Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Navdeep Bains was in Vancouver Thursday morning to announce further investment by the Digital Technology Supercluster (DTS) as part of the Innovation Superclusters Initiative.

Centred in Vancouver, the DTS is an industry-led innovation consortium, which aims to position Canada as a global leader in digital technologies by bringing together small, medium-sized and large companies, post-secondary institutions, research organizations, and not-for-profits.

“The projects announced today will have a transformative effect across Canada’s economy,” said Bains.

The projects announced today represent an investment of $20.4 million, including $7.3 million from the government of Canada and $13.1 million from industry and other partners

Thursday’s announcement, which Bains made at Terramera Inc., centred on new capacity-building projects, which include:

Augmented Reality for Maintenance and Inspection

A collaboration between Boeing Vancouver, Finger Food, and Simon Fraser University.

This project will create a tool to enable the display of data in an augmented reality view to improve the safety, accuracy and cost of inspections of these very large objects.

Fresh Water Data Commons

A collaboration between Teck, Carl Data Solutions. Microsoft, Astra.Earth, I4C Innovation, Living Lakes Canada, University of Victoria, Genome BC.

The development of a platform integrating various sources of data to better understand ecosystem health, specifically of major water systems such as the Columbia Basin, will better inform water use, conservation, and management.

Intelligent Network for Point-of-Care Ultrasound

A collaboration between Providence Health Care, Change Healthcare, Clarius Mobile Health, The University of British Columbia, and the Rural Coordination Centre of BC.

This project will combine portable ultrasound devices, imaging technology, and machine learning to enable family physicians to make accurate diagnoses, regardless of where patients live.

My Personal Health Wallet

A collaboration between Molecular You, Stone Paper, UBC, British Columbia Ministry of Health, and Boehringer Ingelheim.

By applying blockchain technology to personal health data, individuals will have full custody of their health data in a secure environment. This allows patients to determine with whom they will share their health data, while also providing informed consent for that sharing.

Precision Agriculture to Improve Crop Health

A collaboration between Terramera, Sightline, Compression AI, BC Cancer Research, Trent University, SFU, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, University of Saskatchewan, Genome BC, and Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre.

This project will develop new pest and pathogen controls through the application of computational biochemistry, genomics, machine learning, and robotics, to manage disease in field crops, minimize the use of pesticides, and secure export.

Reducing Opioid Use for Pain Management

A collaboration between Careteam Technologies, Xerus Medical, Connected Displays, Thrive Health, Providence Health, UBC, BC Children’s Hospital, PHSA, NRC Canada, Health Canada, Joule.

This technology will allow for personalized evaluation of a patient’s use of opioids, response to pain, nausea, mobility, and coinciding sleep habits – all critical elements in optimizing treatment and minimizing the risk of opioid addiction.

Today’s unveiling comes after the first cohort of DTS projects was announced last year, totalling $40 million of investment over three years.

More to come…