Connect with us

Technology

Government of Canada invests $1.35 million in new airborne sensing lab so local companies can develop cutting-edge technologies

Published

on

PacifiCan funding will help local businesses to harness data, test new technologies, and bring innovations to global markets by accessing this ‘lab in the sky’ at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus

KELOWNA, BC, Feb. 26, 2025 /CNW/ – British Columbia is home to talented innovators creating technologies needed here in Canada and around the world and driving advancements across industries. To support local businesses and enhance collaboration between industry and academia, the Government of Canada is investing in new technologies to help bring more made-in-B.C. innovations to global markets.

Today, the Honourable Harjit S. Sajjan, Minister of Emergency Preparedness and Minister responsible for the Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada (PacifiCan), announced $1.35 million in PacifiCan funding for the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus (UBCO) to create Western Canada’s first airborne sensing lab. This lab will help B.C. small and medium-sized businesses develop remote sensing technologies for environmental monitoring, security, and hazard detection.

Remote sensing technologies use sensors to collect data about the Earth’s surface without direct contact, offering groundbreaking applications in various industries. With this funding, UBCO will equip a small aircraft with infrared, radar, and hyperspectral sensors, enabling the collection and analysis of high-resolution data.

The airborne sensing lab will help local companies test and refine new technologies, accelerate existing projects and gain a competitive edge in the global sensor data market, which is projected to reach $25 billion by 2027. Many of the lab’s key partners are local companies developing artificial intelligence (AI) software that analyzes sensor data, helping to strengthen the Okanagan’s growing digital technology sector.

This project builds on the UBC Survive and Thrive Applied Research (STAR) lab, a PacifiCan-funded initiative that is developing high-impact technologies for the health, sports, and defense sectors. The addition of the airborne sensing lab will allow UBC STAR to expand into new areas, such as agriculture and forestry. This expansion will also help Indigenous communities more sustainably manage land and marine resources by providing access to the lab’s advanced data collection tools.

Today’s investment, made through PacifiCan’s Regional Innovation Ecosystems program, is expected to generate $4.5 million in revenue, $1 million for research and development, and support more than 10 local small and medium-sized businesses. It will also create training opportunities and high-quality jobs, including for women and youth.

Quotes

British Columbia is home to incredible talent and innovation, and this investment will help local businesses take their technologies to the next level. By supporting the development of the first airborne sensing lab in Western Canada, we’re giving B.C. companies the tools they need to expand into global markets, strengthen the local tech sector, and create new opportunities for collaboration with Indigenous communities. This is a great example of how industry and academia can work together to drive economic growth and sustainability.” 

-The Honourable Harjit S. Sajjan, Minister of Emergency Preparedness and Minister responsible for the Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada

“This is a very exciting partnership between UBC research capabilities and leading Okanagan companies. We are delighted to bring the world real innovation from the Okanagan, solving problems here at home while creating export opportunities contributing to the region’s economic growth and resilience.”

-Dr. Keith Culver, Director UBC STAR, University of British Columbia

Quick Facts

PacifiCan is the federal economic development agency dedicated to British Columbians. PacifiCan works with partners who are building innovative businesses, creating quality jobs, and supporting inclusive growth throughout our province.PacifiCan’s Regional Innovation Ecosystems program invests in sectors across British Columbia, building an ecosystem that includes underrepresented groups and allowing companies to innovate locally and compete globally.

Associated Links

PacifiCanRegional Innovation Ecosystems programUniversity of British Columbia – Okanagan CampusUBC STAR (Survive and Thrive Applied Research)

Stay connected
Follow PacifiCan on Twitter and LinkedIn
Toll-Free Number: 1-888-338-9378
TTY (telecommunications device for the hearing impaired): 1-877-303-3388

SOURCE Pacific Economic Development Canada

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Technology

Wondershare to Showcase AI-Powered Business Workflows with PDFelement at Microsoft AI Tour Hong Kong

Published

on

By

HONG KONG, April 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Wondershare, a global leader in productivity and creativity software, will participate in the Microsoft AI Tour Hong Kong on April 22, 2026, at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. At Booth E10, the company will showcase its AI-powered business workflow solutions across its product portfolio, highlighting Wondershare PDFelement as a key focus, and inviting attendees to experience how intelligent workflows can transform modern business operations.

