-types and individuals, automated chart extraction, medical literature summarization, and hundreds of other areas.”  Also required are prototypes, effective user interfaces, and an evaluation of the applications of Health Informatics to innovative delivery methods and clinical systems.

At the University of Toronto, the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME) conducts research and offers professional graduate degree programs that focus on evidence-based research in Health Informatics.  The program, which is recognized by the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, offers a professional Master of Health Informatics which provides graduates with expertise in clinical information and communication technologies and prepares health informaticians to bridge the gaps between clinicians and ICT professionals. 

The University of Toronto IHPME research team focuses on topics including the impacts of utilizing technology to transform healthcare delivery, the role of digital health in improving health outcomes, workflow, and process design, clinical decision support using AI and machine learning, data-driven personalized medicine, ubiquitous sensors and the design of health technologies.

At the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, the Centre for Health Informatics (CHI) research and innovation centre was launched in 2018 to improve health and healthcare through data-driven innovation and collaborative research. Research within CHI focuses on the development of efficient and accurate handling of digital health data for personalized disease prevention and treatment and the identification of comorbidities and adverse events in electronic medical record (EMR) data. Researchers are also working to use linked data to develop a clinical decision support tool to both reduce heart failure hospital readmissions and predict readmission for heart failure patients. And CHI researchers with expertise in qualitative data analysis and natural language processing are developing methods to automate qualitative analysis of large amounts of free text data, including patient interviews.

Carleton University’s Department of Health Sciences was founded to conduct interdisciplinary research via the integration of knowledge and methods from across disciplines, including biomedicine, mathematics, and environmental and political sciences. Researchers from across fields of expertise work together on three main research themes: life course approach to health, environmental and global health, and big data. The department’s Science, Technology and Policy program, designed to meet a growing need for interdisciplinary health research, and skills in knowledge translation and data analysis, provides graduate students with the opportunity to conduct major research projects to develop solutions to critical and timely issues like health care for rural communities and the development and deployment of vaccines.

Health Informatics is one of the research focus areas of the School of Public Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo. Researchers with expertise in statistics, engineering, the social sciences, rehabilitation science, mathematics, and computer science work to develop and use information and communication technologies to support and advance individual and community health.

In the school’s Ubiquitous Health Technology Lab (UbiLab), the research team studies wearables and zero-effort sensors for remote patient monitoring, the use of IoT (Internet of Things) technology for large-scale, population-level studies and the use of big data, AI, and health data analytics to evaluate the technology. The Professional Practice Centre in Health Systems works with client partners, including major teaching hospitals, community hospitals, public health units, community-based agencies, physician groups, pharmacies, government agencies, and NGOs on real-world health information technology problems. Projects have included the design and implementation of a pharmacy nomenclature standardization program, the implementation of an information system to automate data extraction and reporting, the creation of a data migration strategy and specification for a major hospital information system, and the prototyping of medical devices and applications.

As Canada’s population ages, with those aged 85 and older being one of the fastest-growing groups, the research conducted in the school’s Aging and Innovation Research Program (AIRP) becomes more relevant. AIRP research focuses on the acceptance and adoption of innovations, including technologies for the assessment and management of risks of going missing in persons living with dementia, by older adults, their care partners, and healthcare professionals. The goal of this work is the development, application, and evaluation of strategies to advance dementia-friendly communities.

Canada Health Infoway, an independent, not-for-profit organization established and funded by the Canadian federal government, works with governments, healthcare organizations, clinicians, and patients to make healthcare more digital. The organization’s goal of ensuring that all Canadians have online access to personal health information, test results, prescriptions, and appointment booking services are central to ensuring that technology is as transformative to the country’s health system as it has been to all other aspects of daily life. Digital health initiatives include collaborative projects on virtual care, accessibility of health information, e-prescribing, standards in patient record data, privacy and security, and the adoption and use of innovative technologies.

COVID-19 highlighted issues in collecting, sharing, and using health data to help public health officials provide advice and information during public health emergencies. The rapid growth of cross-disciplinary research and innovation in health informatics and the adoption and use of digital technologies in healthcare are leading to improved access to healthcare, more accurate and timely diagnoses and treatments, and meaningful improvements in the quality of care.

