He has been called “the father of wearable computing,” “the world’s first cyborg” and “the father of augmented reality.” But when he started building some of the first wearable computers and digital vision systems almost 40 years ago, some called him crazy.
But history has left no doubt that Steve Mann, professor in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE), is a visionary. He was recognized last Friday with the Digital Pioneer Award at Digifest 2015 for his trailblazing work as a lifelong inventor, artist, teacher, researcher and thinker at the ever-shifting intersection of technology and philosophy.
“The Digital Pioneer award is intended to celebrate a person whose works blend creativity and emerging technologies, but more importantly, a person whose work continues to speak to the conversations of our time,” said Luigi Ferrara, dean of the Centre for Arts & Design at George Brown College and founder of Digifest, Canada’s premier digital festival.
“This award recognizes Mann’s accomplishments, as well as his journey…Toronto has become known as one of the hotbeds of wearable technology, with Steve Mann as its pioneer.”
“I’m very honoured to be recognized here,” said Mann in his acceptance speech. He expanded on concepts raised in his earlier keynote address, touching not only on the new technologies that have emerged from his lab over several decades, but on their meaning and the broader consequences of technology on people and society.
“We have smart floors, smart sinks, smart watches, smart sensors, but what about smart people?” asked Mann. “I think as humans, we’re advancing into a new type of being, a more advanced kind of being.”
Mann shared his love for teaching, and said the most rewarding experience for him has been attracting “some really bright students to come and riff with me.” He advocated for curiosity, well-rounded thinkers, and the value of tinkering with old equipment to figure out how it works—old equipment has integrity because it’s well made, and the circuit diagram is usually clearly displayed on the back panel, he said.
“I describe myself as a cyborg Luddite, because I sort of hate new technology,” Mann told the audience. “They used to say ‘Don’t trust anyone over 30—well I don’t trust anything under 30!”
As someone who began inventing today’s technology more than 40 years before it entered the mainstream, what does Mann see as the critical challenges of our time?
“The most fundamental human thing that’s necessary is integrity,” said Mann. “Really what we need in all this digital technology is integrity—that’s what I would like to see happen.”
Engineering professors Parham Aarabi (ECE), Richard Cobbold (IBBME, ECE) and Hugh Liu (UTIAS) have been named Inventors of the Year by the University of Toronto. The honour recognizes exceptional researchers who are commercializing new technologies that can benefit society.
Three of the five winning inventions announced at the U of T Celebrates Innovation event on May 7, 2015 came from researchers at U of T Engineering.
Making any flat surface tap-sensitive
Aarabi, a professor in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, is the inventor of X-Touch, the only commercially available technology that can instantly transform any surface to become tap-sensitive without any hardware add-ons. The system uses unique acoustic signatures generated by taps at specific locations to turn any table, wall, or lab bench into an interface for the mobile device placed on it.
Ensuring spine screws are straight
Professor Emeritus Cobbold—from IBBME and ECE—and his student Amir Manbachi (EngSci oT8, MASc 1T0, PhD candidate) are the inventors and founders of PedicProbe™, a medical device that uses ultrasound technology to give surgeons a clearer picture during operations where screws are inserted into the spine. The technology could prevent navigational errors and significantly reduce the rate of revision surgeries, in addition to being more portable and affordable than what’s available today.
Creating a drone fleet
Liu, a professor at UTIAS, is an expert in Flight Systems and Control. His invention is a system for synchronizing the motion of groups multiple flying agents. For example, a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, sometimes called drones) could be synchronized to behave as one entity. Liu and some of his former students have formed Arrowonics Technologies Ltd. to commercialize the technology.
“Since 2010, no university has created more spin-offs and start-ups than University of Toronto and its partner hospitals, and for that we can credit the distinguished individuals who are in this room right now,” said U of T President Meric Gertler. “Canada’s prosperity rests increasingly on the kind of innovations that we are celebrating this afternoon.”
Four other professors from across the University were also named Inventors of the Year, including: Professor Karan Singh and Dr. James McRae from the Department of Computer Science for FlatFab and True2Form; as well as Professor Igor Stagljar and Dr. Julia Petschnigg from the Donnelly Centre for their invention, Membrane Protein Interactions Detection (MaMTH).
