Grants and Contributions

The proposed project aims to provide security to remote healthcare delivery efforts in Canada for in-home patients and geographically remote Canadian regions.
Project Objectives:
1. Propose secure authentication protocols for IoT systems in remote healthcare systems
2. Validate the security of the proposed authentication protocols
3. Develop embedded processor arrays for fast and secure elliptic curve encryption
Enhance protocol security using data flow computing and activity obfuscation

Photonic generation of millimeter-wave frequencies (30 GHz–300 GHz) has recently attracted great interest from both academia and industry, particularly for applications in future seamless fiber-wireless integrated optical access networks (OAN), such as both front-haul and back-haul of 5G and beyond (6G) of mobile wireless networks. A wireless access network (WAN) at millimeter-wave bands has large bandwidth for high speed indoor/hotspot communications to be utilized to support the combination of small cells and millimeter-wave radio, and fiber-optic communications plays an important role in both the back-haul and front-haul networks. The objective of the project is to implement heterogeneous photonic integration to develop fully integrated microwave photonic systems for the generation and transmission of millimeter-wave signals be used in 5G and beyond wireless networks.

Autonomous mobile manipulators are a novel class of autonomous systems that can be used in many advanced automation and manufacturing processes. Due to the high complexity of unified trajectory planning and control, current industrial solutions often decouple the autonomous platform and the attached manipulator, treating them as isolated systems. This project will focus on the development and validation of a unified multi-objective control system and trajectory planner to improve the performance and robustness of autonomous mobile manipulators for tasks such as force or visual servoing. In addition, artificial intelligence techniques will be explored for the optimization of the forward and inverse kinematic models of the autonomous mobile platform. Successful completion of this project will deliver HQP and high impact publications providing transferable knowledge directly into the autonomous mobile robotic industry and their supporting end-users within Canada.

Robotic based processing is a very attractive option for manufacturers due to the flexibility and re-configurability of the systems as business and market demands change. Within the robotic space, collaborative robots further extend the flexibility of traditional robotized systems by incorporating highly sensitive internal sensors to better perceive the environment around it. These sensors can be used to provide a source of time-series signals representing the process. This project will look to develop a generalized semi-supervised machine learning based predictive framework to estimate the surface roughness of a machine finished component to better improve the efficiency of robotic finishing applications. With an accurate predictor of the surface roughness derived from the processing data provided by the collaborative robot, requirements for additional external inspection can be reduced or removed. A fundamental component of the project is to ensure generalization of the framework, allowing for extendibility into other collaborative robotic manufacturing processes.

Operating costs: The project targets the creation and start-up of innovative companies in the Estrie region, as well as in the Brome-Missisquoi and Haute-Yamaska MRCs in Montérégie.

Operating costs: The project targets the creation and start-up of innovative companies in the Estrie region, as well as in the Brome-Missisquoi and Haute-Yamaska MRCs in Montérégie.

This grant represents Canada’s institutional support to Girls Not Brides. Girls Not Brides uses these funds, along with other donor’s funding to achieve its mandate of ending child, early and forced marriage (CEFM).

Girls Not Brides is a global partnership of 1,300 civil society organizations in 100 countries. Members are based throughout Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas, and are united by a commitment to end child marriage and enable girls to reach their full potential. Project activities include: (1) raising awareness of the harmful impact of child marriage by encouraging open, inclusive and informed discussion at the community, local, national and international level; (2) facilitating learning and coordination among organizations working to end child marriage; and (3) mobilizing all necessary policy, financial and other support to end child marriage.

This project supports 263 volunteer placements, and intends to capture the experience and expertise of skilled Canadian volunteers to improve the economic and/or social wellbeing of the poorest, most marginalized and vulnerable people, particularly women and girls, with a view to contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals. These volunteers work to increase the capacity of developing country partners to deliver sustainable development results in response to local needs.

In addition to increasing engagement of Canadians in international development and key global issues, this project aims to increase the performance of developing country partners to deliver more inclusive, innovative, and environmentally sustainable initiatives that advance gender equality. Cooperatives and credit union are vital tools to provide access to economic empowerment for poor and marginalized populations, in developing countries around the world.

Project activities include: (1) recruiting and training skilled and experienced volunteers on gender equality and their volunteer placement; (2) providing training to primary co-operatives on women’s economic empowerment, inclusion, environmental sustainability, governance, production, business practices, management and advocacy, value chains, and market access; (3) providing training to individual producers on improved agriculture and business practices, literacy, and financial literacy, soil management and erosion control; (4) developing a training curriculum to strengthen the technical and institutional capacity of the partner towards provision of quality cooperative education, training, research, innovations and community outreach services, particularly for women and girls, that will widen the opportunities to the cooperative sector; (5) providing technical assistance for cooperatives to invest in developing strong, inclusive management systems and accounting models e.g. budgeting, internal and external accounting; and (6) establishing a Strategic Innovation Fund enabling volunteers to facilitate the initiation of innovative volunteer-led initiatives to create products, services, processes or tools to support the inclusion of the most vulnerable populations, particularly women and girls, in program activities.

February 2020 - The crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is characterized by inter-ethnic conflict and widespread human rights abuses, including sexual violence. In 2020, 15.6 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in the DRC, a 22% increase from 2019, and 2020 expects additional population movement, creating significant needs in protection, livelihoods, and food security. Currently, the DRC is home to the second largest food crisis, with almost 16 million people severely food insecure. In addition, it is home to the largest internally-displaced persons (IDPs) population in Africa with 5.01 million displaced people. These needs are exacerbated by the ongoing Ebola outbreak, increased violence, and the forced return of hundreds of thousands of Congolese refugees.

With the support of GAC and other donors, the World Health Organization’s emergency operations aim to rapidly assess the threat of infectious disease outbreaks and initiate urgent activities to prevent and reduce morbidity and mortality caused by infectious disease outbreaks, and to prevent escalation of outbreaks. Project activities include: (1) deploying experts to rapidly assess outbreaks; (2) delivering essential medications, medical supplies and equipment; (3) providing training to health personnel; (4) coordinating and implementing vaccination campaigns; and (5) strengthening health sector coordination and health information systems.

March 2020 - Yemen is currently the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with 24 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. The conflict and collapsing economy has pushed nearly 10 million people to the brink of famine, and over 3.6 million people have been displaced since the beginning of the crisis in 2015. Basic service provision is collapsing, including critical water, sanitation, hygiene and health services, increasing the risk of disease outbreaks such as cholera, dengue fever and diphtheria. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by the lack of access to essential services and face an increased risk of sexual and gender-based violence due to the crisis.

With GAC’s support, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)-managed Yemen Humanitarian Pooled Fund channels resources to humanitarian partners to respond to the critical needs of conflict-affected populations, providing much needed flexibility in a rapidly evolving context. Project activities include: (1) providing needs-based assistance in accordance with humanitarian principles; (2) strengthening the coordination and coherence of humanitarian assistance; (3) funding priority sectors as identified under the Humanitarian Response Plan; and (4) expanding the delivery of humanitarian assistance in hard-to-reach areas by partnering with local and international non-governmental organizations.