Researcher Spotlight: Helen Chen

Dr. Helen Chen
Professor of Practice and Director
Professional Practice Centre

Health care is evolving, and health informatics is at the forefront of the transformation. Health informatics combines communication, information technology, and health care and is used for vital functions that range from sharing information to personalizing medicine. With effective use, health informatics has the potential to vastly improve patient care.

Dr. Helen Chen is the Professor of Practice and the Director of the Professional Practice Centre with a cross-appointment at the School of Public Health Sciences and with a cross-appointment at the Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo.  Dr. Chen teaches courses related to health informatics, information system design and management, health data standards, and health data analytics.

The Professional Practice Centre provides experiential learning opportunities for students of the professional graduate programs within the School of Public Health Sciences. By working with healthcare sector partners as well as professional staff and faculty from the University of Waterloo, the centre tackles challenging and important real-world problems.

“Working closely with industry is in my blood. I want to see the tangible impact of the research,” says Dr. Chen. Her education includes a BA and MS in Engineer Mechanics from Tsinghua University in Beijing and a Ph.D. in Computational Biomechanics from the University of Waterloo. It was a position sponsored by Agfa HealthCare that brought Dr. Chen to her current role at the University of Waterloo.

Dr. Chen’s research focuses on health data quality and analytics, health information system integration and interoperability, healthcare decision support, and Machine Learning and AI in Public Health, which is a perfect complement to the work she leads at the Professional Practice Centre.

In many ways, the centre acts like a consulting firm where students and faculty offer their expertise to health organizations and hospitals to solve problems. The organization can choose to hire a student directly to work on a specific issue or can hire the centre to manage the entire project. With the experience of working on a large project, combined with a professional degree, students gain an upper hand as they enter or return to industry.

“After they finish a project, students may be hired by the organization to continue the work. This experience makes them highly employable. The collaborative environment is extremely good for our students to learn. For our partners, they have an opportunity to experiment and take on problems they may not have the resources or expertise to tackle on their own at a significantly lower price than working with a large consulting firm.”

In one example, the centre worked with the Ontario Health Team to create its digital transformation roadmap.

“The Professional Practice Centre pulled in 10 students and 2 professors to work on the project. We were able to help them generate the inventory of their digital assets, identify information and technology gaps, and create the digital transformation roadmap, which has helped them move to the next stage of the project,” Chen said.

In healthcare, digital transformation is a continuous pursuit as technology and the need for quality and secure information increases. As health informatics moves into the area of advanced analytics, the need for specialized expertise will only increase. Fortunately, research and programs like the one offered by the School of Public Health Sciences and the Professional Practice Centre in Health Systems are seeing an increase in funding and demand in both the healthcare industry and the student population. These factors will play an important role as health organizations and students prepare for the future.

Research Spotlight: Social Innovation and Collaboration

Social Innovation and Collaboration

Food security, mental health, climate change, equitable access to healthcare, safe water, refugees and asylum, marginalized populations—these complex social and environmental challenges are faced by communities, both urban and remote, across Canada and internationally. Can a collaborative research approach, engaging researchers from a range of disciplines and geographies, use social innovation in the form of new programs, inventive use of technology and development of social enterprises, to address these issues?

The Government of Canada has responded to these challenges through the creation of the Social Innovation and Social Finance Strategy and a steering group to guide that strategy.  In February of 2023, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development announced the launch of the Social Innovation Advisory Council (SIAC), a group of experts representing a diverse range of Canada’s social innovation and finance sector.  SIAC’s role is to provide advice to the government to establish programs and support organizations, including charities, not-for-profits, businesses and social enterprises, which promote inclusive social innovation in Canada.

A key priority for the SIAC is to advise on the implementation of recommendations in the report Inclusive Innovation:  New ideas and new partnerships for stronger communities. The report, which was delivered in 2018 by the Social Innovation and Social Finance Strategy steering group, focuses on how the government can support networks of organizations, both business and non-profit, that are working collaboratively to make communities healthier and more sustainable and inclusive. These recommendations include implementing government policy focused on social innovation through federal legislation, establishing a permanent Office for Social Innovation and a multi-sectoral Social Innovation Council to advise the federal government, creating a Social Finance Fund, and improving access to federal innovation, business development and skills training programs for social purpose organizations.

Canadian researchers have access to funding for collaborative research in social innovation via NSERC, the National Science and Engineering Research Council, and Mitacs. 

