Student Showcase Projects

Project 1: A Proof-of-concept Experimental Study for Vacuum-driven Anaerobic Biosolids Fermentation using the IntensiCarb Technology (Partner: USP Technologies Canada ULC)

USP Technologies Canada ULC or “USP” is a chemical treatment company for water and wastewater chemical treatment applications. It is a leading provider of peroxygen-based technologies and full-service chemical treatment.

Wastewater process intensification is an innovative strategy that makes municipal wastewater treatment safer, more efficient, and flexible while also enabling smaller, more cost-effective, and environmentally friendly wastewater treatment operations. Lambton College partnered with USP to study and evaluate the operational conditions of the IntensiCarb technology, by expanding the intensification factors over 2. The research process requires the redesign and optimization of the lab-scale system, testing and validation of the optimized design and the dynamic modeling process in different operating model, and the evaluation of composition of the fermentate and condensate, specifically in terms of ammonia, sCOD, and VFA content. Success of the project will benefit not only the partner but through potential incorporation of this innovate technology in wastewater systems, also benefit Canada by increasing overall plants capacity, and the recovery of value-added products such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon, which can be recovered separately and independently.

Project 2: Real World Application of the EMF 1000 Technology within an Active Sewage Lagoon Setting in Southern Ontario (Partner: EM Fluids Inc.)

EM Fluids Inc. is an Ottawa-based environmental engineering company that works with government sectors, industries, educational institutions and other clients to put in place innovative solutions for pressing environmental problems. There is an imperative and widespread need for new, economical technologies to improve water quality in water bodies that currently experience oxygen depletion.

EM Fluids has partnered with Lambton College to implement and test their innovative technology, the EMF 1000, in Southern Ontario. The EMF 1000 is a self-contained, solar-powered, cleantech solution that uses proprietary non-irradiating signals to stimulate the water. The impact is broadly distributed across large waterbodies. The device increases the gas exchange rate at the air-water boundary and in turn increases dissolved oxygen (DO) in the water column. This results in a healthier waterbody for biological processes and for aquatic organisms and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. EMF 1000 is approved by the Ontario Ministry of Environment Conservation and Parks (MECP).

Project 1: Optimization of the Fermentation Process using Engineered E.coli for the Production of High-value Heme Compound (Partner: Ardra Inc.)

Ardra Inc. is a synthetic biology company focused on production of natural ingredients for cosmetics and flavor and fragrance industry. Lambton College and Ardra have partnered on a collaborative project for the production of heme for alternative meat products to combat GHG emissions and provide a product to the food market that is sustainable, natural, cruelty free, and vegan.

Project 2: Process Optimization of Ginseng-based Kombucha: Influence of SCOBY and Acidity (Partner: Jing Jinh Nutrifood Ltd.)

Jing Jing Nutrifood Ltd. (JJNF) provides high quality health foods and products that emphasize the reliance on science and traditional knowledge for their production and use. JJNF has been examining the incorporation of ginseng and other complementary ingredients into Kombucha formulation. Panax quinquefolium (American ginseng) is a plant rich in bioactive phytochemicals. Its active compounds, ginsenosides and polysaccharides exert a wide range of different biological activities.

Through this collaborative project, Lambton College and JJNF are working to refine the production protocol and to gain a better understanding of factors that influence fermentation and product quality of ginseng based Kombucha for commercialization. The project will also develop standard operating procedure (SOP) for the commercial production of high-quality ginseng based Kombucha that are consistent and predictable.

A private company GeneRxN aims to develop a detection kit for Alzheimer’s disease before the onset of symptoms. To do this, several experiments were done with the Sigma 1 receptor to determine its impact on cholesterol metabolism. Since we know that several genes that cause Alzheimer’s play a role in cholesterol homeostasis, and that high cholesterol levels can induce Alzheimer’s disease, increased expression of the Sigma 1 gene could be used to detect early forms of the disease. A 3rd year international B.Sc. student in Biotechnology, who contributed to this applied research partnership, was able to learn new advanced laboratory techniques and discover a new passion for genetic diseases.