As Microsoft’s flagship global AI event, the Microsoft AI Tour brings together industry leaders, partners, and innovators to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping business landscapes. At the Hong Kong stop, Wondershare will highlight its deepening collaboration with Microsoft, showcasing how its product ecosystem works seamlessly within Microsoft’s AI and cloud technologies to enable more efficient, secure, and scalable workflows.

This collaboration comes at a pivotal time for Hong Kong’s rapidly evolving AI landscape. Hong Kong is rapidly emerging as a key AI innovation hub, driven by strong policy support and accelerating enterprise adoption. Despite this momentum, many organizations still face challenges such as fragmented AI adoption, integration complexity, and data security concerns. In collaboration with Microsoft, Wondershare addresses these challenges by enabling connected, end-to-end AI workflows that deliver practical and measurable productivity gains.

Under the theme “Streamline Workflows. Power Content with AI.”, Wondershare presents a unified approach to AI-driven productivity. At the center of this ecosystem is Wondershare PDFelement, enabling smarter and more efficient document workflows within enterprise environments and helping businesses adopt AI in practical, everyday scenarios. Supporting this vision, Wondershare’s broader product portfolio—including EdrawMax, EdrawMind, Filmora, and Reelmate—extends AI-powered capabilities across diagramming, mind mapping, video creation, and premium comic content creation, forming a connected, end-to-end workflow, all of which will also be showcased on-site at the event.

Through live, interactive demonstrations, attendees visiting Booth E10 will be able to explore Wondershare’s full product ecosystem and gain hands-on insight into how AI can enhance productivity across a wide range of business scenarios.

Wondershare warmly invites all participants to visit the booth and discover how AI-powered workflows can unlock new possibilities for business growth.

About Wondershare:

Wondershare is a globally recognized software company founded in 2003, known for its innovative solutions in creativity and productivity. Driven by the mission “Creativity Simplified”, Wondershare offers a range of tools, including PDFelement for document management; EdrawMax, EdrawMind for diagraming, Filmora and SelfyzAI for video editing. With over 2 billion cumulative active users across all products and a presence in over 200 countries and regions, Wondershare empowers the next generation of creators with intuitive software and trendy creative resources, continually expanding the possibilities of creativity worldwide.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/wondershare-to-showcase-ai-powered-business-workflows-with-pdfelement-at-microsoft-ai-tour-hong-kong-302747366.html

SOURCE Wondershare Technology

Continue Reading

Technology

Cohesity Appoints Nigel Lee as Technical Sales Leader, Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ)

Published

on

By

SINGAPORE, April 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Cohesity, today announced Nigel Lee as Technical Sales Leader for Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ). Based in Singapore, Lee will lead the company’s technical sales strategy, pre-sales organisation, and solution engineering execution across the region, reporting to Mark Nutt, SVP & GM, International at Cohesity, and reflects Cohesity’s increased investment in the region as a strategic priority.

In this newly created role, Lee will strengthen technical engagement with customers and partners, and drive adoption of Cohesity’s AI-driven data security and cyber resilience platform across APJ.

Lee brings 29 years of experience leading pre-sales, sales engineering, and go-to-market changes across Asia Pacific. He has a strong record of building high-performing teams, driving enterprise growth, and engaging C-level stakeholders in complex markets.

“APJ is a strategically important region for Cohesity, and Nigel’s leadership, passion and deep expertise make him exceptionally well positioned to lead our technical sales organisation,” said Mark Nutt, SVP & GM, International, Cohesity. “As we continue to invest in the region, his ability to align technical strategy with the rapidly developing customer requirements caused by the ever-changing threat and compliance landscape will be critical to accelerating our growth and ensuring our customers’ ongoing business resilience.”

Previously, Lee was Director of Data Storage Solutions, Asia Pacific at Lenovo, where he led the regional business and transformed the go-to-market to drive growth. He also held senior regional and global roles at NetApp.

