Note: This article was first published in the Ottawa Business Journal on January 1, 2024.
The University of Ottawa established a satellite campus in Kanata North with the goal of continuing to foster collaborations and long-term partnerships between uOttawa and industry in the tech park that result in mutually beneficial outcomes.
Over the course of almost five years, the uOttawa Kanata North campus has worked with over 120 partners in the area to help support innovation and impact in Canada’s largest tech park.
An example of an impactful collaboration between uOttawa and industry in Kanata North is one between communications tech giant Ciena and uOttawa’s Dr. Shervin Shirmohammadi, a computer and software engineering professor, with the Faculty of Engineering.
How it began
The research collaboration, which has now spanned over five years, initially began by leveraging a funding program through Mitacs which helps financially support industry-academic research and innovation collaborations. Ciena was interested in exploring if AI could troubleshoot problems causing network quality issues and/or interruptions.
Collaborating with industry was not something new to Shirmohammadi, as he has a passion for helping to solve industry-related problems as well as sees substantial benefits in the experience students can gain through working closely with industry.
The initial Mitacs project looked at stabilizing video streaming services, like YouTube and Netflix, by using AI to identify and fix network problems before they arise.
The project was such a success that Ciena saw the potential to use the same solution for larger networks. As a next step towards commercializing the solution, together, they applied for an NSERC Idea-to-Innovation grant which provides funding to support this next stage in the partnership.
To understand the potential of this tech, think back to the 2022 Rogers network outage, reportedly caused by a maintenance upgrade issue. The introduction of advanced AI tools, such as the one Ciena and uOttawa were developing, brings new analytical options for telecom service providers to proactively identify the root cause of these types of problems.
The value of the industry-academia partnership
In addition to the personal and professional satisfaction that comes from problem solving, each party benefited from the partnership in unique ways.
For Ciena, it was about discovering new industry-relevant solutions and accessing the unique infrastructure and expertise at uOttawa. “Collaborating with uOttawa allows us to explore curiosity-based research, which is pivotal for driving innovation,” said Dr. Chris Barber, senior data science manager at Ciena’s Blue Planet division.
For uOttawa, it was about being a part of developing solutions to support a specific industry need, creating and sharing knowledge, as well as giving graduate students the opportunity to gain unique experience working with industry.
“We give our PhD students ‘non-academic experience,’” said Shirmohammadi. “By working with an industry partner, they pick up hands-on skills which prepares them for the job market.”
The impact
Overall, what both parties may value most is seeing how their collaborative work is being put into action.
Ciena is now leveraging the intellectual property, including three patents, created from this project to incorporate into their product offerings and make their communications infrastructure more robust and stable around the world.
uOttawa has also elevated the reach and impact of university research by working to help solve industry problems, leveraging research grants that support industry-academia collaborations, and creating unique training opportunities for students.
“Without uOttawa and the research collaboration grants, research like this may not be possible since you sometimes have to try many approaches until you get it right, meaning it can take years to yield any return on investment,” said Barber. “Companies tend to think that a project that doesn’t immediately result in revenue is a failure, but I think you have to break a few eggs before you find the golden one.”
But the most exciting impact could be the AI technology itself. Shirmohammadi says what they built came up with a solution a human wouldn’t have considered.
“The AI put all video streams into a single link — something an engineer would never do because it can lead to congestion,” he said. “It was a strange approach but turned out to be the right thing to do.”
It is evident that when uOttawa and industry come together, innovation and creativity flourishes, tough problems are solved, and talent is equipped with the right experiences to work in the private sector and hit the ground running.
Interested in collaborating with uOttawa? Connect with the uOttawa Kanata North team to explore how you can partner and innovate with them.