Innovation is a Team Sport
Written by: Ben Slang, DIGITAL
THE CHALLENGE
The scale of Canada’s challenges in adapting and supporting the rest of the world towards a net-zero future are daunting. At DIGITAL, we work with Canadian innovators rising to these challenges every day. However, we see how tackling these issues with the skills and resources of only one organization, while navigating frequent silos between industry and digital innovation, make it inherently difficult for developers of game-changing solutions to make an impact on their own.
The world needs Canadian innovators and solutions such as low-impact mining, autonomous farming, data-informed timber harvesting supply chains, biomining solutions for extraction and green site remediation, and more. We’re already creating them – and they’re a result of our best and brightest working together.
INNOVATION IS A TEAM SPORT
At DIGITAL, we believe innovation is a team sport. We are a catalytic not-for-profit on a mission to bring together SMEs, researchers, and multinational enterprises with best-in-class technologies so that Canadian-led solutions to our greatest problems become globally competitive market leaders faster. When organizations collaborate and share their research, expertise and resources, the results are exponentially more impactful then when they work alone.
At DIGITAL, we de-risk R&D through results-based, demand-driven co-investment that ensures the voice of the customer at the table. Since 2018, we’ve created over $500M portfolio of digital innovations alongside our Members, leading to 500+ Canadian intellectual property assets, 150+ products and services, and projecting over $4 billion in potential revenue growth over the next 5 years. Further, companies that have worked with us have gone on to raise just under $950M in follow-on funding.
These achievements represent important milestones towards furthering our advancements to a net-zero society and building stronger Canadian industry.
COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION IN ACTION
To understand how DIGITAL is accelerating innovation and inspiring industry to deliver meaningful digital solutions, here are a few examples of our collaborative model in action.
Led by EarthDaily Analytics, the Satellite-based Environmental Analytics project brought together the expertise of a consortium including Microsoft, Hatfield Consultants, Environment & Climate Change Canada, BCG, the BC Parks Foundation, the University of Victoria and Mitacs to monitor the effects of climate change through the application of high-resolution satellite imagery and sophisticated data analytics. The project developed the “EarthMosaics” service to automate and accelerate the generation of high-quality, analytics-ready mosaics using multiple sources of complex earth observation satellite data for monitoring the effects of climate change, pollution, urbanization and natural disasters across vast areas.
EarthDaily Analytics generated automated state and country scale mosaics that serve end-user’s needs doing environmental analytics, including creating over 17.9 terabytes of analysis-ready data mosaic products covering areas such as British Columbia, U.S. West Coast and Mountain States, New South Wales Australia and 2021 forest fire areas in British Columbia.
Led by Calgary-based Verge Ag, the Standard Data Platform for Autonomous Agriculture project enabled the collaboration of Terramera, i-Open Technologies, Simon Fraser University and QuantoTech to accelerate the transition to autonomous farming. By providing farmers with an interactive operational planning, Verge Ag’s platform is improving efficiency, reducing emissions, increasing the net income of farmers and empowering smarter, faster, and more sustainable food production through field, crop and soil characterization.
The platform has been used by blueberry farmers in Pitt Meadows, British Columbia to detect scorch virus on their farms through its remote sensing capabilities. This proactive approach saved the grower an estimated $200,000 on a 10-acre section of their field with much quicker detection that traditional methods. It was also used to develop a Food Asset Map for the Abbotsford area in British Columbia by utilizing publicly available data to explore the potential of vertical agriculture in creating sustainable, resilient community food systems.
SEEKING NEW GEOSPATIAL PRODUCT LEADERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
At North 51, our team is truly excited to uncover strategic opportunities to build Canadian-led, geospatial product market leadership on the global stage. Within Alberta and across Canada, we know there are pockets of excellence and immense applications for geospatial innovation. Our team is looking for new opportunities to apply DIGITAL’s collaborative model to help bring these technologies beyond early stage commercialization to market leadership. If you have bold ideas with global aspirations, come talk to us and let’s see what’s possible.
Connect with our team members, Shawn Gervais and Ben Slang, on LinkedIn before the conference.
About DIGITAL
DIGITAL, Canada’s Global Innovation Cluster for digital technologies, grows Canadian businesses through the development, adoption and deployment of Canadian-made technologies and by working with industry to develop a digitally skilled workforce to positively impact lives across our country.
We bring together businesses, academia, community and government agencies to solve some of industry and society’s biggest challenges – better and faster than any single organization can do on its own. Through a powerful model that combines cross-sector collaboration, Canadian IP creation and results-based co-investment, we unlock the potential of Canadian industry to lead and succeed in the digital world.
Ahead of the curve starts here. For more information, visit digitalsupercluster.ca