Two professors in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering have received grants from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) worth a combined $3.4 million. The funding supports cutting-edge infrastructure upgrades and equipment needed to accelerate research on advanced electromagnetics and quantum security for smart grids.
Professor George Eleftheriades won $2.6 million for the Centre for Reconfigurable Electromagnetic Surfaces (CERES). The centre will be the Canadian focal point for research into high-frequency electromagnetic wave research, bringing together researchers from a variety of fields to solve problems in the communications, security and medical sectors. A core technology to be developed is a thin, lightweight surface that controls the generation, propagation and scattering of electromagnetic waves.
Professor Hoi-Kwong Lo received $762,660 for a project titled: ‘Smart Grid: Cyber-Physical Operation, Security and Quantum Technology.’ The project aims to make the sophisticated power generation and distribution systems we will reply on in the future smart and secure.
Funding awarded to these projects comes from CFI’s Innovation Fund, which supports promising and innovative directions in research or technology development in areas where Canada is, or has the potential to be, competitive on the global stage.
In addition, each project was awarded funding from the organization’s Infrastructure Operating Fund, which helps cover a portion of the operating and maintenance costs associated with the funded infrastructure.
“We are enormously grateful to CFI for these investments, said Professor Vivek Goel, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation. “Ambitious, world-leading science requires powerful infrastructure, and we are fortunate that the Government of Canada recognizes that. It is through projects like these that our researchers will tackle society’s most pressing problems.”
See the complete list of University of Toronto CFI recipients.
With files from Jenny Hall
Materials engineering student Samantha Stuart (Year 2 MSE) has received an Engineering Ambassador Scholarship from the Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation (CEMF), one of only five women from across Canada to receive the award.
The scholarship honours one student in each of Canada’s five regions — British Columbia, Prairies, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic — who have shown leadership in attracting other young women into the engineering field. All five winners were presented with the award on May 21 in Calgary, at a reception held in conjunction with the annual Engineers Canada meetings. “It was inspiring to meet everybody else there and hear their stories,” says Stuart.
Stuart’s award recognizes her work reaching out to high school students in order to communicate the importance of studying science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) topics. She is in an excellent position to speak about STEM; before entering engineering at U of T, she won a gold medal and three other awards at the Canada-Wide Science Fair for developing a psychometric screener to measure Facebook addiction.
“I credit a lot of my success to mentors; people who have explained what STEM is and why it’s something I should consider,” says Stuart. “I wanted to jump in and do something right away to help other people have the same experience that I did.”
CEMF is dedicated to attracting women to the engineering profession so they may fully contribute to the development of our society and in so doing, honour the memory of the 14 women from L’ École Polytechnique whose contributions to Canada ended on December 6, 1989. In addition to the Engineering Ambassador Scholarships, CEMF administers several other scholarships for women in undergraduate or graduate engineering programs.
Throughout the past year, Stuart has been heavily involved in Science Expo Youth Empowerment Group, including running logistics for their major annual conference in Ontario. Science Expo is a not-for-profit organization that helps connect students interested in STEM with mentors, enrichment programs and other opportunities to learn more about the field.
Currently, Stuart is spending the summer conducting research in Professor Benjamin Hatton’s (MSE, IBBME) Microstructured Surfaces & Adaptive Materials Lab, working on bacteria-resistant coating for materials that can be implanted inside the human body, as well as studying silica-based films for use in optoelectronic devices like light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
She was also recently elected the Engineering Society’s Director for Hi-Skule, which runs design competitions to promote the study of engineering in high school and elementary schools. She already has lots of ideas, including starting a mentorship program.
“I think one of the big problems in high school is that you take math, you take chemistry, you take physics, but you don’t take engineering, so there’s a general confusion about what it actually is,” she says. “I’m really excited to take on that challenge.”
“Great roles models are essential for inspiring a new wave of young minds to chart new frontiers,” says Professor Jun Nogami, chair of the Department of Materials Science & Engineering. “My sincerest thanks and congratulations to Samantha for all the work she has done in championing our discipline and motivating others to pursue similar successes.”
