Grants and Contributions

The objective of the SDG Funding Program is to support sustainable development projects that:.• Support the development and utilization of effective approaches to address sustainable development and the social, economic and environmental issues and challenges;.• Develop, exchange and apply knowledge, tools and resources that address sustainable development needs of individuals, families and communities;.• Foster partnerships and networks to address sustainable development and the existing and emerging social, economic and environmental issues;.• Recognize and support the ability of organizations to identify and address sustainable development priorities; .• Recognize and promote engagement initiatives at the international, national, subnational, and/or local level that mobilize assets and develop capacities and resources for action; and/or.• Foster Indigenous traditional knowledge on sustainable development..

The objective of the SDG Funding Program is to support sustainable development projects that: • Support the development and utilization of effective approaches to address sustainable development and the social, economic and environmental issues and challenges; • Develop, exchange and apply knowledge, tools and resources that address sustainable development needs of individuals, families and communities; • Foster partnerships and networks to address sustainable development and the existing and emerging social, economic and environmental issues; • Recognize and support the ability of organizations to identify and address sustainable development priorities; • Recognize and promote engagement initiatives at the international, national, subnational, and/or local level that mobilize assets and develop capacities and resources for action; and/or • Foster Indigenous traditional knowledge on sustainable development.

The objective of the SDG Funding Program is to support sustainable development projects that: • Support the development and utilization of effective approaches to address sustainable development and the social, economic and environmental issues and challenges; • Develop, exchange and apply knowledge, tools and resources that address sustainable development needs of individuals, families and communities; • Foster partnerships and networks to address sustainable development and the existing and emerging social, economic and environmental issues; • Recognize and support the ability of organizations to identify and address sustainable development priorities; • Recognize and promote engagement initiatives at the international, national, subnational, and/or local level that mobilize assets and develop capacities and resources for action; and/or • Foster Indigenous traditional knowledge on sustainable development.

The objectives of the Program are: .• promoting volunteerism among seniors; .• engaging seniors in the community through.mentoring of others; .• expanding awareness of elder abuse, including.financial abuse; .• supporting social participation and inclusion of.seniors; and .• providing capital assistance for new and existing.community projects and/or programs for seniors. .

The first replenishment of the Green Climate Fund (GCF-1) aims to build on the Green Climate Fund’s (GCF) existing portfolio to deepen its support to key transformative initiatives identified by countries in each of its eight results areas (energy generation and access; transport; buildings, cities, industries and appliances; forests and land use; health, food and water security; livelihoods of people and communities; ecosystems and ecosystem services; infrastructure and the built environment) to achieve the Paris Agreement goals.

The Paris Agreement works to bring all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so. The Paris Agreement aims to limit the global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees.

The GCF is the world’s largest dedicated fund working to help developing countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and enhance their ability to respond to climate change. The GCF is a financial mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and is one of the principal mechanisms for developed countries to deliver on their Paris Agreement commitment to support mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries.

The GCF programmes globally but specific attention and prioritization is given to Least Developed Countries, Small Island Developing States, and Africa.

Project activities include: (1) helping at least 10 million people in the poorest and most vulnerable developing countries adapt to the effects of climate change; and (2) reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 200 million tonnes.

Since the beginning of the conflict in Syria, many war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed. This project supports the Syrian Legal Development Program (SLDP) work with Syrian civil society organizations (CSOs), to increase their understanding of how to use judicial systems and public institutions, to attain justice and hold perpetrators of crime accountable. The project also focuses on identifying and holding companies and business leaders that have committed crimes accountable. The SLDP works to accomplish this by providing Western governments with information that can help them develop more targeted and robust sanctions.

The project will examine the impact of solid state and submerged fermentation, and enzymatic modification on the functional and nutritional properties of commercial pulse (e.g., yellow pea, faba bean and lentil) protein concentrates or isolates. Fermentation of pulse fractions will be done using traditional GRAS strains, Aspergillus niger, A. oryzae, and Lactobacillus plantarum, under different fermentation conditions (pH, temperature and time) to obtain different levels of hydrolysis (5, 10, 15 and 20%). Similarly, proteases (Trypsin and Savinase) will be added to modify protein isolates under different conditions (enzyme: substrate ratios, temperatures, pH and times) to obtain similar levels of hydrolysis. Changes to the protein’s surface properties will be measured, along with their functionality (e.g., solubility, emulsifying, water/oil holding and foaming). Changes to levels of anti-nutritional compounds and protein quality (PDCAAS and digestibility) will also be examined as the result of processing.

Bioreactors play a major role in manufacturing processes of biologics. While their design has been well documented for traditional fermentations for production of simple biomolecules, their use for production of complex biologics using eukaryotic systems such as HEK-293 human cells remains very empirical. Biologics production in bioreactors is performed in a high dimensional design space requiring a high and broad level of expert knowledge not necessary captured systematically in the prevailing scientific and technical literature. Additionally, biological products such as exosomes and viral vectors (AAV) are complex biological structures that have demonstrated recently significant value in the treatment of a number of cancers and hereditary diseases. Their manufacturing in bioreactor at scale in quantity and quality that meets the preclinical and clinical needs significantly limits their use and growth potential as therapeutic tools. This creates an opportunity to integrate the expert knowledge accumulated in the databases and exploit the advances in AI to accelerate the design and optimization of the production of these two key biologics (exosomes and AAV) through the implementation and operation of a digital-twin bioreactor connected to a physical bioreactor using a series of sensors in constant communication and feed-back.

Novel optimization techniques like nanophotonic inverse design are promising tools to significantly reduce the size of passive Silicon photonic components while maintaining their functionality and performance. Although published results demonstrate various proof of concept miniaturized devices with pre-determined size and aspect ratio, their performances as of now are inferior to the state of the art and the designs are highly non-interpretable. In this respect, AI tools can help identify patterns in the high-dimensional design space through the analysis of a dataset of simulated designs that guide the search for better performing designs and shed light on the behavior of the design space, revealing its specificities and limitations. Ultimately, the use of AI tools will bring the miniaturization of Silicon integrated photonic components to the next level, without compromising on their performance and manufacturability.

Modern technological materials are typically multi-component compounds with complex structures that determine their opto/electronic/chemical properties. The design of new functional materials has been greatly assisted by developments in efficient and accurate electronic-structure methodologies, most notably Density Functional Theory (DFT). But DFT is too expensive to perform the rapid screening of thousands of candidates required for the design of new high-performance materials. This project aims to harness the power of modern Artificial Intelligence to build on the success of DFT and ferret out optimal design parameters. This project is of prime socioeconomic importance, aiming to reduce the environmental footprint of the Alberta oil sands by designing new nanocatalysts for the chemical reactions involved in in-the-reservoir upgrading.