On Wednesday May 15th, over 200 faculty, staff, students and industry and community partners gathered at the Event Center for the Centennial Innovates 2024 Symposium, the 17th annual celebration of applied research, innovation and entrepreneurship at Centennial College. The event featured speakers, panels, interactive activities and creative showcases of the innovation happening at Centennial, and was a resounding success. The enthusiasm and commitment of our dedicated staff, faculty, and student innovators to advance sustainable, impactful innovation shone through each of the day’s segments.
This year’s theme “Innovating With Impact” was brought to life through a series of engaging presentations and discussions that highlighted our collective dedication to creating meaningful change. We kicked off the day with opening remarks by Dr. Glen Lowry, Associate Vice-President, Applied Research, HyFlex Learning and Academic Partnership, who introduced innovation as a poetics of transformative practice. Jonathan Hack, Dean, Centennial Innovates, Applied Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship then walked us through the year in review, sharing our highlights of the year such as our record engagement in Energy-related applied research, our social innovation work to develop accessible software for and with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), our impact entrepreneurship programming such as the CDEV Sustainability Jam and Student Food Security Design Jam with our Centre of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (COIE), and more.
In our "Centennial Innovates in Transportation" segment led by Dr. Wenzi Ckurshumova, Associate Director, Research and Innovation, we first heard from Alan McClelland, Dean, School of Transportation (SOT) on how the SOT is embracing the technological shift towards electric, smart vehicles and tailoring their offerings and engagements to reflect that. Then, Toronto Transit Commission (TTC)'s Manager of New Technology and Innovation Naina Dewan shared about the innovation strategies and pipelines that TTC uses to improve their services, such as the current exploration of "How Might We re-imagine the 'bus of the future' to enhance operator safety and rider experience?". Next, SETAS Professor Tekleab Schewai showcased his work on creating 3D animations for blind spot detection on buses.
The segment "Centennial Innovates in Data Analytics" shone a spotlight on the Centre for Explainable Data Analytics (CEDA) led by Dr. Purnima Tyagi, Director, WIMTACH and Social Innovation Research which featured presentations by multiple industry partner presentations who have worked with CEDA. Subhi Alsayed, Founder and CEO of Kulture Rebellion, shared his journey in creating his revolutionary probiotic, gut-friendly social drinks that uses proprietary fermentation with an AI-enabled data model. Kareen Proudian, Co-Owner of Dolce & Gourmando, shared how CEDA helped them develop a cost-effective inventory and product information management solution for the 1200+ products and corresponding data they offer. Lastly, Kartik Adhiya, Director of Team Kartik, spoke about how he set out to create teams that are incentivized to grow the business and where data analytics are used to streamline operations such that task delegation is automated and highly efficient.
For lunch, attendees enjoyed a delicious plant-based and Indigenous-inspired menu and screened our Riipen 2024 Cross-College Entrepreneurial Challenge submissions by COIE student entrepreneurs, of which the submission for “Will2Well” won as Overall Winner and Most Engaging Video.
In our "Centennial Innovates in Impact Entrepreneurship" segment led by Lalit Guglani, Director, Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship, attendees heard an engaging and practical AI demo presentation by Tawny Stephen, showing a diverse array of the capabilities of artificial intelligence, from answering inquiries, text-to-image, text-to-video, translations, and many more. Following Tawny’s demonstration, the Centre of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (COIE) delivered an interactive micro jam on improving career readiness at graduation, inviting attendees to brainstorm problems, opportunities and solutions supported by AI and create a subsequent AI-generated 60-second video pitch, which were screened in the afternoon break.
The next segment, "Centennial Innovates in Aerospace" led by Dr. Eric Blaise, Director, Applied Research and Innovation, featured an insightful panel discussion with Rosa Gordon, Research and Technology Program Officer at Bombardier, Professor Florin Nijloveanu from the School of Engineering Technology and Applied Science (SETAS)’ Advanced Manufacturing and Automation Technology (AMAT) department, and student researchers Aryan Emami, Alistair Kwai, Darya Mohammadi and Adam Carneiro who were all a part of the research project "Develop Retractable Landing Gear for New Bombardier Aircraft at Centennial College". This panel was followed by a conversation with SETAS professor Wladimir Figueiredo about landing gear applied research and innovation.
The following segment "Centennial Innovates in Digital Health Technologies" shone a spotlight on our Wearable, Interactive and Mobile Technology Access Centre in Health (WIMTACH) led by Dr. Purnima Tyagi, the leading TAC in Canada for student engagement, having provided over 1200 paid student internships and served over 600 companies since its inception in 2015. The segment started with presentations by three WIMTACH industry partners. First, Ashish Anand, Founder and CEO of Workforce Wellness shared about their collaboration to build a personalized AI-assistant to support frontline healthcare professionals, able to mitigate employee burnout and facilitate building healthier working habits. Then, Ted Biggs, Director and Co-Founder of Wellwave spoke about their innovative digital therapeutics (DTx) that leverages cutting-edge technology to assess, track and support depression treatment and cognitive function in kids to enhance their mental health, while empowering clinicians with a treatment platform. Panian Majd, Founder and CEO of Fibra Inc. showcased their innovative patent-pending smart underwear and corresponding application, which provides a discreet, non-invasive method to real-time health monitoring for women via fabric-based sensors, allowing for the monitoring of reproductive health including fertility, pregnancy detection and more. Then, Dr. Purnima Tyagi moderated a panel discussion focused on fabric-based technologies in healthcare with Azadeh Yadollahi, Director at FIBER, University Health Network (UHN), Senior Scientist at KITE and Associate Professor at the Institute Biomedical Engineering (BME) at University of Toronto, Marisol Campos Navarrete, Scientific Associate Research at KITE UHN and Instructor, IESS & IDS at Trent University, and Anthony Palma, Director, Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives at KITE.
Continuing the afternoon was our "Centennial Innovates through our Brilliant Faculty" segment showcasing our Applied Research and Innovation Fellowship (ARIF) program led by Dr. Matthew Stein, Chair, Research and Innovation Engagement. After sharing a summary of the program and the 2023-24 ARIF recipients’ projects, Matthew invited School of Hospitality, Tourism and Culinary Arts (SHTCA) Professor Julia Segal to discuss her research exploring the outlook of new graduates entering the hospitality workforce and how we can better prepare our students to meet the real-world industry needs.
The last segment of the day, "Centennial Innovates through Strong Partnerships", was a fireside chat between Dr. Glen Lowry and Chas Bains, Team Lead Manager at the Centre for Local Innovation and Collaboration (CLIC) - an innovation centre based in Richmond Hill that helps establish a platform for knowledge exchange, design review, individualized consultation, and advocacy.
We would like to extend a special thanks to our inspiring staff, faculty, student, industry and community innovators who shared their invaluable insights and experiences throughout the day. We were thrilled to witness such a high level of engagement and passion for innovation that drives positive change.
Special thanks to our inspiring speakers who shared their invaluable insights and experiences. Your contributions helped us all see the transformative potential of our work and sparked new ideas and collaborations. We were thrilled to witness such a high level of engagement and passion for innovation that drives positive change.
The Centennial Innovates 2024 Symposium was a platform for showcasing the incredible efforts of our innovation community at Centennial College and beyond. From fascinating presentations to interactive workshops and engaging panel discussions, the day was filled with inspiration and knowledge-sharing. We are proud of the innovative spirit that permeates our institution and look forward to seeing the lasting impact of the conversations sparked at this event.
Thank you again to everyone who participated. Let's continue to innovate with impact and strive for a brighter, more sustainable future!
The LinkedIn post with photos from the event can be found here.