March 5: Minister Bains Announces First Cohort of Projects

Recap of the ISED Announcement about our first cohort of selected projects, held at MetaOptima’s Downtown Vancouver Offices.

On March 5, we announced the first cohort of projects that will receive co-investment and released our new 5-year Strategic Plan. It was great to have the Honourable Navdeep Bains here to announce the projects, which total $40 million of investment.

Our event kicked-off with words from Dr. Nardia Strydom, Head of the Department of Family and Community Medicine for Providence Healthcare, who acknowledged the dedication and tireless effort of the teams that developed this inaugural cohort of projects. Sue Paish, our CEO echoed the sentiments before handing the microphone over to the Honourable Navdeep Bains.

Following this, Dr. Maryam Sadeghi, CEO of MetaOptima and Charles Lavigne, CEO of LlamaZOO, spoke about their excitement for the opportunity to accelerate innovation and growth across the country.

The first cohort is focused on advancing Canada’s development and application of digital technologies to solve some of the most pressing challenges in the natural resources, healthcare, and industrial sectors. These projects can strengthen the early detection and treatment of skin cancers, improve the prediction of manufacturing failures and analyze the economic and environmental impacts of resource projects. 

The seven projects approved under the Technology Leadership Programs are:
● Learning Factory Digital Twin
● Predictive Analytics for Manufacturing Processes
● Forest Machinery Connectivity
● Earth Data Store
● Tailored Health – Pharmacogenetics
● Dermatology Point-of-Care Intelligent Network
● Secure Health & Genomics Data Platform 

To learn more about the announcement, please read our press release here.