The Celebrates Innovation event also recognized the 2014–15 recipients of Connaught Innovation Awards, designed to accelerate the development of promising technologies and promote commercialization and/or knowledge transfer of innovations arising at U of T. Eight of the nine recipients this year were from U of T Engineering. (Read more.)
With files from Marit Mitchell.
Mario Badr (ElecE 1T1, MASc 1T4) has won a 2015 TA Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Toronto’s Teaching Assistant Training Program (TATP).
Badr, a PhD candidate in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, is one of just four recipients from more than 6,000 teaching assistants across the entire University. He has taught Engineering Strategies and Practice I & II, Computer Fundamentals, Computer Organization and Computer Architecture.
“I love TAing, I love teaching,” said Badr. “This semester I tried to incorporate more games into my tutorial for Engineering Strategies and Practice—I asked my students to take marshmallows, string and spaghetti and work together to build the tallest freestanding structure. I think by doing this type of work early in the course, it sets them up well for the team work that comes later.”
Badr began seeking out teaching opportunities while working on his master’s with supervisor Professor Natalie Enright Jerger (ECE), teaching every semester and adding summer courses. He completed his Teaching Fundamentals Certificate under the TATP, and particularly enjoyed the courses on pedagogy and teaching technique.
“Not all students are the same, and not all students learn the same way,” said Badr. “My teaching method is effective for many learners but not all—so I’m working on finding an effective way to teach shyer students because my outgoing personality and their shy style doesn’t always match, and I’d like to find a better way to reach those types of students.”
He was nominated for the award by Professor Jason Bazylak (MIE) after receiving exceptionally glowing teaching evaluations from students in his first-year Engineering Strategies and Practice course. Badr says he draws inspiration from the teaching styles of several U of T Engineering professors, including Bazylak, Enright Jerger, Peter Weiss and Jonathan Rose (ECE).
The TATP Teaching Excellence Award was created in 2003 to recognize the outstanding contributions of teaching assistants at the University of Toronto. The award seeks to value the work of TAs who regularly inspire and challenge undergraduate students. The awards committee considers the TA’s knowledge of his or her subject area, communication skills, organizational skills, demonstrated enthusiasm, and ability to provide students with effective feedback, as well as testimonials from both students and faculty supervisors.
“Excellence in teaching has always been a strong focus of ours in ECE,” said Farid Najm, chair of ECE. “I’m proud to see Mario recognized for his outstanding work in this area, and know that he will continue to challenge and motivate our students and his fellow TAs.”
Badr’s only disappointment? That he won’t get to teach an extra course this summer, as he’ll be completing an internship with Qualcomm in San Jose, California.
“I guess motivation for teaching is something I’ve always had,” said Badr. “I’ve been taking the PPIT program, Prospective Professors in Training. I want to keep that door open, and if I could become a professor then that’s something I would like to do.”
The Nobel Prize-winning discovery of insulin by Frederick Banting and Charles Best remains one of the most significant research achievements from the labs at U of T. But discovery alone is not enough; the drug is still saving the lives of diabetics around the world today because those researchers commercialized their discovery.
“Banting wasn’t an entrepreneur. Best wasn’t an entrepreneur. But the emergence of insulin really was an example of entrepreneurship at the University of Toronto,” said Michael Bliss, historian and author of The Discovery of Insulin.
“It involved a whole team’s determination to take a fundamental laboratory discovery and turn it into a commercial product. They did it by working in collaboration.”
Today, U of T’s ecosystem for startups includes seven customized accelerators and a growing network of entrepreneurship courses, programs, office space and more. They are all brought together by the Banting & Best Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (BBCIE), home to over two dozen startup companies, including many founded by U of T engineers.
“That same atmosphere of collaboration and support seen through the development of insulin is what student entrepreneurs get when they’re in any one of our incubators or accelerators,” said Karen Sievewright, director of the Banting & Best Centre.
“Our young scientists and entrepreneurs get access to professors who have deep knowledge; they get access to mentors and investors who have the practical expertise to implement things,” she said. “It’s the same concept as what happened with Banting and Best and we are excited to see how we can help today’s entrepreneurs make their mark in the same way.”
