Unique financial incentive assists companies with COVID-19 recovery by significantly contributing to the cost of hiring top post-secondary student interns
Vancouver, BC, October 5, 2021 — Small businesses across Canada grappling with the impact of COVID-19 are getting support from an unexpected resource: top post-secondary students.
Thanks to a unique financial initiative recently launched by Mitacs — a national innovation organization that helps solve business challenges with research solutions from universities, colleges, polytechnics, and CEGEPs — students across the country are adding much needed skills for employers looking to manage and grow their operations in an environment disrupted by the pandemic.
What’s more, the Mitacs initiative — available to all small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and not-for-profit organizations with fewer than 500 employees — offers a significant cost reduction. Qualifying partner organizations contribute only 25 per cent of the intern’s $10,000 or $15,000 stipend for the first four months of an innovation project done in collaboration with a post-secondary institution instead of the usual 50 per cent. Mitacs interns are available to support business, not-for-profit, hospital, and municipal innovation in all sectors — everything from agriculture, arts and entertainment, and energy, to healthcare, technology, tourism and utilities.
“Through this effort, we are simultaneously helping Canadian small- and medium-sized businesses to grow and innovate, and our country’s up-and-coming top talent and researchers to secure valuable employment opportunities in spite of a challenging job market caused by COVID-19,” said Mitacs CEO Dr. John Hepburn. “Both SMEs and academic talent are integral to Canada’s economic recovery, and Mitacs is committed to making the connections needed to help Canadian organizations solve their business issues, remain competitive, and thrive.”
Since the start of the pandemic, more than 2,000 businesses — about 70 per cent of which are SMEs — partnered with Mitacs for the first time. Since 2011, Mitacs has helped more than 8,500 organizations, the majority of which have 500 employees or less. The total value of all industry-related innovation projects funded through Mitacs nears $1 billion, with businesses contributing about half that amount.
“We have the tools, connections, and solutions that small businesses need to navigate the current economic challenges, and we’re seeing firsthand how many of those companies that take advantage of working with us are thriving,” Hepburn added.
Law student helps local SME improve efficiency during pandemic
Interaxon Inc., the Toronto-based neurotechnology company behind the first-of-its-kind Muse® brain-sensing meditation headband, found itself in the position of needing to get more done with fewer resources when the pandemic caused the company to restructure its workforce. To maximize efficiency and prepare for future growth, the company turned to the Intellectual Property Innovation Clinic at York University’s Osgoode Law School, which was able to help thanks to the school’s partnership with Mitacs – an organization Interaxon was familiar with as they had positive experiences working with Mitacs interns in the past.
“We believe hiring students through Mitacs and similar programs enables Interaxon to contribute our knowledge and skills to help students in Canada to build their workplace skills,” said Interaxon General Counsel Naseem Bawa “We try to create an environment for learning and meaningful experiences when we work with students. For us, it is great when it is a true win-win. We could not have justified hiring someone had the internship not been supported by Mitacs.”
As a result of this new partnership, Interaxon has increased the standardization of its electronic documents and improved internal processes, allowing employees to work more productively.
Since the launch of its first consumer product in 2014, a first-of-its-kind clinical-grade portable EEG device paired with a mobile application that uses real-time biofeedback to help people learn how to meditate and build a satisfying meditation practice, the science-based company has increasingly grown its portfolio. As the pandemic progressed, the company found more people were turning to meditation to deal with their unprecedented levels of uncertainty.
“We’re a small team of under 50 people and every single person is generally working at 120 per cent of their maximum bandwidth,” said Interaxon VP of Marketing Nadia Kumentas, noting that growth comes with a massive legal paperwork burden, from non-disclosure agreements to partnership documentation and other time-sensitive requests. “Our largest pain point during the pandemic was the reduction in internal resourcing. Hiring a Mitacs intern allowed us to support future growth and not lose momentum with current priority projects,” she said.
To help progress the company’s IP portfolio and help standardize processes to support growth, the company hired Mitacs intern Androu Waheeb, a first-year Osgoode Hall Law School student who spent this past summer at Interaxon as part of the newly-launched Mitacs Business Strategy Internship Law Program. Working under the supervision of Bawa, Waheeb helped to standardize electronic documents, making it easier for employees to complete standard legal paperwork. He also helped to progress the company’s privacy policy and drafted IP claims — a big help for a company that is constantly innovating.
Both Bawa and Waheeb found the Mitacs supported internship to be very valuable. “We initially hired Androu to progress our IP portfolio, but quickly found that he was able to do much more than that,” Bawa said, noting that the new standard documents are allowing the team to be more self-sufficient.
“These types of tasks were an excellent way for me to learn by doing and kept me constantly engaged with new and exciting challenges,” Waheeb said. “By putting into practice what I learned in school, I both expanded upon by understanding and solidified my grasp on many legal skills and concepts.”
Mitacs intern hired by company to identify, respond to cybersecurity threats
ISA Cybersecurity, a leading provider of cybersecurity services, is another Toronto-based SME benefitting from specialized student skill sets. After hiring Mitacs Intern Dhrun Lauwers, a York University Schulich School of Business student specializing in artificial intelligence, the company is streamlining the process of triaging potential security threats, reducing response times and improving the overall user experience for customers and in-house staff alike.
As ISA Cybersecurity President and CEO, Kevin Dawson explained, modern digital systems generate vast quantities of log and diagnostic data that report on a company’s IT infrastructure, leading to a massive volume of data that can be challenging for humans to interpret, prolonging the time to identify potential threats. By advancing ISA Cybersecurity’s investments in machine learning, Lauwers, who has since been hired by the company as a Security AI and Machine Learning Lead, was able to significantly shorten the response time and efficacy of security events.
“This new modelling process means fewer false positive incidents need to be reviewed, and the tickets that are created are more actionable,” Dawson said.
Quick Facts:
· Mitacs is a not-for-profit organization that fosters growth and innovation in Canada by solving business challenges with research solutions from academic institutions.
· Mitacs is funded by the Government of Canada along with the Government of Ontario, the Government of Alberta, the Government of British Columbia, Research Manitoba, the Government of New Brunswick, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Government of Nova Scotia, Innovation PEI, the Government of Quebec, the Government of Saskatchewan and the Government of Yukon.
