Grant: College and Community Innovation Program

Toronto is Canada's largest technology hub and the third largest in North America. It is home to over 48,000 retail businesses employing over 1.5 million people and generating over $9 billion in annual revenue. Most Canadian businesses are now shifting towards a data-driven retailing approach, which empowers the detailed, intelligent analysis of financial, social and consumer data for making critical business decisions, monetize opinions, improve products and increase revenue. Trending technologies in cloud data storage, virtual analytics and social media marketing have led to an astronomical growth in the amount of consumer data which is being generated for Canadian businesses. Although the current COVID pandemic crisis has led to an economic slowdown in most industry verticals, the pivoting of retailers to online shopping and marketing has led to creating numerous opportunities in analytics market. This has also led to an increased demand of digital transformation technologies, online and remote services awareness of the value of customer data. Using the customer data is very important for building new business models but many companies face technical challenges in embracing this shift. Centennial College's Centre for Explainable Data Analytics (CEDA) will empower these businesses by developing newer technologies in explainable data analytics and designing applications and solutions to provide a stronger footing in the data-driven market. The CEDA will assist Toronto's SMEs to adopt new approaches to designing and developing data enabled business systems with better customer preferences understanding, computing platforms and alternative user interfaces that are shaped by technology. CEDA is built on the already developed applied research capacity and Software Engineering Technology programs at Centennial College. NSERC investment will enable engaging more students and faculty on various industry-collaborated initiatives, boosting the overall applied research capacity of the College and supporting GTA-based SMEs for their growth and innovation.