U of T Engineering alumni startup OTI Lumionics is just one of the companies that chose to locate its headquarters at the BBCIE.
The company offers a low-cost system for producing organic LED lighting—thin, light and flexible ‘green’ lighting solutions with applications for interior design, architecture, medical devices and commercial products such as their aerelight lamp. Built on research produced in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, OTI Lumionics was developed through various U of T entrepreneurship supports brought together by the BBCIE.
“The location of the Banting and Best Centre—allowing us to get such a large space, and space that’s suitable for research in downtown Toronto—is fantastic,” said Michael Helander (EngSci 0T7, MSE PhD 1T2), chief executive officer of OTI Lumionics.
“You can turn graduate research into successful startups. It can be done in Canada, you don’t have to go all the way down to Silicon Valley or outside the country,” he said, describing the “ecosystem and community of mentors, advisors and investors that are all either U of T alumni or associated with the university in one way or another.”
OTI Lumionics began as Helander’s graduate research in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering. The company developed with help from the BBCIE’s elite Creative Destruction Lab accelerator program and, after graduating, leased office space at the BBCIE.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_MTy-mS8cc]
“There are many entrepreneurship opportunities at the university that are open to students, to young people, to faculty,” said Sievewright. One of these is U of T Engineering’s own Entrepreneurship Hatchery, an early-stage ideas factory where students can turn their ideas into working prototypes, while simultaneously developing business plans under the mentorship of seasoned entrepreneurs.
With an upwards trend towards startups and entrepreneurship in the changing North American economy, many universities now offer entrepreneurship support. But, Bliss notes, U of T’s experience launching insulin made it one of the first.
“It’s hard to think of another North American university that had so much success commercializing a product for the next half-century,” said Bliss.
“Insulin was not just a research triumph, it is the most important commercialization to have happened at U of T,” said Cynthia Goh, director of the Impact Centre at the BBCIE. “In a few short years insulin went from brilliant research to saving lives, to commercial success and a Nobel Prize. What better example of a commercialized university discovery could we ask for?”
It was a discovery that lit a path for OTI’s Helander, and the generations of others that will follow.
Tragedies such as the train explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Que. will never happen again if Iman Chalabi (Year 3 ElecE) has his way.
The third-year student in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering took first prize in the 2015 Minerva Canada James Ham Safe Design Awards competition today for designing a system that renders crude oil cargo non-flammable in the event of train derailment or collision.
“I’ve always wanted to participate in the Minerva competition and have had several ideas over the past few years,” said Chalabi. “But just recently I was reading a news article about the accident in Quebec, and I decided I wanted to work on that problem.”
Chalabi’s safe design solution is a ‘smart tank’ rail car to transport crude oil or any type of flammable fuel. His system relies on sensors to detect collision or uncontrolled rolling, much like the sensors in your car that deploy its airbags.
When sensors trigger, small tanks inside the fuel cars deploy a mix of water and surfactants into the oil or fuel through high-pressure nozzles. This creates an emulsion that’s significantly less flammable than the raw oil or fuel, rendering it less likely to explode. If the tank car is punctured in the collision, the oil or fuel that leaks out will also be much less susceptible to sparks and less likely to ignite.
In addition to the surfactants that reduce flammability, Chalabi added a small tank of norbornene, an organic compound that increases the viscosity of crude oil upon contact. Once released, norbornene turning the contents of the rail car into a gel mixture that would be easier for responders to contain, and slower to leak into the surrounding environment. His design also includes a gas pressure sensor and release valve to relieve explosive pressure inside the tank.
The project was supervised by Professor Graeme Norval (ChemE) in the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry, and Professor Nazir Kherani (ECE, MSE) helped Chalabi decide on the best materials for his plan—a specialized mixture of sorbitant esters and water for the surfactant, and norborene to increase viscosity. All Chalabi’s components are possible to retrofit inside the DOT-111 and DOT-112 tank car models currently used for shipping flammable liquids by rail, and his project included a cost analysis demonstrating its economic viability.
“Our awards committee liked this concept,” said Tony Pasteris, president and CEO of Minerva Canada Safety Management Education. “Iman’s design is a practical approach that could reduce the consequences of an incident.”
