Grants and Contributions

Dalhousie University CubeSat (DUCS) will test a new CubeSat frame made out of lightweight metal which will provide better space navigation capabilities for future CubeSats. It will as well validate the use of onboard solar energy and battery storage technology to power a stabilization wheel that will better control the position of the satellite's instruments.

DUCS will be developed in collaboration with IMP Aerospace and Xeos Technologies, Inc.

Killick-1 will test an existing technology designed to monitor oceans (sea-ice detection and concentration estimation) and fit it on the smaller CubeSat frame, which could lead to cheaper solutions to monitor and collect data on our oceans.

Killick-1 will be developed in collaboration with Newfoundland-based C-Core and the University of Prince Edward Island.

This project seeks to create an enabling entrepreneurship ecosystem for low-income women and youth in West Bank and Gaza. Inspired by the concept of Obader (Arabic for ‘I initiate’), the project aims to reduce structural and social barriers to entrepreneurship, while simultaneously working to increase business opportunities for women and youth to successfully start-up, sustain, manage and grow environmentally conscious and sustainable businesses. Project activities include: (1) designing and delivering a media campaign to raise and challenge perceptions and attitudes towards women’s economic participation, entrepreneurship, and women in non-traditional enterprises and roles; (2) conducting awareness sessions promoting entrepreneurship; (3) delivering a capacity-building package including training, exchange visits and role modelling to women entrepreneurs; and (4) holding networking and information sessions between micro-finance institutions, banks, business development centres, incubators, accelerators and youth entrepreneurs.

The project aims to improve the quality of life of rural and indigenous women and youth whose livelihoods depend on forest resources in 12 municipalities of Western Honduras. It seeks to improve the governance for the conservation and sustainable management of the forest and its associated biodiversity, led by rural and indigenous women and youth. The project also seeks to increase the economic empowerment of these women and youth by helping them to use forest resources and biodiversity in alignment with municipal climate change and development plans.
Project activities are expected to benefit 60 women’s and youth organizations and 2,000 families. Project activities include: (1) building local governments’ capacities to increase women’s participation and leadership in natural resources management, environment and climate change decision-making bodies; (2) providing technical assistance in the establishment of municipal economic development strategies related to natural resource management and climate change; (3) providing technical assistance to women’s organizations in developing community supportive services (i.e. child day-care centers) and providing training on gender equality legislation, natural resources management and climate change; (4) providing technical assistance to entrepreneurial women in improved conservation and sustainable use of forest resources, and in entrepreneurial management skills; (5) promoting short agroforestry value chains for local urban markets and highly specialized markets and services; and (6) promoting the adoption of innovative and time-and effort-saving technologies by entrepreneurial women.

The project aims to improve the sexual and reproductive health of women and teenage girls, as well as the health of newborns and children in the two departments of Haiti’s Grand Sud region that were most affected by Hurricane Matthew in October 2016. It is strengthening 28 health institutions by, among other things, repairing infrastructure, providing equipment and medicines and training staff. By improving access to and quality of integrated health services focused on the needs of women and adolescent girls, the project aims to reduce teenage pregnancies by 75% and provide access to 72,000 more women to a modern contraceptive method. The project also aims to strengthen the Haitian government's capacities in health sector management, coordination and monitoring at the central and departmental levels.

It is estimated that, every year, approximately 15,400 pregnant women, 3,000 women who are potential victims of gender based violence and 3,400 children are to benefit from the services provided by the health institutions supported by the project.