Since the legalization of cannabis in Canada, cannabis producers are facing more and more challenges regarding harvesting and production. One of the biggest challenges is plant pathogens, which lead to loss of crops, large-scale production and consequently revenue. These same pathogens are responsible for diseases that ravage the world’s most harvested crops, such as corn and wheat. This causes immense losses to the agricultural industry, often leading to food shortages. Usually, the most common method to combat pathogen-induced diseases is the application of chemical pesticides. Although they are effective, they are highly polluting and often toxic to humans. An alternative method is genetic resistance to pathogens, which was the main goal of this project with LyonLeaf, a cannabis producer in the Montreal area, which is looking to determine if their cannabis lines are resistant to certain diseases.

During this partnership, we were able to identify some cannabis lines that were resistant to some of the most common diseases in this type of crop. With this experience, the student received a job offer at the same research center where he did his research project.

The student of the project in Applied Research of the Centre for Expertise in Smart Prototyping (CEPI) had the opportunity to use different artificial intelligence tools to develop prototypes for private companies. For example, this student contributed to developing an image recognition algorithm. He also analysed and optimized an already existing algorithm that processes the specific movement of a human gait. The student developed function sets to simplify the usage of the NAO robot range of functions. These sets were used in different presentations with the college’s officials and students. While doing so, the student was able to strengthen his coding skills in a wide range programming languages as well as grasping a better understanding of robotics.

This project aims to bridge the gap between artificial intelligence and the field of Cardiology by introducing a benchmark-beating classification model to aid both specialists and front-line workers in the early detection and diagnosis of heart disease.

The project’s creator, Matthew Wilson (a recent graduate of the Computer Systems Technology program from Saskatchewan Polytechnic), had partnered with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a Consultant Cardiologist at York Teaching Hospital in the UK, and Natalie Thiessen, a Registered Nurse and a member of the Critical Care Nursing Program at Saskatchewan Polytechnic. Through this partnership, Matthew gained clear direction of where his project would provide the most immediate and effective impact in the field, such as the potential prediction of “Sudden Cardiac Death”, automatic ECG interpretation for front-line workers, mitigating misdiagnoses, and more.

Using machine learning best practices, Matthew achieved his initial goal of outperforming similar projects by an outstanding margin. The future goals of the project include integrating the model into existing hardware in hospitals and healthcare facilities across Canada, partnering with manufacturers to develop a retail fitness tracker for the general public, and making the model available worldwide through the creation of an accessible web application.

The Social Entrepreneurship project connected NSCC students with students from Tra Vinh University (TVU) in Vietnam. Through this project, students experienced visits and interviews with local entrepreneurs, cultural excursions, and project work that exposed students to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Tra Vinh province, Vietnam.  This experience gave students a better understanding of entrepreneurship in a global setting and the opportunity to compare it with the entrepreneurial landscape in Nova Scotia.

In collaborative teams, students from both institutions were then challenged to produce start-up venture ideas. The following presentation focuses on the project – Easy Prep Meal Kits, an easy to use and locally sourced food kit option for students and staff that sources local produce and focuses on easy to use and store ingredients.

NSCC’s Engineered Technology Applied Research Lab (ETAR) has been developing technology that monitors the depth and temperature of water in wells. This is part of an ongoing research project in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where residents fear contaminants are in their wells and impacting their health. ETAR is working to uncover a cost-effective, water-filtration solution for the predominantly black community. This student project is focused on creating a versatile remote sensor system (VRSS) that will be used to collect data in wells or on land to better understand environmental conditions.

The objective of this project is to improve the hardware to make it more versatile so that it can function under extreme weather conditions. The VRSS will be designed so that it is economical and will not require technical expertise to assemble and install. The idea is that this remote sensor system will be accessible to individuals in remote locations, who often have the greatest need for access to this type of technology.

