17/12/2019
St. JOHN’S, NL (17 December 2019) – LOOKNorth, C-CORE’s Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR), is pleased to announce its support for SmartICE Sea Ice Monitoring & Information Inc., an award-winning technological innovation for the North which supports safe travel on ice while developing a business model that expands opportunities for Northerners.
SmartICE is developing a Performance Monitoring, Assessment and Evaluation Framework to help technology enterprises and the clients and communities they serve to better understand the overall outcomes of their northern initiatives, especially those involving social enterprises. This unique framework will take a holistic approach to identifying how various programs influence people, the environment, and the economy in the North.
“As a social enterprise, SmartICE focuses on building partnerships to train and employ local youth as producers, operators and technicians of our technology. This is a core commitment in our enterprise; we seek to engage communities in partnerships for social and economic development,” said Dr. Trevor Bell, Professor of Geography at Memorial University and Founding Director of SmartICE Sea-Ice Monitoring & Information Inc.
The SmartICE initiative is a $3M program that aims to implement their innovative training platform in up to 10 communities by 2023.
“This project is an excellent example of the northern vision that LOOKNorth supports. We’ve been working with SmartICE since 2017 and believe in their vision for meaningful, sustainable northern enterprises with innovative fit-for-purpose technologies that support climate change resilience for Canada’s Northern communities,” said Paul Adlakha, Managing Director of LOOKNorth. “In addition to funding nearly $200k to date for SmartICE, we’re also bringing unique technologies that address some of the challenges of working in the North.”
LOOKNorth has committed over $1M to Northern projects in the past year.
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Media Contacts:
Janessa Hynes
Marketing Specialist, LOOKNorth
E: janessa.hynes@c-core.ca T: 709-864-2085
Carolann Harding
Executive Director, SmartICE Sea Ice Monitoring & Information Inc.
E: charding@smartice.org T: 709-725-0820
About LOOKNorth
LOOKNorth is C-CORE’s national Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research, established under the federal Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program and supported by an extensive network of industry and academic partners.
LOOKNorth advances the commercialization of Canadian remote sensing innovations onto the world stage, advance Northern capacity to implement remote sensing technologies for Northerner’s needs and ensure sustainability by generating revenues with our partners.
The Centre’s strategic foci are:
- Fostering innovation in remote sensing technologies and applications
- Working with Canada’s leading satellite SMEs to define and successfully execute missions relevant to industry and communities
- Supporting Canada’s Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) sector in advancing Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations
- Working with stakeholders in Canada’s Northern communities to help build capacity in remote sensing technologies/services
About SmartICE Sea Ice Monitoring & Information Inc.
SmartICE is an award-winning technological innovation for the North, the world’s first climate change adaption tool to integrate Inuit knowledge of sea ice with advanced data acquisition and remote monitoring technology. SmartICE combines these approaches to provide invaluable, data-driven insights into sea-ice thickness and local ice conditions in near real-time. SmartICE embraces a social enterprise business model that aims to expand opportunities for economic and social development in Inuit Nunangat while strengthening traditional knowledge and practices.