“Across the region, organisations are under increasing pressure to secure, manage, and unlock value from their data as AI adoption accelerates and cyber threats evolve. Cohesity is uniquely positioned to simplify this complexity through a unified, AI-driven data security platform,” said Nigel Lee, Technical Sales Leader, Asia Pacific and Japan at Cohesity. “Having spent my career scaling organisations and embedding solution expertise early in the customer journey, I’m excited to join at this pivotal time and look forward to working with our teams, partners, and customers to drive meaningful, outcome-led growth.”

Lee holds an Executive MBA from Kellogg-HKUST and a Bachelor of Computer Science.

About Cohesity 

Cohesity protects, secures, and provides insights into the world’s data. As the leader in AI-powered data security, Cohesity helps organisations strengthen resilience, accelerate recovery, and reduce IT costs. With Zero Trust security and advanced AI/ML, Cohesity Data Cloud is trusted by customers in more than 140 countries, including 70% of the Global 500. Cohesity is also backed by industry leaders such as NVIDIA, Amazon, Google, IBM, Cisco, and HPE.

Cohesity is certified as a Great Place to Work in multiple countries. Follow Cohesity on LinkedIn and visit www.cohesity.com to learn more.    

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/cohesity-appoints-nigel-lee-as-technical-sales-leader-asia-pacific-and-japan-apj-302747284.html

SOURCE Cohesity

Continue Reading

Technology

EcoMatcher Unveils Tree Personas

Published

on

By

A New Nature Interface for Engaging with Your Trees, in Any Language

HONG KONG, April 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — EcoMatcher, a Certified B Corporation that enables companies to plant and track trees transparently, today announced Tree Personas, a new Nature Interface designed to make tree gifting and sustainability engagement more personal, interactive, and memorable.

With Tree Personas, companies can assign a distinct digital personality to each gifted tree, enabling recipients to virtually visit their tree in TreeTracker 3D, chat with it through TreeChat+ in their own language, and learn about its growth, local environment, and real-world impact.

Tree Personas build on EcoMatcher’s earlier TreeChat, which introduced chatbot-powered conversations with trees, only in English. While TreeChat enabled interaction, Tree Personas shape how a tree communicates in any language – from curious and playful to calm and reflective – while all environmental data, location, and impact metrics remain authentic and unchanged.

EcoMatcher describes Tree Personas as a Nature Interface — a new category of digital interface that allows people to interact with real ecosystems through digital companions connected to living trees. The company believes Nature Interfaces can help reconnect people with nature in an increasingly digital world.

Rather than passively receiving information about a planted tree, users can build an ongoing relationship with it — asking questions, learning about its ecosystem, and following its growth over time. Even when users are away, Tree Personas continue to evolve digitally, encouraging people to return and discover new reflections, observations, and updates.

“Trees are essential for life on Earth, yet most people rarely have a personal connection with them,” said Bas Fransen, CEO of EcoMatcher. “Tree Personas turn planted trees into interactive companions that help people learn about nature and build deeper connections with the ecosystems that support us.”

Meet the First Tree Personas

EcoMatcher introduces three Tree Personas available to companies gifting trees, all inspired by real ecological stages and behaviours of trees:

Twiggles: A young, curious tree highlighting small discoveries in nature.Oakly: A grounded, thoughtful tree sharing ecosystems insights.Seren: A calm, reflective tree encouraging deeper connections with nature.

Companies can also collaborate with EcoMatcher to create custom Tree Personas aligned with their brand values, sustainability goals, or storytelling needs.

EcoMatcher will share more about the background and opportunities of Tree Personas during its upcoming Demo Day on April 27. To sign up, visit www.ecomatcher.com/demo.

About EcoMatcher

EcoMatcher is a Certified B Corporation that enables companies to integrate transparent tree planting into their business. Through its technology platform, organizations can plant trees, track them digitally, and engage employees and customers in sustainability. EcoMatcher’s customers include Dubai Islamic Bank, Grab, Infosys, and Singlife.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/ecomatcher-unveils-tree-personas-302741368.html

SOURCE EcoMatcher

Continue Reading

Trending