The College and Community Innovation program offers researchers in Canada’s colleges and polytechnics opportunities to apply for College and Community Social Innovation Fund (CCSIF) grants of up to $120,000/year for 1 to 3 years.  CCSIF grants are managed by NSERC in collaboration with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Social Sciences Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) with the goal of facilitating collaborative and innovative research that brings together researchers and students in the social sciences, humanities, health sciences, natural sciences and engineering to work with community partners to address challenges in social innovation. 

One of the more than 50 CCSIF grants totaling over $38 million awarded in 2021 was to Georgian College in Ontario, in partnership with the Simcoe County District School Board and Ashoka Canada, a non-profit organization that promotes social entrepreneurship by connecting and supporting individual social entrepreneurs. The goal of this research is to create changemakers and active citizens to build stronger, safer, healthier and more inclusive communities. The three-year project will develop evaluation tools that measure growth in the four competencies associated with social innovation and transformation: empathy, shared leadership, teamwork, and change-making. The project team will work with educators from kindergarten through to postsecondary to incorporate these tools into their classrooms.

In British Columbia, researchers at Langara College, in partnership with the Williams Lake First Nation and the University of British Columbia’s Indian Residential SchoolHistory and Dialogue Centre, received CCSIF funding for Secwepemc Culture to Wellness: An Intergenerational Model of Healing from Trauma Caused by Indian Hospitals & Residential Schools in British Columbia. The project responds to the harm caused by residential schools and Indian hospitals through the interruption of the transfer of knowledge of elders, the land, community leaders and educators.  A key objective of this community-based research is to restore the transfer of ancestral knowledge from elders to youth with the goal of reducing alienation and suicide among Secwepemc youth.

Mitacs has partnered with universities and community, business and non-profit organizations across Canada to fund a range of research projects addressing issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, food insecurity, health and wellness and the delivery of food and medicine to remote communities.

In 2020, Mitacs and Mental Health Research Canada partnered to fund over 20 projects covering a range of topics related to mental health and COVID-19.  Projects included research at the University of Calgary, working with the Association of International Medical Graduates of Alberta, to better understand the mental health impacts of COVID-19 on front-line workers who are members of vulnerable populations.

In a project to address the issues of food insecurity for more than 1,700 Nisga’a Indigenous people living in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, a University of Toronto Mitacs Accelerate-funded Anthropology graduate student worked with Ecotrust Canada’s North Coast Innovation Lab and the Gitmaxmak’ay Nisga’a Society on a plant-based food initiative that combines traditional and current methods and to develop and launch a food production and distribution hub.

Social innovation and collaboration, through inventive partnerships between researchers, social service agencies, business and non-profit organizations, are developing innovative processes, programs, services and methods to solve complex social problems and have transformative impacts on communities across Canada. Support for this research from federal funding agencies is leading to increased capacity for social innovation to develop and mobilize the resources, tools and methods needed to address the ongoing challenges facing communities in Canada and around the world.

Researcher Spotlight: Georgina Martin

Dr. Georgina Martin
Department of Aboriginal Studies
Langara College

When Dr. Georgina Martin was growing up as a member of the Secwepemc Nation in Williams Lake, British Columbia, her grandfather, Ned Moiese, taught her the importance of both receiving an education and of bringing what she learned back to her people. That advice strongly influenced her career path as she earned undergraduate and master’s degrees in Political Science and her PhD in Educational Studies. And her role as one of the 18 Indigenous scholars from across Canada on the Reference Group for the Appropriate Review of Indigenous Research, established to help guide the Tri-Council funding agencies (CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC) to develop culturally appropriate practices for research conducted by and with Indigenous peoples in Canada, is an important milestone as well.

“I am a passionate life-long learner and I look for ways to facilitate learning and teaching”, says Dr. Martin.  She studied for her undergraduate and master’s degrees while raising her children and working full-time jobs managing and administering programs and services within Indigenous communities, and education and health organizations. For almost three decades prior to earning her PhD, Dr. Martin worked in a range of federal and provincial government departments, serving in roles including Native Program Officer, Community Health Development Officer, Land and Community Coordinator and Aboriginal Liaison Equity Officer. In 2014, she completed her PhD research, Drumming my way home: An intergenerational narrative inquiry about Secwepemc identities, which focussed on Indigenous knowledge pedagogy and intergenerational knowledge transmission.

