The McGill Engine: revving up new ideas
Providing students and researchers with the resources to bring tech-based ideas to life – and to market. Facilitating collaboration across faculties and with industry to accelerate innovations that benefit society.
The McGill Engine does this and more through support for innovation and entrepreneurship in collaboration with the McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship and the Office of Innovation and Partnerships.
Original support for Engine came from the late William Seath, BEng’52, whose vision was to bring novel technologies to market so students could address real-world challenges. Many other McGill friends and alumni have since made Engine their passion project, in particular members of the Faculty of Engineering Advancement Board.
Located on the busy first floor of the Frank Dawson Adams Building, Engine is a meeting place for students, professors and their collaborators, not only from the Faculty of Engineering but from across the University. It provides project funding and experiential learning, advising and coaching resources, mentorship, and networking opportunities.
Companies that got their start through Engine include Carbicrete, which makes a cement-free, carbon-negative concrete, and Ora, which uses graphene – lighter and stronger than steel – to build unique, high-performance loudspeaker membranes.
“It was really through support from McGill University that we took it from something that was just a curiosity into something that is potentially going to make it into real-world consumer products,” says Ora co-founder Robert-Eric Gaskell, MMus’06, PhD’16.
New ways to train and support tomorrow’s educators
Two new degree programs aim to address the needs of Indigenous teachers-in-training.
In 2016, the Office of First Nations and Inuit Education (OFNIE) in the Faculty of Education teamed up with Listuguj, a Mi’gmaq First Nations community in the Gaspésie region of Quebec, to launch a new Bachelor of Education program, taught exclusively in the community of Listuguj and largely by Mi’gmaq educators.
Building on the success of this initiative, in 2018 OFNIE, working with the Kahnawà:ke Education Centre, introduced a second BEd program in Kahnawà:ke, the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) territory across the St. Lawrence River from Montreal.
Reading about the programs online, and learning that many of the students work full-time and have families of their own to support, Francesca Brotto, BA’75, MA’77, saw an opportunity to help. All the way from Italy, she stepped up with a gift to make evening classes easier for Kahnawà:ke students, by funding an on-site daycare service.
Bethany Kawennishon Douglas, MA’16, the program coordinator in Kahnawà:ke, sees how this inspired gift has been integral to student success in the burgeoning program. “Due to its intensive nature, the program is quite stressful for our students,” she says. “The daycare relieves part of that stress by offering a safe and fun environment for students to bring their children.”
Agile thinking for in-community education
McGill’s School of Continuing Studies (SCS) is developing new ways of using technological platforms to make education accessible for underserved populations. Several new SCS programs were designed to respond directly to needs expressed by Indigenous communities and are already having an impact on learners located far from campus.
These agile programs are designed to help students jump-start or advance their careers, without having to move far from home. Courses are taught by live virtual conferencing, through student-directed online learning, or a combination of the two.
The right support is key to student success. That’s why Canadian National (CN) is a proud contributor to the Holistic 360 Support System for Indigenous students following courses in programs such as Public Administration and Governance and Business Management.
CN’s gift supports Indigenous students from recruitment to past graduation, providing coaches and tutors, while sensitizing lecturers to Indigenous history and culture, and helping them to effectively Indigenize course content.