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BOOST 5G Innovation Camp Winners Announced

FREDERICTON, New Brunswick (June 8, 2021) – As the first 5G City in Atlantic Canada – powered by Rogers 5G, the City of Fredericton, together with its *Fredericton Innovation Partnership stakeholders, presented BOOST Innovation Camp with Fog Cutter announced as the winning team.

Over 100 people were involved in this collaborative, week-long 5G Innovation Camp running from May 28 to June 4th.  Fifty participants worked among diverse teams to devise innovative solutions and prototypes to address the City of Fredericton’s smart city challenges – using real municipal data and technology provided by Rogers 5G, Siemens Canada and Kognitiv Spark. 

Ten interdisciplinary teams, comprising skilled entrepreneurs, students, researchers and technologists, explored 5G use cases based on two prescribed problem statements pertaining to:

  • Municipal Infrastructure – Realtime Performance Analysis/Planning
  • Next Generation Emergency Response

Fog Cutter (team #3) was awarded a curated mentorship package, a Fredericton Chamber of Commerce one year membership, and each team member received a 5G enabled iPhone 12 sponsored by Rogers. Team members included: Joshua Roberts, Alexander LeBlanc, Samridhi Pargal, Joey Melo and Scott Bateman.  Fog Cutter is a system that enables field operation guidance for emergency response through 5G-enabled remote holographic support.

The goal of Fog Cutter is to safeguard citizens, property and first responders by facilitating fast and intelligent decision making. Fog Cutter reduces the fog of confusion and uncertainty that first-responders face when they arrive on the scene of an emergency. Fog Cutter allows a command centre to coordinate the distribution of information and facilitate an intelligent response by first responders both before and after they arrive to emergencies. This includes police, paramedics, fire fighters, or other responders such as bomb disposal teams. This is enabled by data provided by IoT sensors and cameras instrumented on the equipment and vehicles of first responders. IoT sensors are connected on the Rogers 5G network enabling a low-latency and reliable data stream. This data is displayed on a HoloLens using Kognitiv Spark’s RemoteSpark System.

The People’s Choice Award went to Team #10 CapInno (for capital innovation) for their flood risk management idea to provide live data, model enhancing and early flood prediction.  Each team member received a $100 Mastercard sponsored by Rogers.

Over 35 subject matter experts participated as mentors, coaches and customer idea validators to lend expertise and guidance to the Boost teams in addition to the esteemed judging panel including:

  • Tess VanThielen , VP Advanced Services – Rogers Communications 
  • Krista Ross , Chief Executive Officer – Fredericton Chamber of Commerce 
  • Mike LeBlanc, Partner – Deloitte 
  • Steve Hart , Chief Administrative Officer – City of Fredericton 
  • Sheldon Shaw , VP of Innovation & Infrastructure – CyberNB 
  • Dylan Gamble , City Engineer – City of Fredericton 
  • Lubomir Masar, Principal Consultant of Digital Industry Software – Siemens Canada   

QUOTES

Fog Cutter:  “Being able to participate in the BOOST Innovation Camp this year was an incredible learning opportunity and provided unique exposure to 5G technology. Having the opportunity to communicate with experts in the tech industry also provided a great educational experience, and I’m glad to have been a part of this.” – Joshua Roberts

City of Fredericton: “As part of the City of Fredericton’s Boost Innovation Lab, we are pleased to collaborate with the University of New Brunswick, New Brunswick Community College, CyberNB, Ignite, and technology partners – Rogers, Kognitiv Spark and Siemens Canada – working towards our vision of becoming Atlantic Canada’s 5G Centre of Innovation” said Adam Bell, Chief Information Officer – City of Fredericton. “Boost is fueling civic innovation by enabling us to use 5G technology to solve our smart city challenges.”

Rogers:  “Thank you to the incredibly talented teams that participated in this year’s Boost Innovation Camp,” said Tess Van Thielen, Vice President, Advanced Services, Rogers for Business. “The innovative solutions that came out of this camp will help advance smart city technology in Fredericton and beyond.”

Siemens Canada: “Congratulations to all the participating teams in this year’s Boost Innovation Camp for successfully using 5G technology to turn data into real-world, decision-making insight. Congratulations to Rogers, the City of Fredericton and all partners on a productive and inspiring event,” said Jamie Dinsmore, Vice President and Country Manager, Canada, at Siemens Digital Industries Software. “The ideas developed and nurtured during the camp will undoubtedly help Fredericton address challenges faced along the journey to becoming a truly smart city.”

Kognitiv Spark: “It is fundamentally important for us as a world leader in our field of Mixed Reality, to take inspiration from the next generation of talented individuals who are going to live and work in our digitally enabled and connected communities.  It has been amazing to see the enthusiasm and manner in which every participant in Boost has accepted the challenge and come with a wide open mind, and a belief that they can make a difference through their ingenuity and amazing technical skill sets.  We couldn’t have hoped for a better host than the City of Fredericton, with an amazing group of collaborative partners including Rogers 5G and Siemens Canada, and the support of such first rate academic teams at UNB and NBCC.  We can’t wait for next year!”  said Duncan McSporran, Chief Operations Officer & VP Aerospace & Defence – Kognitiv Spark.