The Hon. Ranj Pillai, Yukon Premier, has announced new funding to help local companies attract, onboard and retain the region’s brightest minds to enable them to successfully innovate and grow their businesses.
The $80,000 investment will be rolled out through national innovation organization Mitacs – with whom the Government of Yukon announced a renewed partnership for the fifth consecutive year.
Mitacs — which acts as a “matchmaker” between the talent in post-secondary institutions and organizations that need expertise to innovate — has a track record of successfully placing undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdocs, in paid internships in a wide range of industries throughout the Yukon, including programs for Indigenous students and businesses.
Some of these Yukon businesses and top talent shared their stories at a July 9 event at Yukon University’s Ayamdigut Campus, including local students who have gained valuable industry experience, expanded their professional network and developed skills for high-quality jobs as part of the internships program. The businesses also revealed how interns are helping to drive innovation and economic prosperity for the Yukon.
“We’ve seen firsthand the benefits that come with working together with the Yukon Government, from the homegrown talent we can develop to the fresh ideas and innovators we can bring to the region,” said Mitacs CEO John Hepburn. “We’re committed to our role in Yukon’s bright future.”
A key example of Mitacs’s work in the territory is its partnership with Balance Biogas, a local start-up that is revolutionizing how we power our world. With support from Mitacs, Balance Biogas is harnessing cutting-edge technology and ground-breaking research to change the way families, small communities and mining camps in northern Canada get rid of their waste.
With support from Mitacs, Balance Biogas CEO Jonathan Osborne, who grew up in a remote community near the Champagne/Aishihik First Nation, has developed a first-of-its-kind desktop bio-digester, a 227-litre unit designed to convert household organic waste into usable gas, as well as several other small-scale digester concepts aimed at managing landfill and mining camp waste.
His technology is based on anaerobic digestion, a renewable energy process that uses microorganisms naturally found in cow manure to break down organic waste and convert it to usable methane gas in an air-free environment.
“The real value of our approach is that we’re offering true energy security,” Osborne said. “With our desktop digester, for example, we’re allowing people to take food scraps from their home, put them into a digester and then collect methane gas in a very safe manner at the backend – with food scraps from a family of five translating into cooking gas for a family of five.”
“At Balance Biogas, we believe that every action counts in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions,” said Osborne. “With Mitacs’s support, we’ve been able to convert organic waste into a valuable asset and advance our mission of reshaping the energy landscape.”
This example is one of thousands across the country supported by Mitacs, which is committed to driving productivity and innovation from coast-to-coast-to coast.
Investing $1.3 billion in R&D since 2010, Mitacs is currently supporting almost 11,000 organizations — from start-ups and non-profits to multinationals — providing access to top minds and new technologies to help grow the country’s innovation ecosystem. To date, it has supported more than 37,000 projects involving the funding of more than 45,000 students.
Mitacs’ studies show companies that source R&D talent and investment through Mitacs experience significant growth. In fact, 11% of businesses report an increase in labour productivity compared to firms not participating in Mitacs programs, 16% report an increase in sales, and 9% say they have experienced both an increase in revenue and employment. What’s more, 51% of projects funded by Mitacs are commercializing.
Working with both public and private sectors to help solve business challenges and boost productivity and innovation, Mitacs provides funding — up to 55% — for projects across all disciplines and connects top-tier researchers with the businesses, non-for-profits, municipalities, and hospitals that need them.
From aerospace systems to clean tech to childhood literacy rates and quantum, Mitacs-funded research helps to strengthen local and international collaborations, improve economic performance, and create jobs.
“From an industry perspective, we help organizations identify challenges and opportunities, and formulate innovation road maps and research projects,” Hepburn said. “We then connect them to the right source of academic expertise and know-how from Canada and around the world — all within our existing networks.”
“Investing in talent also helps Canada’s small businesses punch above their weight,” Hepburn added. “Mitacs has helped thousands of Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises de-risk innovation and growth, recruit much-needed talent, and go global. We work tirelessly to match start-ups with the exact highly skilled and specialized talent they need to help them identify, understand, and connect into new markets.”
Mitacs also collaborates closely with business accelerators and incubators across Canada —155+ partnerships and counting — to support start-ups from early-stage through commercialization, launch, and growth.
More information about Mitacs’ programs across Canada and in the Yukon can be found at mitacs.ca.
