Grant: Applied Research and Technology Partnership Grants

The focus of Selkirk College's Computing Technology and Economic Adaptation for Natural Resource Firms proposal is to trial and equip natural resource companies with computing technology tools for enhanced innovation, competitiveness and productivity. Sectors supported include: forestry and associated wood products, mining/metallurgy, professional services, and utilities. In part, this approach reflects the nature of our rural region. It also reflects specific areas of expertise invested in by Selkirk College over the past decade and builds on existing industry relationships. Natural resource sectors face enormous challenges, both environmentally and economically. These sectors are internationally competitive and volatile, the remoteness of B.C's southern interior region creates problems in logistics and the economy is evolving to require technology-driven business approaches; nationally in 2019, forestry's return on capital employed, a measure of production efficiency, fell to 4.4%, down from 11.5% in 2018. Climate change impacts natural resource sectors disproportionately, including via frequency and intensity of heat and wildfires, erratic snowpack, warming of waterways and - not least - heightened public attention and concern about forward-looking management of our natural environment. This ARTP is a timely opportunity to leverage technological progress, enhanced college expertise and a spike in local resource sector technology uptake - and incorporate a strong data analytics and advanced computing element into existing industry relationships. ARTP support will ensure research project continuity for partner firms in forestry and GIS, and enable the application of current research successes to new sectors with similar needs including fisheries and mining/metallurgy. Under this ARTP, the college will emphasize an adjusted, multi-disciplinary approach, adding necessary bandwidth to our in-demand advanced computing department and incorporating college expertise in digital technologies, data analysis, data visualization, machine learning and artificial intelligence into resource sector projects. As detailed in the Research Plan, we will look at cutting edge ways to achieve existing company goals more efficiently, harness technology and data in our common battle to understand and mitigate climate change, and even assist a very traditional company to explore a surprising new business stream using surplus resources.