Dr. Martin’s focus on community, collaboration and knowledge transfer and her research interests in intergenerational trauma from residential schools and Indian hospitals, cultural identity, Indigenous self-determination, Indigenous education and Indigenous voices are reflected in her current research project, Secwepemc Culture to Wellness: An Intergenerational Model of Healing from Trauma Caused by Indian Hospitals & Residential Schools in British Columbia.  Residential schools and Indian hospitals destroyed the transfer of Secwepemc language and cultural knowledge between generations. Dr. Martin leads this project, working in collaboration with the Williams Lake First Nation and the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre (IRSHDC) at the University of British Columbia.  The goal of the research is to develop a healing model that responds to the needs of the community and aligns with Indigenous values to benefit and support the Secwepemc Nation and Indigenous communities across the country.

As a scholar and an experienced community-based researcher, Dr. Martin emphasizes the importance of listening to and working with the community to conduct research.  Her approach is strongly influenced by the work of Dr. Robert Morgan, an Aboriginal researcher who has worked throughout Australia and internationally in the field of Aboriginal knowledge and is committed to Aboriginal self-determination and sovereignty.  Unlike “helicopter research”, where data is collected and results published without the involvement of local communities, this work will include the significant and meaningful participation of collaborators and participants.

In addition to using social innovation and collaboration to address crucial issues in physical and mental health and culture, the project will build capacity for future researchers, with more than 16 students receiving funding during its three-year duration.

“My grandfather taught me that people learn from what you do, not what you say”, recalls Dr. Martin. Her work in the classroom and the community as an Indigenous scholar, teacher and researcher makes her a powerful change agent and a formidable role model to Secwepemc Nation youth.

Research Spotlight: Advanced Manufacturing in Canada – Collaborative Innovation by Industry and Researchers

The traditional view of manufacturing features unskilled labour working on assembly lines for the mass production of cars, farm machinery, electrical equipment and textiles. In 2023, Canada’s advanced manufacturing eco-system employs innovative technologies, a highly skilled workforce and partnerships with world-renowned research facilities to develop unique solutions to challenges in areas including health care, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, food and beverage processing and the assembly of electronic vehicles.

Canada’s history in manufacturing began with the use of gristmills to process grains into flour in the 18th century in New France. Confederation and the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 19th century paved the way for factories to produce lumber, grains and food products for domestic use. With the discovery of electricity and the demands of the First World War, Canada’s manufacturing expanded to shipbuilding and the production of steel and pulp and paper. The Second World War led to yet more manufacturing growth, with the fabrication of vehicles, aircraft and weapons and a manufacturing industry that employed more than 25% of Canada’s workforce.

Manufacturing in Canada today has made great strides and includes the use of robotics, nanotechnology, advanced materials, 3D printing, artificial intelligence and the integration of network and information technology to advance product development, reduce costs, increase quality, functionality and customization and reduce supply chain issues and time to market. 

According to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), manufacturing represents more than 10% of Canada’s total GDP, with exports of more than $354 billion each year, representing 68% of all of Canada’s merchandise exports and employing almost 2 million people across the country. The government of Canada recognized the importance of manufacturing to the country through the creation of Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen), one of five national networks supported by Canada’s Global Innovation Clusters (Supercluster) initiative.  According to François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, “Our government’s investment in the clusters has been about finding new and innovative ways to build connections. By incentivizing collaboration and growing strong Canadian ecosystems, the Global Innovation Clusters are generating good, well-paying jobs across the country, developing a highly skilled and diverse workforce, and contributing to our economic recovery by creating stronger and more resilient economic growth.”

NGen is a non-profit organization with the goal of “strengthening the competitiveness and growth potential of Canada’s advanced manufacturing sector, enhancing the support capacity of Canada’s advanced manufacturing ecosystem, and contributing to the well-being of Canadians.” NGen’s 5,000 members include more than 1,000 manufacturers, over 2,500 SMEs, 372 industry partners and 261 academic and research partners with over 200 students working on 165 NGen-funded projects.