Chalabi received the award today, along with a plaque and $3,500 prize, at the plenary session of the Workplace Safety & Prevention Conference.
The award honours James Milton Ham, former head of Electrical Engineering (1964-66), dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering (1966-73) and president of the University of Toronto (1978-83). His Royal Commission Report on Health and Safety led to the creation of Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act in 1979 and to the adoption of the Internal Responsibility System in Ontario workplaces. Professor Ham trained as an engineer with a secondary field of study in sociology; his writings emphasized ‘society and human needs’. He was awarded the Order of Canada in 1980 and died in 1997.
The Minerva Canada James Ham Safe Design competition challenges Canadian university engineering students to make an original contribution toward integrating safety into engineering design. Participants are encouraged to suggest ways to improve the existing design of devices, processes or systems, envision new, innovative designs that will eliminate or reduce potential hazards, and to create tools to help manufacturers and workplaces integrate safety into new or retrofit designs.
The Minerva awards committee gave honourable mention to the student team of Shatha Abuelaish, Fei Ba, Priyadeep Jaswal and Alex Lui from both ECE and Industrial Engineering. Their team worked with the Hamilton Professional Fire Fighters Association through the Faculty’s Multidisciplinary Capstone Projects course to design a web and mobile-based system for capturing firefighters’ exposure and medical data. They tested the tool with Hamilton firefighters and received a strong endorsement for their work.
A $20 million investment from the federal government announced today will enable the Southern Ontario Smart Computing Innovation Platform (SOSCIP) consortium to add new areas of focus—such as advanced manufacturing and cybersecurity—to its research projects.
U of T is a founding member of SOSCIP, created in 2012 to support collaboration between academic researchers and industries using advanced computing and big data analytics.
The funding comes from FedDev Ontario, a federal agency established in 2009 with $1 billion to work with communities, businesses and not-for-profits in Southern Ontario to address regional and global economic challenges.
“This investment will open the doors for a number of small- and medium-sized businesses, who can benefit from access to smart computing platforms. These new partnerships will lead to the discovery and development of innovative new technologies and will help build a healthy information infrastructure here in southern Ontario,” said Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for FedDev Ontario. He made the announcement at Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) Discovery Conference April 28.
The new funding will be received by U of T on behalf of SOSCIP, and it will be used to increase access to advanced computing and big data analytics, tools and systems and to develop new collaborative projects. The ultimate goal is for these projects to bring new products and services to market.
(Last December, researchers at The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering used computing facilities through SOSCIP to help develop spray-on solar cells. Read more.)
“This magnificent new investment from the Government of Canada will enable SOSCIP to increase its positive impact in many ways. SOSCIP proves that collaboration between academia, industry and government can produce important benefits to Canadians and Canada’s prosperity,” said Professor Cheryl Regehr, U of T’s vice-president and provost.
In addition to the FedDev funding, IBM Canada Ltd., as the lead industrial partner of the consortium, will contribute $65 million of agile, advanced computing infrastructure and big data analytics as well as related support through research, IT and business expertise.
SOSCIP was founded with a focus on research into five core areas—cities, health, energy, water and advanced computing. Using state-of-the art technology, such as the IBM BlueGene/Q (the fastest supercomputer in Canada), research has progressed by way of scientists such as U of T Engineering Professor Eric Miller (CivE), who is analyzing urban transportation and Professor Richard Peltier, who is investigating climate change.
“SOSCIP has made important progress over the past three years in these important areas. This new investment will enable the consortium to support collaborative projects in the additional areas of mining, advanced manufacturing, digital media and cybersecurity,” said Professor Vivek Goel, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation.
He added that the new projects will include at least eight medium-sized businesses and are expected to create or maintain about 100 jobs, including training and skills development opportunities for students and postdoctoral fellows.
In addition to U of T, SOSCIP’S other founding partners include Western University, McMaster University, Queen’s University, University of Ottawa, University of Waterloo and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, IBM Canada Ltd. and OCE. Four additional universities joined SOSCIP in April 2014: Carleton, Ryerson, York and Wilfrid Laurier.