Pawâcikêwikamik: A Plains Cree word meaning ‘a lodge supporting those who dream’, Pawâcikêwikamik is dedicated to empowering grassroots Indigenous entrepreneurship and innovation in Saskatchewan. During the spring of 2021, the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies (SIIT) received funding from Sustainable Development and Technology Canada (SDTC), for the creation of the very first Indigenous Innovation Accelerator of its kind in Saskatchewan.

With a focus on supporting, educating, and mentoring Indigenous peoples, Pawâcikêwikamik provides access to cutting-edge technologies, training, and mentorship to support the creation of successful start-ups, in a space that emphasizes culture, language, kinship, and connection. Through a variety of initiatives – including an applied certificate program in Indigenous entrepreneurship, a state-of-the-art MakerLodge space, an Indigenous Innovator-in-Residence program, access to non-repayable microgrants for Indigenous entrepreneurs, as well as a variety of community and youth-focused initiatives including the L3Harris Dreamers and Doers Innovation Camps and the Mobile MakerLodge, Pawâcikêwikamik offers a space for people to create and to try new things.

SIIT students will feature and highlight a project and initiative that they were a part of to help cultivate an Indigenous innovation mindset throughout the SIIT learning community.

Mobile LiDAR allows the physical world to be digitally captured rapidly compared to traditional survey methods by having a SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) LiDAR sensor attached to a handheld unit or an autonomous UAV.

With College of the North Atlantic (CNA) working with many Canadian mining companies, both historic and developing mines are mapped without disturbing the natural environment. With mobile LiDAR, two separate shafts totaling approximately 620m in length were accessed via helicopter accessible at the historic Muskwa mine in British Colombia. Using portable SLAM LiDAR, the shafts were mapped in 3D within 1cm of geometric accuracy and georeferenced – all within 3 working days. In addition, it was found through this work that the light reflectance intensity returns captured are also sufficient to identify mineral veins that would not normally be visible to the human eye in the low-light conditions of an underground mine.

Similar mapping work of this nature has also been completed by CNA in Newfoundland and Labrador mines, such as those owned by Rambler Metals and Mining, Vale, and the now de-commissioned Bell Island Wabana mine.

In consultation with industry and community developers in Ontario, Fanshawe College recognizes that the residential sector is still considered one of the highest significant national Green House Gas (GHG) emitters. To address the many needs of the College’s regional development community and their efforts to ‘green’ local low-rise, high-density housing, Fanshawe College is in the process of retrofitting the first town house residences in Canada to reach Net Zero Energy Ready (NZER) performance, reducing energy use by a minimum of 70%. With the support of NRCAN funding, a $2.4M renovation of 12 demonstration units of the 68 units total within College’s Kestrel Court residence was undertaken.

To this end, 30 students from 4 programs, with support from faculty members and partner institution leads, are completing the creation of accessible and digestible content for industrial knowledge dissemination.

The student team will conduct ten community outreach presentations and work directly with stakeholders, including Toronto Community Housing, to increase awareness of the opportunities, technical solutions, and cost/benefit value of Net Zero retrofits and accelerate investment and innovation in the industry. Future students residing in the renovated pilot units, will benefit directly and be influenced by the experience of occupying what is a living lab of novel, cost-effective energy solution environments, inspiring future building technologies soon to be leveraged by economy of scale.

DistillX Beverages Inc. is the founder of Sobrii-0 non-alcoholic gin and tequila products. Sobrii is proud to distill in Canada, using quality natural ingredients including locally grown ginseng.

The 0-tequila project goal was to develop a non-alcoholic Tequila beverage from flavour concept to the point of commercialization. To achieve this, the research team conducted a competitive analysis, risk assessment, ingredient sourcing, and developed several prototypes before choosing the winning formula.