Research partners participate through invitation by NGen-funded industry partners, working mainly on technology development and are funded by federal and provincial research and development grants. CEO Jayson Myers notes that NGen projects provide funding to Canadian manufacturers and technology companies to work together with university researchers and their students to develop transformative and customized solutions to solve demand-driven challenges.  “Each project partner has a role to play. Universities and research facilities provide training and education and a long-term view of the use of technology as well as access to research test-beds.  Industry partners supply innovation and ingenuity and use of facilities. Partners collaborate to focus on developing transformative solutions.”

Cities across Canada – including Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Waterloo and Ottawa – are centres of excellence in advanced manufacturing, with expertise in areas including bio-industrials, nanotechnology, geospatial data collection and analysis, advanced communications and navigation, aerospace manufacturing, cleantech, automotive, aviation, robotics and the development and integration of defence and security products. NGen plays a strategic role in connecting and supporting collaborations between experts in these centres in a broad range of projects. Examples include:

  • A partnership between Sona Nanotech in Halifax, the VIDO-Intervac Research Centre at the University of Saskatchewan and the Runnymede Healthcare Centre in Toronto to use Sona’s proprietary nanotechnology to develop a rapid point-of-care antigen test to screen for COVID-19.  The test has been commercialized in Europe as a screening tool for individuals in high-risk settings and has resulted in $100 million in sales.
  • Magna’s Stronach Centre for Innovation and Maple Advanced Robotics in Ontario, in partnership with the University of Waterloo, the University of Toronto and Toronto Metropolitan University worked together to develop an Autonomous Adaptable Robot System (AARS), a novel robot integration solution. AARS integrates 3D vision technology, artificial intelligence and collaborative robots to allow any operator with minimal training to quickly modify the robot path and workspace, significantly expanding the role of robots in large-scale or small and medium-size production and in retail services such as auto body repair shops.
  • Advanced BioCarbon 3D in Rossland, BC is conducting a feasibility study and a pilot project with KF Hemp in Regina, Virtual Layer in Kelowna, BC and a research team at the University of British Columbia to support the development of a commercial-scale biorefinery for the production of high-performance bioplastics and other advanced materials made from hemp.
  • In Ontario, Linamar in Guelph is partnering with Westhill Innovation in Simcoe and McMaster University in Hamilton to scale up production of Westhill’s inverter technology for use in zero-emission vehicles. The technology uses 1/12th the space and mass of other competing inverters and the project proposes to develop a manufacturing process to produce smaller, lighter inverters for use in Zero-Emission Vehicles.

Canada has provided significant investments in advanced manufacturing to maintain and grow the country’s role as a global leader in system integration, artificial intelligence, sensors, machine vision and automation.  In addition to NGen Supercluster funding, Canada has introduced federal tax credits, including a 100% write-off for newly-acquired manufacturing and processing equipment. The Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) Program provides income-tax credits and refunds for expenditures on eligible R&D activity in Canada.  And the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) supports business activities including R&D projects, collaborative technology demonstration projects and clean technology adoption and decarbonization.

Innovation in Canadian manufacturing has evolved from Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Computer-Aid Manufacturing (CAM) to today’s use of advanced technologies to produce big solutions to big challenges. Federal tax credits, funding of research and development, the results of NGen-funded collaborative advanced manufacturing projects and the training of the next generation of workers provided through these projects all serve to secure the progress of Canada’s manufacturing sector in order to deliver innovative products and processes for Canada and the world.

Researcher Spotlight: So-Ra Chung

So-Ra Chung, Professor, School of Engineering and Technology and Principal Investigator, Centre for Smart Manufacturing, Conestoga College

Growing up in Seoul, South Korea, Dr. So-Ra Chung wanted to be a scientist with a Nobel Prize like Marie Curie. Her father was a Philosophy professor and when his sabbatical year at the University of Toronto brought the family to Canada, So-Ra enrolled at Jarvis Collegiate as an international student with a very rudimentary knowledge of English and a love of science.  So-Ra credits the compassionate, talented and open-minded teachers at Jarvis for recognizing her enthusiasm for science and for supporting and encouraging her.

So-Ra completed high school and, inspired by a presentation by a University of Toronto biomedical engineering researcher, decided to study Engineering Science in university.  But, while a student at the Electrical and Computer Engineering at Western University in London, Ontario, she became interested in Meteor Burst Communications. Studying these signals, which are sent to shooting stars, combined her love of the outdoors, where she could observe the stars, and the appeal of applying science to real-world problems.  After completing her Master’s degree at Western, So-Ra returned to Korea to work in the Space Business Division of Hyundai Electronics building commercial satellites.  Then she returned to Canada to work as a systems engineer in the MDA Space Mission International Space Station Program for 8 years.  Her desire to be a professor eventually drew her to pursue her PhD in Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo.