U of T electrical engineer David Zhitomirsky (ECE PhD 1T5) has won a Governor General’s Academic Gold Medal for 2015, one of just three awarded at the University of Toronto.
Zhitomirsky’s completed his PhD this semester under the supervision of Professor Ted Sargent in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. He studied energy transport properties and electronic doping in quantum colloidal dot films for optoelectronic devices. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Grossman Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“I wanted to continue working on energy materials, and I still do a bit of work with quantum dots along the same lines, but my main thrust is materials that can absorb sunlight and then they store the energy in different confirmations…we call them solar thermal fuels,” says Zhitomirsky.
Outside of the lab, Zhitomirsky plays classical guitar and piano, and takes on the occasional arts and crafts project.
Gold Academic Medals are awarded to students graduating with the highest academic average from a university graduate program. The medals were created in 1873 by Lord Dufferin, Canada’s third Governor General, to encourage academic excellence. They are some of the most prestigious awards Canadian students can receive. Bronze and silver medals recognize achievement at the high school and undergraduate levels, respectively. Zhitomirsky previously earned a Governor General’s Bronze Medal as a high school student.
“David Zhitomirsky is a world-class researcher, and I’m gratified to see his work recognized with this prestigious award,” says Professor Farid Najm, chair of ECE. “My sincere congratulations to David — I look forward to following his career at MIT and beyond.”
Governor General’s Academic Medals were presented at a ceremony on Wednesday, May 27, 2015 by the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies.
This story is Part 6 of an eight-part series, Engineering Experiential Learning, running throughout spring and summer 2015.
Next month, U of T Engineering will begin construction of the Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CEIE) — a vibrant new hub that will foster hands-on learning and multidisciplinary collaboration. With state-of-the-art facilities, the building will bring together students, faculty, alumni and industry partners to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges.
With all of this creativity colliding in one place, it seems inevitable that ideas for new businesses — maybe even new industries — will be sparked. This is all part of the plan: embedded into the design of the CEIE are features that will nurture fledgling companies along their journey from concept to prototype to market.
Find out five ways the CEIE will cultivate tomorrow’s entrepreneurs:
1. The Entrepreneurship Hatchery
Since its inception in 2012, the Entrepreneurship Hatchery has provided teams of engineering students with space, equipment, mentoring, funding connections and all the other ingredients necessary to incubate new ventures. It also hosts collaborative events and competitions that further inspire ideation, networking and team-building across the Faculty and wider University.
With a new permanent home planned on the fifth floor of the CEIE, the Hatchery will continue encouraging students to develop new ideas and take action. This space will also include unique “hotelling suites”—fully equipped offices that can be used by alumni or other mentors to work with Hatchery teams on advancing their businesses.
2. Fabrication Facilities
Building prototypes and other physical models is often one of the most resource-intense challenges of getting a new business off the ground. The third floor of the CEIE will make this process easier, with a supervised rapid-prototyping room that includes a powerful multi-material/composite materials 3D printer — the first of its kind in Canada. This will allow students and faculty members to quickly fabricate 3D parts, models and renderings, watching their ideas literally take shape before their eyes.
The prototyping room is surrounded by design/meet rooms, allowing teams of students to move rapidly between model construction and planning the next stage of their venture.
3. Technology Enhanced Active Learning (TEAL) Rooms
With moveable desks and screens visible from every direction, TEAL rooms are specially designed learning spaces that can be rearranged at a moment’s notice into any required configuration. The CEIE will include 16 of these rooms, which will foster the creativity needed to generate new business ideas by facilitating multidisciplinary collaborations and incorporating experiential learning into all kinds of undergraduate courses.
The TEAL rooms will also be available to students outside of regular classroom hours; in fact the plans are for 24-hour access. This will enable entrepreneurially minded teams of students to hash out new ideas and plan strategies whenever inspiration strikes.
4. Collaborative Student Space
On the lower level of the CEIE, an extremely versatile space will be available for engineering students to collaborate on group projects and other activities associated with the Faculty’s more than 80 clubs and societies. Supported by a generous $1 million commitment from the Engineering Society, this space will also be available for social events and building end-of-year capstone projects.