Leansuite is a company that offers a communication platform for their customers across a growing list of industries. As Leansuite continued to grow, they found as the amount of data continued to grow, employees and managers were spending more time on the system interacting with it. The challenge was to find a way to automate and reduce the amount of work needed to handle the messages.

Our solution was to develop a program that utilizes Artificial Intelligence to process the messages and reduce the work for their customers. Our program takes an input and produces suggestions based on previous inputs that are most closely related to the new input. Our method involved calculating key relationships in parallel and mapping those relationships to previous inputs.

This allows Leansuite to provide customized auto-completion suggestions to employees as they create new messages. It also allows Leansuite to determine the most likely action a manager will take with a message and provide managers with those suggested actions. Optionally, they can choose to let the system complete those actions automatically based on how confident the program is in that resulting action.

Identifying a need for advanced technology to accelerate systematic reviews in health, clinical researchers from the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario teamed up with the Social Innovation Lab at Algonquin College to build a cloud-based software platform to accelerate the process.

insightScope has been built entirely by Algonquin College students in collaboration with our clinical research partners. The platform utilizes crowdsourcing and hybrid human/machine AI techniques to speed up the process while maintaining the scientific rigor of the review. To date, the platform has been utilized for over 140 systematic reviews, by almost 1,000 research users conducting well over a half million title/abstract assessments.

In 2020, insightScope was utilized to rapidly generate critical information on recycling PPE during the initial height of the COVID-19 pandemic. These studies were utilized locally, nationally and globally by institutions and policy makers.

Most recently, the team launched a version of the platform for Medical Conferences as part of the 11th World Congress of the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive & Critical Care Societies, in Cape Town, South Africa.

Over the past few decades, oat production has declined significantly in Ontario, in part due to heavy aphid infestations that reduce crop yields and spread viruses (e.g., barley yellow dwarf virus). Pesticide application is commonly used to manage the infestation despite the associated negative environmental impacts. Collège Boréal is collaborating with TECC Agriculture Ltd. to help them develop a new biological pest control technique for oat aphids. The objective of the project is to evaluate different techniques to determine the most effective and environmentally friendly strategy for farmers in Northeastern Ontario.

The number of breweries in Canada has increased exponentially in the last decade leading to an increase in the demand of hops. However, Canadian hop farmers have struggled to compete with hops imported from more mature growing regions, namely the United States, because they are prohibited from growing the proprietary hop varieties favoured by craft breweries.

A potential source of novel hops could come from the wild, especially farm-grown heirloom hops that have escaped and seeded wild populations (i.e. feral).

The scientific team at Langara College in collaboration with two Canadian hop companies have determined the commercialization potential of British Columbia (BC) feral hops. Over 100 feral hops have been discovered in southwestern BC and genetic analysis revealed that most are genetically unique as the hops are mating in the wild. Furthermore, chemical analyses revealed that several of them possess interesting chemical characteristics sought after by craft brewers. Commercially growing and marketing these promising novel feral hops could help to reinvigorate the Canadian hop industry and establish a stronger relationship between Canadian hop farmers and craft brewers.

Hammam Spa by Céla with locations in Toronto and North York was founded by Celine Tadrissi in 2004 and has grown to become the largest independently run spa in Canada, winning numerous national and international awards and having established their house-brand product-line.

Céla collaborated with Seneca to evaluate new Canadian-made raw materials and prepare an anti-aging skin oil formulation with antioxidant properties, for use in the company’s branded skincare products. Working with Seneca’s research team, Céla was able to develop effective new products that meet consumer demands for Canadian-made, sustainable materials, while remaining cost effective, resulting in viable margins for production and manufacturing.

The anti-aging skin oil product is currently in production and will be launched by Céla in the first quarter of 2023. The company predicts sales of about 6,000 units in the first year with a total revenue of approximately $400,000.