So-Ra is passionate about her work as a professor in the School of Engineering and Technology at Conestoga College and a Principal Investigator in the school’s Centre for Smart Manufacturing. “I am guided by what John Tibbits, President of Conestoga College, says – What you do here counts out there”, says So-Ra.  “My goal is for my students to be more employable by adding a meaningful line on their resumes that distinguishes them. I want them to learn about ethics and critical thinking and to be able to work independently and as part of a team.” 

As with all degree programs at Conestoga, the project-based Bachelor of Engineering curriculum features a mix of theoretical and hands-on learning, where students apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to projects that bring that knowledge to life. Working with industry partners within the Centre for Smart Manufacturing allows students to participate in providing solutions to industry problems related to topics including robotics, automation, mechanical design and prototyping, cybersecurity, machine learning control of automation and machine vision. So-Ra’s dual role as professor and principal investigator provides her with the opportunity to teach the next generation of engineers as well as to work on tangible problems with industry.

To relax, So-Ra enjoys learning how to read different languages.  She is currently learning Greek and Arabic and compares matching sounds to letters to solving an encrypted code. “It uses a different part of my brain than engineering”, she notes. 

So-Ra credits her parents, and especially her father, for supporting her early interest in science and her academic and professional journey. “I have been lucky to have great mentors in my parents and my colleagues in the Centre for Smart Manufacturing.” And, in turn, she participates in outreach programs to encourage the study of STEM subjects and to promote women in engineering.

So-Ra Chung’s passion for teaching and mentoring her students, her inquisitiveness and her work as a professional engineer who has found a way to combine her love of the outdoors with her love of science is an inspiring researcher, professor and role model in her personal and professional communities.

Research Spotlight: Canada’s National Quantum Strategy

“Quantum technologies will shape the course of the future and Canada is at the forefront, leading the way. The National Quantum Strategy will support a resilient economy by strengthening our research, businesses and talent, giving Canada a competitive advantage for decades to come. I look forward to collaborating with businesses, researchers and academia as we build our quantum future.”  The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, announcing the launch of Canada’s National Quantum Strategy on January 13, 2023 at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo.

The national strategy, supported by a $360 million investment by the federal government in basic and applied research, the development of talent and the funding of commercialization to bring research results to market, is the most recent action by Canada to strengthen the country’s leadership in quantum research and technologies.

Canada is an internationally recognized trailblazer in quantum innovation, with a decades-long history of groundbreaking research, an impressive and growing pool of qualified researchers and industry professionals and a growing list of quantum technology companies. Canada invested more than $1 billion in quantum research and development over the last 20 years. This research funding, along with provincial investments and collaboration with industry, has given rise to world-renowned researchers and research labs in universities across the country.

At the Université de Montréal, Gilles Brassard is a pioneer of quantum information science. His most celebrated research breakthroughs include the invention of quantum cryptography and quantum teleportation. Dr. Brassard has been recognized for his work with prestigious awards, including the Breakthrough Prize in fundamental physics in 2022, the 2018 Wolf Prize in physics (which he shares with Charles Bennett of the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center) and the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering. A holder of the Canada Research Chair in Quantum Information Science since 2000, Brassard is a member of the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) and the Institut transdisciplinaire d’information quantique (INTRIQ), two strategic clusters funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies (FRQNT).

Established as the Institute for Quantum Information Science in 2005, the Institute for Quantum Science and Technology (IQST) at the University of Calgary brings together researchers in computer science, mathematics, chemistry and physics to conduct research in pure and applied quantum science and technology and to advance the field through education and training and connections with other quantum science institutes and industry. IQST currently includes over 160 members including researchers, research staff and students, and its 18 research groups conduct work in four research themes: molecular modelling, nanotechnology, quantum information and computing, and quantum optics.  

While based in Calgary, the Institute has expanded provincially through Quantum Alberta, which has sites at the University of Alberta and the University of Lethbridge in addition to the Calgary site. Quantum Alberta connects the province’s quantum research community to ensure that Alberta is a world leader in quantum technology research, development, education and training.