These types of extracurricular, co-curricular and curricular activities not only develop crucial teamwork, leadership and communication competencies needed for entrepreneurship, but they also can enable technical breakthroughs. One example is the University of Toronto Supermileage team, which designed a car with an efficiency of 3,421 miles per gallon, winning this year’s Shell Eco-Marathon Americas in Detroit, Michigan.
The lower level will also include project rooms that can be used by nascent companies to host meetings or optimize product design, with an arena-like events area perfect for launching the products from tomorrow’s U of T Engineering startups.
5. Multidisciplinary research institutes and centres
The CEIE will also provide a new home for a number of the Faculty’s world-leading research institutes and centres, including those that are already accelerating innovation in areas such as water, sustainable energy, robotics and mechatronics, cyber security and global engineering. These areas bring together knowledge and experience from a wide variety of areas to conduct high-impact research and act as engines of engineering innovation.
One of these institutes, the U of T Institute for Multidisciplinary Design & Innovation (UT-IMDI) creates a unique project-based learning environment. Industry partners bring their technical challenges directly to multidisciplinary teams of students, who develop solutions either through the full-year Multidisciplinary Capstone Projects course or summer internships with partner companies. These experiential learning opportunities are already spawning spin-off companies, including Syncadian Inc.
Although alumnus Raffaello D’Andrea (EngSci 9T1) has been an engineering professor, entrepreneur and artist, he’s better known as the inventor of several types of autonomous robots — machines that can juggle, play soccer and also accomplish more practical tasks.
In the early 2000s, D’Andrea co-founded Kiva Systems, a company that designs and builds large robotic systems that autonomously move, sort and distribute goods in warehouses. In 2012, Amazon acquired the firm for $775 million and incorporated hundreds of these self-propelled robots to fill orders in their distribution facilities.
In March, D’Andrea was recognized for advancing the field of robotics with the 2015 Engelberger Award from the Robotic Industries Association — sometimes called the “Nobel Prize” of robotics.
U of T Engineering recently sat down with D’Andrea — now a professor at ETH Zurich — to learn more about his cutting-edge robots, his entrepreneurial path and how strong fundamentals from U of T Engineering helped set him up for success.
Researchers and entrepreneurs could be viewed as very different career paths — do you find it difficult to move between the two?
Of course they’re very different worlds, but the way that I interact with them is the same. I like to create things, and I’m just fortunate that the things that I create have value in academia, in business and from an art perspective.
In this TED talk, U of T Engineering alumnus Raffaello D’Andrea shows what some of his flying robots can do.
Did your need to create things manifest itself when you were an Engineering Science student at U of T?
What was really great about Engineering Science was that in addition to a deep understanding of fundamental math and physics, we also got to use that knowledge in various projects. The second year capstone design project really allowed us to use some of what we learned to do things we didn’t think we could do before we started our degrees.
I remember that my team chose to build a voice-controlled robotic crane. You have to remember this was in the 1980s, and hardware was definitely not as far along as it is now. We had to build our own single-board computer, as well as all the interfaces, the mechanical design, and of course the software. It was a great way to apply all we had learned to do something completely new.
Did you know at that time that you wanted to be an entrepreneur?
My main focus was doing well in school, but I had glimpses of entrepreneurship. For example, I worked at Bell Canada one summer. When I came back to school, I took one of the problems that I had encountered and tried to develop a product to improve the equalization of signals in telecommunications equipment.
I positioned it as a fourth-year design project, but I also reached out to various local industries that could possibly make use of it. Eventually, it became clear it would take more time than I had, but I certainly learned a lot from that experience.
Can you talk about how you came to found Kiva Systems?
In the late 1990s I was the chief architect and faculty advisor of the Cornell Robot Soccer Team; we competed in the international RoboCup competition, where groups from around the world would field teams of autonomous, soccer playing robots. People would ask me: “What is the practical use of this?” I responded that I didn’t really know. But what I did know is that we were doing something that had never been done before, and that the competition was pushing the whole field of robotics forward.
Years later, in 2003, I was approached by Mick Mountz, who had worked at home grocery delivery company Webvan that had gone bankrupt, in part because their distribution costs were too high.