Connections Market and Events is an initiative to create equity, opportunity, and a sense of community regardless of if someone is neurodiverse, disabled, or neurotypical. We believe in life beyond labels and that everyone deserves to achieve and belong. 

We have recently created a new partnership with a local venue, and we are looking forward to creating opportunities for the community through a wide variety of recreational and educational events. In the new year we are hoping to launch an online store to support local entrepreneurs whose lives are impacted by neurodiversity and disabilities. We have ambitious plans for the future including a store front with cafe that employs neurodiverse and disabled individuals, and a sister non-profit that offers relationship support, match making, and entrepreneurship coaching.

A Fleming College’s research team has developed an innovative Internet of Things (IoT) solution, including both hardware and software, for Molok North America (Molok NA), a world-renowned manufacturer of semi-underground crane-lifted waste storage systems located in Ontario. This innovative solution will add smart access control and data analytics features to the company’s waste bin products. The company has started marketing this IoT solution as a new product to be released in 2023 under the tradename of TACtile.

A prominent part of TACtile is an online data analytic platform that was developed by Andre Asturias Gary, Fleming’s student in the Computer Security and Investigation program. This data analytics platform provides valuable information about the status and usage of the company’s waste bin products and will help the company optimize its waste collection process. The data analytics platform provides a significant business advantage for Molok NA in the global waste management market in addition to reducing the carbon footprint of the company and the waste management industry as a whole.

Andre’s work helped a Canadian company strengthen its position in the local and global market and will lead to the creation of well-paid jobs, here in Ontario. In addition, Andre’s great work has helped Fleming College to showcase its applied research capabilities to other external partners and expand its collaboration with the community and industry.

The system will be presented with a component that will be scanned by an industrial camera. The camera will use pattern recognition to determine what the component is and where it should be moved. A robotic arm will reach out to the component, pick it up and move it to a specified storage location.

Until recently, core sample viewing and logging in the mining and exploration industry has been conducted in the same way, with the same technology. Looking to innovate this process, a company called Northern Prosperity engaged with Cambrian College to develop a prototype that will improve the core viewing and logging process.

The core of the innovation is to develop a solution that is more ergonomically friendly and easier to use, which will allow geologists of all shapes and sizes to operate. Typical core tables are static and not height adjustable. This new table design automatically raises and tilts core samples so that geologists can more easily view and manipulate heavy core samples.

Working with an interdisciplinary team that included electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and welding and fabrication, Northern Prosperity received a working prototype that they have now commercialized.

The capstone college project is a wireless home alarm system with a pair of door contact sensors, built and programmed from scratch using minimal code libraries.

The Nixie Tube Clock is a project designed to make use of the irreplicable viewing characteristics of 1970s neon numeric gas discharge tubes, otherwise known as Nixie tubes.

Welcome to “The Chill Zone”, your very own breath of fresh air in a world of chaos. The Chill Zone Event Playbook includes resources and tools for you to create your very own Chill Zone event at your school, agency, or department.

We at the St. Lawrence College Innovation Hub in collaboration with Enactus SLC and a grant from The Co-Operators have put together a one-stop guide to improving mental health and fostering self-care within the space of any organization.

Our Chill Zone Event Playbook was created to guide participants through creating and executing their own mental health event step-by-step. It takes all the guesswork out of the process of changing an idea into an action. Simply work through the guide, picking whatever options work best for your unique situation, and create your very own breath of fresh air.

In this showcase Ariane Morin, second year welding and Fabrication student from St Lawrence College’s Cornwall Campus, will be describing the skills and knowledge required of a welder to ensure that welds meet the high standards set by both the Canadian Red Seal Accreditation and Canadian Industry Welding Standards. Ariane will have two portable Augmented Realty Arc Welders at the showcase, where guests will have the opportunity to try their hand at welding in a safe and realistic but virtual reality environment. The guest will also receive immediate feedback from the application and receive guidance from Ariane on how to perfect their skills.