Lethbridge College has received nearly a million dollars in new federal funding to level up its virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) research. The two-year, $900,000 grant enables the college’s Spatial Technologies Applied Research and Training (START) centre to hire new staff and increase its industry-driven research capacity.
The funding was administered by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through the College and Community Innovation (CCI) program’s Applied Research and Technology Partnership (ARTP) grants. A total of 74 projects across Canada received funding, with Lethbridge College being one of only three institutions to receive the maximum $450,000 per year funding amount for a single-college project.
“I'm excited that Lethbridge College is being recognized for our expertise in curriculum design, spatial technologies, and equity, diversity and inclusion,” says Mike McCready, START Program Research Chair. “Looking back to 2018 when the college hosted the first Merging Realities conference – which acted as a tipping point for VR/AR at the college – really shows how far we’ve come in a relatively short period of time. Growth is happening at an exponential rate, organizations are contacting us from around the country and globally, and momentum is building. There is no sign of slowing down.”
START’s mission is to partner with Alberta-based organizations to apply VR/AR technologies to solve challenges in key Alberta sectors, including agriculture, energy, architecture, health care, cultural heritage and emergency response. The ARTP grant allows START to hire more staff, including a VR/AR machine-learning researcher, as well as to offer a one-year full-time internship for a graduate of the college’s Virtual and Augmented Reality certificate program.
The ARTP grant is the second major funding boost for START in less than a year. The centre received more than $410,000 from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation in July 2021, which went to support infrastructure development.
“START has already proven its adaptability and potential by creating unique, technologically advanced solutions for a variety of industry partners,” says Dr. Kenny Corscadden, Lethbridge College Vice President – Research and Partnerships. “This injection of federal funding, combined with the expertise and desire of Mike McCready and his team to build our capacity and engage new partners, means there is unlimited potential for where this technology and this team can go.”
Some of the projects already undertaken by START include working with Red Iron Labs on a VR training program to help caregivers working with dementia patients; partnering with the Municipal District of Greenview to bring visitors to a remote dinosaur footprint site through VR; collaborating with internal Lethbridge College partners on a variety of training initiatives; and organizing the NEXT: Beyond the Metaverse virtual conference.
The START centre is part of Lethbridge College’s Centre for Applied Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which is a catalyst for economic growth, sustainability and social development in the region. It brings together researchers, community organizations and students to collaborate on projects that use new or existing knowledge to solve real-world challenges with immediate practical applications. Lethbridge College has been recognized as one of Canada’s top 50 research colleges.