Waterloo, Ontario’s quantum ecosystem, known as “Quantum Valley,” is home to more than 16 companies specializing in quantum cryptography, software, communication and consulting and over 250 researchers at two of the world’s largest quantum and theoretical physics research centres. The Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo and Perimeter Institute, along with Quantum Valley Investments (QVI), a quantum technology commercialization incubator created by BlackBerry founders Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin, have attracted more than $1.5 billion in public and private investment over the last 20 years.  

Launched in 2000 through a personal investment of $100 million from founder Mike Lazardis, Perimeter Institute is the world’s largest independent theoretical physics research hub, with research focused on areas including quantum fields and strings, quantum foundations, quantum gravity and quantum matter. Perimeter provides a collaborative environment for 150 resident researchers and the more than 1,000 scientists from around the world who visit each year. Dr. Rob Meyers, Director of Perimeter Institute since 2019, is one of the leading theoretical physicists working in the area of quantum fields and strings.  Upon his appointment as Director, Dr. Myers observed, “Perimeter is an environment unlike any other in which researchers from around the globe collaborate across disciplines in search of profound new truths. Breakthroughs await where brilliant people, bold ideas, and diverse cultures intersect.” 

The Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the University of Waterloo opened in 2002 as a result of Mike Lazardis’ understanding of the power of the emerging field of quantum information science, generous investments of his personal funds and partnerships with industry, academia and the provincial and federal governments. Dr. Raymond Laflamme joined IQC as Founding Director and worked closely with Dr. Michele Mosca as Deputy Director to bring together researchers from across Canada and around the world in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, engineering and chemistry to conduct research in IQC’s four research pillars: quantum computing, quantum communications, quantum sensing and quantum materials. Currently, 29 faculty members and a community of over 300 researchers work at IQC in areas including digital quantum matter, engineering quantum systems, nuclear magnetic resonance and quantum encryption and science satellites.

Transformative Quantum Technologies (TQT), the development unit of IQC, is led by Professor David Cory, a physical chemist who works to develop quantum devices for sensing and computation. TQT researchers collaborate with industry and quantum research institutes internationally to transfer quantum theory into quantum products that deliver economic and social benefits.

In addition to the world-renowned quantum research facilities and researchers working in Canada, the number of Canadian companies working in this area is growing. These include Xanadu Quantum Technologies in Toronto, D-Wave Systems in Vancouver, Anyon Systems in Dorval and ISARA in Waterloo and many start-up companies in areas ranging from quantum cryptography to quantum computing software to quantum-enabled scientific instruments and natural resources sensing. In addition, global technology companies, including IBM, Amazon, Microsoft and Google, are working to advance the field and to incorporate quantum technologies into their product roadmaps.

Canada’s National Quantum Strategy has been announced as the commercialization efforts of universities, research institutions and industry work to transfer quantum research results to market and as regions and countries including the U.S., the UK, the EU, Australia and China are developing strategies and increasing investment in quantum research and development. According to a 2020 study commissioned by Canada’s National Research Council, it is estimated that by 2045 and including all economic effects, quantum will be a $139 billion industry in Canada and employ more than 200,000 Canadians. 

A newly established Quantum Advisory Council, co-chaired by Dr. Raymond Laflamme, Canada Research Chair in Quantum Information at the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, and Dr. Stephanie Simmons, Canada Research Chair in Silicon Quantum Technologies at Simon Fraser University and founder and Chief Quantum Officer of Photonic Inc., will provide independent expert advice on the implementation of the strategy.

The National Quantum Strategy will focus on three quantum technology areas:

  • Computing hardware and software 
  • Communications to develop a national secure quantum communications network and post-quantum cryptography capabilities for Canada
  • Sensors to support the development and commercialization of new quantum sensing technologies

Rob Myers, Director of Perimeter Institute, notes that the $360 million investment by the Government of Canada is the start of a new era for quantum in Canada. “It is important to think that this is not only the end. This is the beginning of developing a quantum ecosystem across Canada.”

Researcher Spotlight: Estelle Inack

Estelle Inack, Research Scientist, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

Dr. Estelle Inack was trained to believe that a problem is interesting if it’s hard. A research scientist, company co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, and advocate and inspiration for women in science, Dr. Inack works at the juncture of academia and industry to advance research and to solve difficult real-world problems.