He had this idea that mobile robots could solve this large problem in distribution, and he found videos online of our soccer-playing robots. He was very convincing about the business need, and I felt that the technology was just on the cusp of being able to do it. So, along with Peter Wurman, a computer scientist, we built a company based on self-directed robots that could move goods in warehouses to exactly where they were needed.
By the time we were purchased in 2012, we had roughly 300 folks working at Kiva. Everyone was really excited about creating something that was really the first of its kind in the world. That was very motivating.
Did you find running a startup to be a big change from being a professor?
Not really, because I ran the RoboCup team in a way that was not that dissimilar from a startup. We had a team of people and a clear objective: to field a team of robots in that year’s competition. We had tight deadlines, we had to build prototypes, and of course we had to compete and win against all these other teams. So there’s a lot of similarity between doing that and running a startup.
How did being an engineer shape the kind of entrepreneur you became?
Actually all three of us — Mick, Peter and I — had a background in engineering. In a way, it was the glue that held us together.
But more generally, I think engineers are just really good at problem solving. They are good at seeing things for the way they are, and figuring out the most efficient solution.
One thing I learned was the importance of planning, especially long-term planning. We knew that creating this completely new system wasn’t something we could accomplish in six months. It took several years to do that, so we had to keep focused on the big picture. I think that really helped keep everyone motivated.
What abilities do you think the engineers of the 21st century will need?
Problem-solving skills remain the most important attributes of an engineer. I also think that the ability to learn on your own is very important. With so much information available online, it’s not so much about the knowledge, but in knowing how to learn things for yourself.
I do think that entrepreneurship is an important part of that, and that all engineers should be exposed to it in one form or another. The labour force of the future is going to be very different from the labour force of the past. People not going to be in the same company their whole life; they will change jobs every few years. So it’s useful to have classes or clubs that promote and develop entrepreneurship.
I think what U of T is doing is great in terms of giving people more choice and more opportunities. But of course, it’s also important to be focused. I was extremely focused as an undergrad. I have no doubt that if you set goals for yourself, and you really work hard to achieve them, that opens up new paths in front of you. So whether it’s as an entrepreneur or a researcher, I think it’s important to pick something and just go for it.
What’s next for you?
I have a new startup company. We’re mostly working in stealth mode right now, but we’re called Verity Studios and we recently completed a collaboration with Cirque du Soleil. Just like my work in the past, what really excites me is creating something that hasn’t been done before.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Could engineering improve your basketball jump shot, optimize your sleep schedule or help you make smarter investment decisions? These are just a few of the challenges that are motivating the next generation of entrepreneurs in U of T Engineering.
The Faculty is creating more student startups than ever — due in part to the growth of incubators such as the Faculty’s Entrepreneurship Hatchery and extensive experiential learning opportunities that equip engineering students with critical competencies to solve pressing problems.
In addition to working within U of T Engineering, The Hatchery is also part of a cross-campus network of entrepreneurial resources coordinated by the Banting & Best Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, including local incubators, courses and other activities.
Here are five of the latest U of T Engineering student startups to watch:
PowerWring
The average caretaker wrings out a mop more than 100 times a day. This process typically involves squeezing the mop through a mop-wringer, a device that requires bending over and applying about 15 pounds of force by hand. So it’s no surprise that back sprains and strains are common.
For Jeremy Wang and his teammates Shuyi Wu, Ryan Williams and Noah Yang (all Year 3 EngSci), the solution was elegantly simple: use the long handle of the mop itself as a lever to multiply the force of the wringer. The team’s measurements showed that this simple innovation cut the required force in half or even more if they use two hands.
“It really eliminated this redundancy of having two levers,” says Wang. “It was kind of a Eureka moment.”
The team developed the PowerWring, a simple device that allows a mop handle to clip on to a wringer handle. The solution, which was developed as part of the course ESC 102 Praxis Engineering Design, was so good the team decided to take it to the next level.
The team approached the Hatchery and was selected to be part of the 2014 cohort. Throughout the summer, it developed a business plan and refined its design. It also began working with law firm Bereskin & Parr LLP on a patent.
“Any time we wanted feedback on something, [the Hatchery team] gave it almost immediately,” says Wang. “They were with us for all our meetings with the lawyers, and they kept us motivated.”
