Ann Marie Vaughan
President & CEO,
Humber Polytechnic
Robert Luke
CEO,
eCampus Ontario
Dr. Vanita Varma
Director, Centre for Innovation in Health and Wellness,
Humber Polytechnic
Canadian businesses must boost productivity to drive growth, create higher-paying jobs, and curb inflation. One Toronto post-secondary institution proves innovation is key.
In a recent annual ranking of Canada’s top 50 research colleges, Humber Polytechnic placed fifth and was the top research institution in the GTA. “We’re setting the standard for innovation,” says Ann Marie Vaughan, President and CEO of Humber Polytechnic. “We bridge the gap between research and real-world application, ensuring that our discoveries go beyond the lab and translate into tangible solutions that drive productivity, economic growth, and social progress.”
We’re setting the standard for innovation. We bridge the gap between research and real-world
application, ensuring that our discoveries go beyond the lab and translate into tangible solutions that drive productivity, economic growth, and social progress.
Converting research into practical solutions
Vaughan adds that with Canada facing a productivity crisis, applied research is key to contributing to our country’s economic development. Humber has the proven expertise to bring academia, industry, and government together to tackle our most pressing challenges by promoting a culture of innovation and preparing the future workforce with relevant employability skills that employers need to help grow their businesses.
When it comes to technological innovation and development and turning that innovation into commercial success, Canada lags behind other countries. Solving this requires more than just technology. At a Humber event last year, Robert Luke, CEO of eCampus Ontario, shared that innovation needs four things: technology, education, training, and research and development. According to Luke, Canada under-invests in all four.
Research with impact
Humber is doing its part by investing in a bold and unique approach to integrating industry with academia. Its five Centres of Innovation, focused on areas of proven strength and industry sector growth — technology, creative business, health and wellness, entrepreneurship, and social innovation — are helping businesses to identify and scale innovative solutions that are having a positive impact. The key is providing an experiential learning environment for students and equipping them with problem-solving skills to thrive in an evolving workforce, while collaborating with diverse organizations to help them succeed.
One example is Humber’s Centre for Innovation in Health and Wellness (CIHW), which was established three years ago and is having an impact by collaborating with industry to enhance the health and wellness of the community.
Economic and social value
“We’ve already launched four research projects with industry partners,” says Dr. Vanita Varma, director of the Centre for Innovation in Health and Wellness. “In collaboration with the industry partners, we want to understand and invest in the pressing health concerns of people in the GTA. We’re currently working on some cutting-edge research that has the promise to change the way we screen for prediabetes and significantly improve health outcomes.”
With almost four million Canadians living with diabetes, 90 per cent of which is the treatable type 2, the prevalence of diabetes, especially in the South Asian community, is a huge health concern. Countless Canadians are in the prediabetes stage, but many don’t even know it.
“As we were engaging students and having conversations about diabetes through innovative health innovation challenges, Klick Labs, a health tech company reached out to us to collaborate with them on a separate project that integrates voice technology in the identification of prediabetes,” says Varma. “Machine learning in acoustic analytics can identify biomarkers for prediabetes in our voices. It’s fascinating to see this kind of digital health technology have such a profound impact.”
Investing in collaboration
Varma adds that while the research is currently in the validation stage, there’s promise in the technology. Instead of someone going to a clinic if they think they’re at risk of diabetes, in the future they could potentially use an app on their phone, which could give them instructions to seek follow-up care and access to resources. The technology hopes to make health care equitable and accessible to many in the community.
“We need to increase investment in and opportunities for collaborative research, because no single organization has answers to the complex problems,” says Varma. “When cross-sectoral partners work collaboratively on complex or so-called wicked problems, we can help scale potential solutions.”
We need to increase investment in and opportunities for collaborative research, because no single
organization has answers to the complex problems. When cross-sectoral partners work collaboratively on complex or so-called wicked problems, we can help scale potential solutions.
Industry partners want to work with Humber because they see value in tapping into young minds to help solve complex problems. “We offer opportunities for industry partners to collaborate with faculty, students, and researchers to drive meaningful impact and create economic and social value,” says Vaughan. “We invite organizations to partner with us to solve their challenges and remove barriers to productivity and prosperity.”
Connect with Humber Polytechnic to see how transformative research can lead to innovative solutions at humber.ca/research-innovation.