Dr. Inack is a member of the Perimeter Institute Quantum Intelligence Lab (PIQuIL), working on research that couples quantum computing with artificial intelligence. And, as the use of both machine learning and quantum computing is advanced by its use in a range of industries, Dr. Inack has found herself working to bridge academia and industry through the commercialization of her research results.

Dr. Inack didn’t plan to become a physicist. She was influenced by her mother’s work in the marine industry and her own interest in natural science to seek a career on the technical side of the marine business. Her childhood fascination with naval architecture and advice that an undergraduate degree in physics was the best preparation for that work led her to study physics, rather than her first choice of mathematics. As her interest in the maritime industry waned, Dr. Inack focused on her masters’ degree and continuing her studies in English rather than her original language of French. 

As someone who had wanted to pursue a PhD in physics but was steered by funding sources to study engineering instead, Dr. Inack’s father strongly encouraged her to continue her studies in physics at the doctoral level. She received a scholarship to study in Italy and, for her postdoctoral work, elected to join Perimeter Institute, as a Francis Kofi Allotey Fellow.  She chose Perimeter over other offers from the University of Alberta, Microsoft and the University of Southern California because she knew that working at Perimeter would allow her to expand her research interests to include machine learning and neural networks. Originally from Cameroon, she is proud to have been awarded a fellowship named for an internationally renowned African mathematical physicist.

Dr. Inack’s work at PIQuIL has provided unique opportunities for collaboration with industry. As she designed algorithms to solve optimization problems, she understood that her research results would be valuable to industry. She partnered with fellow academic physicist, Behnam Javanparast, who also had worked in the financial industry, to found quantum intelligence start-up yiyaniQ. yiyaniQ, which combines the words for intelligence and future in Dr. Inack’s local language of Bassa, provides advanced derivative pricing and portfolio optimization based on quantum intelligent algorithms. 

Thanks to her participation in the Creative Destruction Lab Quantum Stream bootcamp in 2021, Dr. Inack is developing a different approach to research, one that not only seeks to develop the best possible tools but that also looks for potential business applications for those tools. In the future, besides the financial sector, yiyaniQ plans to look at other verticals where, working with partners with domain expertise, additional real-world problems can be solved using her research results.

As she has progressed in her career, Dr. Inack has realized that the influence of her strong mother, who taught her that a woman can do anything that a man can do, has been a key factor in her success. In order to recalibrate the mindset that math and physics isn’t for women, she spends time promoting women in science, with a focus on Africa. “It’s important to have those conversations, to let young women know that it’s possible to do science.  And to educate male counterparts.”  

When asked what she’d like to be known for, Dr. Inack says “For solving the hardest problems and for making an impact on daily life.” And she does just that as a researcher at the intersection of quantum and machine learning, as an entrepreneur providing commercial applications of her work and as an inspirational role model for young women.

CEO Message

I’m excited to share Profound Impact’s plans for this year as we amplify our focus on research and researchers across Canada and internationally.

Our new Research Spotlight column, which debuts this month highlighting Canada’s role as an AI research leader, will feature stories about emerging research and collaboration in areas including Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Information Processing, Sustainability, Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Biomanufacturing, Social Innovation, and Technology and Society.

We’ll also introduce some of the world-renowned researchers working in these areas to transfer their research results from the lab to innovative products and services.  This month you’ll meet Professor Doina Precup from McGill University, who conducts fundamental research on reinforcement learning and works on AI applications in areas that have a social impact.

March 8 is International Women’s Day and this year’s theme is Embrace Equity. The Profound Impact team is delighted to be working with the Waterloo Region Chapter of Women in Communications and Technology and community organizations from across the region to present a series of IWD2023 events throughout the month of March to celebrate the women of Waterloo Region. We’ll share information about these events in upcoming issues of Profound Connections.

I know that you’ll be impressed by the accomplishments of Adrija Jana, featured in this month’s Impact Story. At just 18 years of age and just beginning her studies in English Literature at the University of Delhi in India, this exceptional young woman has made great impact as a poet, researcher, social activist, artist and active citizen.

Enjoy this month’s edition of Profound Connections and hope you are having a great start to a healthy, happy and prosperous 2023!

Sherry Shannon-Vanstone