By September 2014, their company, dubbed PowerWring, had been granted a provisional patent. Last month, the team received word its application for a full patent was officially under review at the U.S. Patent Office — a first for the Hatchery. It may take a year or more for the patent to be granted, but the team is already undertaking beta testing and collecting feedback on its design from working caretakers.
“For us, it means having the comfort to actually go out and turn this into a real, impactful product, knowing that we’d be able to receive the due credit,” says Wang. “That’s a big step forward.”
Onyx Motion
With a background in biomedical engineering and an engineer’s desire to build new things, Marissa Wu (EngSci 1T3) was primed to get into the entrepreneurship game. Yet the seeds of her company Onyx Motion were likely sown much earlier.
“I grew up playing basketball,” she says. “My dad got me into it, it was how we bonded, so I’m sure that was important.”
Today, Wu has developed a digital coaching app that analyzes an athlete’s sporting form using the data from the accelerometer in a smart watch. Wu used her extensive training in biomechanical modelling of the human body to determine how to translate accelerometer data into actual movements.
Called Swish, the app records motion data associated with a particular movement, such as a free throw. It then uses machine learning to provide feedback on how best to adjust the technique for maximum success. Wu anticipates that Swish users will one day be able to download the data of major sports stars to compare with their own.
Wu was part of The Next 36, an entrepreneurial leadership program run by a not-for-profit charity dedicated to fast-tracking the development of Canada’s most talented young innovators. She also received support from the University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology (UTEST) program.
Wu says her co-curricular activities, particularly her leadership role in the University of Toronto Engineering Competition, prepared her to become her own CEO. “I discovered that I loved running a team and creating my own path,” she says. “I liked the fact that there’s no right answer.”
Momentum is building for Onyx Motion. The team recently appeared on Next Gen Den, an online companion to CBC’s Dragons’ Den. Wu expects a test version of the app will be available for download within months.
“We built it pretty much from scratch, so there isn’t a lot to compare it with,” she says. “We’re excited to learn from the experience of people using it, and to move forward with making it that much better.”
Syncadian
It’s hard to be at your best when you don’t get enough sleep, but for military personnel or airline pilots, fatigue is a serious safety issue.
Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) the research arm of the Canadian military, has studied the problem for more than a decade. Two years ago, DRDC approached a team of undergraduate engineers in APS 490 Multidisciplinary Capstone Course with a simple question: could they use this extensive body of research to develop an app that would allow military personnel to better manage their sleep cycles and avoid fatigue?
The team, which included Hanna Janossy (IndE 1T3 + PEY, MEng Candidate), successfully produced an app that helps users mitigate the effects of jetlag. Based on DRDC’s research into fatigue science, the app gave users advice about when to sleep, nap, seek and avoid light, and take melatonin. But there was a feeling around the table that more could be done. “Our contact at DRDC was very entrepreneurially-minded,” says Janossy. “Right from the beginning, he encouraged us to turn it into something commercial.”
He couldn’t have asked for a more receptive audience. “My father is an inventor, and I grew up going to trade shows all around the world,” says Janossy. “I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur.”
In 2014, Janossy co-founded Syncadian Inc. with Ryan Love, a post-doctoral fellow in computer science at U of T and at DRDC. “What we want to develop is a small device that can test for melatonin and other hormones associated with sleep from samples from saliva,” she says. “Ideally it would be able to plug into a smartphone and interface with our app.” The team is currently receiving support from the University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology (UTEST) program.
Janossy, who is working on the company part-time while she pursues a Master of Engineering degree, says that her desire to start her own business is part of what attracted to U of T Engineering in the first place. “It seemed to have a stronger overall entrepreneurial ecosystem than some of the other schools I looked at,” she says.
In addition to the problem solving and critical thinking skills she developed in engineering, Janossy credits her experience as director of Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) for preparing her to be a CEO. “I made all the mistakes of the beginner manager,” she says. “What I learned was that when people are given responsibility and ownership over the problem, they’re much more likely to perform. That still influences my thinking today.”
Read more about Syncadian in U of T Magazine.
Magniware
It looks almost like a child’s toy: a small rectangle of a jelly-like substance that sticks strongly to skin, but not hair, making it easy to remove. Its designers hope this tiny device will mean big changes in how we monitor our health, ushering in a new era of “life optimization.”
The Magni — named for a Norse god, the son of Thor — is the flagship product of Magniware, a Toronto-based startup with strong roots at U of T Engineering. It’s designed to sit on the surface of skin and collect detailed physiological data that can help its wearer monitor and improve their physical and mental health.
Developed by co-founders Engineering PhD student Miles Montgomery (IBBME PhD Candidate) and fellow U of T student Alex Mosa in 2014, the Magni is a savvy mix of novel chemistry, nano-scale design and electrical and computer engineering.
The Magni’s sensors can pick up tiny electrical changes on the skin in the same way that an electrocardiogram (ECG) would, allowing direct monitoring of the heartbeat. It also contains accelerometers to measure movement as well as temperature sensors, providing a comprehensive picture of the wearer’s health and well-being.
The data is transmitted via Bluetooth to a smartphone, where sophisticated algorithms turn it into qualitative advice. For example, the Magni might notice you getting jittery before a big meeting and recommend some breathing exercises.
“I came to U of T because I wanted to be the first person to do something,” says Montgomery. “This is a completely new technology.”
For Mosa and Montgomery, what mattered most was putting together the perfect multidisciplinary team. “We knew we needed an eclectic mix of chemical engineering, materials science, robotics, circuit design, basic algorithms and a deep understanding of biology, physiology,” says Mosa.
Today, the team includes Robert Brooks (MIE PhD Candidate), Michael Zhang (ECE 1T3 + PEY), Aniruddha Borah (ECE 1T2 + PEY), Firas Kamal Eddine (ECE 1T2 + PEY) and Rotman MBA candidate Anthony Mouchantaf. Many of the members met through graduate-level courses at U of T that were open to students from different disciplines.
Now ready for testing, the Magni is being used on high-performance athletes who need detailed feedback on their training schedules. It’s also being tested by rehabilitation researchers, who will soon use it to analyze their patients’ gaits.
“Not only will this testing help validate our technology, but it could provide help to someone who really needs it,” says Montgomery. “That’s why I wanted to do a PhD in bioengineering.”
Nvest
If you were hiring a new employee, you would always check their references first. So why wouldn’t you do the same for those who provide investment advice? That’s the idea behind Nvest, a social network that allows users to trade stock tips and transparently track their success.
Jackie Yan (ECE 1T5), the company’s co-founder and chief technical officer, bills Nvest as the “LinkedIn of stock recommendations.” “It’s built to track everybody’s advice, and allows you to judge based on their past performance whether you can trust their advice or not,” he says.
Free of charge and currently boasting more than 1,600 users, Nvest is based at UTEST and has been featured in recent articles in The Globe and Mail and Techvibes.
Taking a page from the Facebook — which in its early stages was available only to university students — Nvest is targeting the U of T community to find its early adopters. “Sixty to 70 per cent of our active users are U of T students, but we have some from South America, India and all over the world,” says Yan.
Yan credits his undergraduate education for his strong programming abilities, but says multidisciplinary courses like ESC 101 Praxis I helped him think like a designer.
“It was planning and going through all the steps to make sure you’re ready before you actually start building,” he says. Outside the classroom, Yan was involved in the You’re Next Career Network and Nspire, both of which provided him with connections and motivation to go out and build his business.
“Around U of T, there’s a very good ecosystem of people promoting entrepreneurship and innovation,” he says. “Every student can get a lot out of it.”
These five startups aren’t the only ones to watch. Learn more about other startups that have emerged from U of T Engineering in recent years:
Cast ConneX — Steel castings that strengthen new and old buildings for earthquake resistance
FuelWear — Intelligent, heated base layer clothing
Hydron — Refuelling for fuel cell vehicles
Nanoleaf — Energy-efficient LED light bulbs compatible with current sockets
Nymi — Electrocardiogram (ECG) sensor that uses heartbeat as a unique ID to secure passwords or online transactions
OTI Lumionics — Organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) for lighting and smartphone displays
teaBot — Custom cups of tea from a programmable robot