Canada has always been a nation of innovators. From the invention of the telephone and the light bulb (Edison bought the patent from two Canadians who were the first to get there) to the development of the pacemaker and the creation of the robotic arm of the space shuttle, Canadian technology has changed the world.
Eigen innovations: Driving efficiency
Scott Everett became interested in cars as a boy working on the family farm. His parents sold the farm, but his love of cars eventually led him to mechanical engineering and now to work in the automotive industry.
His Fredericton-based company, Eigen Innovations, uses artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to help automotive parts manufacturers be more efficient. “We want to accelerate the number of parts produced per hour,” says Everett. To do this, Eigen is analyzing data that many factories already collect, in addition to data from its own sensors, such as video images, to help increase production.
No matter how efficient production becomes, things like introducing a new material can be expensive. Everett’s technician assesses the impact – “It can automatically detect when something changes,” he says – and tells plant personnel “how to run their machines better.”
Hopper: Pay less, travel more
When is the right time to book? Airline and accommodation prices fluctuate, and early adopters don’t always get the best deal, so “buying tickets and hotel rooms is a huge thrill,” says Frederic Lalonde, founder and CEO of Hopper, a solution provider.
Having already founded an online hotel booking company (sold to Expedia in 2002), Lalonde realized that budget-conscious travelers would appreciate knowing when to pull the trigger. It took six years and $12 million, but since 2014, Hopper has been using artificial intelligence to analyze online price data and predict the best time to book.
Lalonde admits that his business model is different: “We only make money when people buy from us, but three-quarters of our resources are dedicated to telling people not to book.” Despite this, he says, more than 100 million trips have been organized through Montreal-based Hopper, making it the most used travel app in North America.
FI.SPAN: the best business banking
Lisa Shields launched FI.SPAN in Vancouver with one goal in mind: “We don’t want business banking to be bad,” she says. That can be a daunting task, but she’s making progress.
Shields, a longtime fintech entrepreneur, founded the company in 2016 to address the many frustrations small business owners have with vendor-related transactions. Typically, when a company needs to pay a supplier, it sends a file with payment instructions to its bank. The bank has to act on those instructions, report whether the money was successfully transferred, and then someone has to enter the information into the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. “It’s really old school,” says Shields.
To make life easier for both the bank and the business, she creates application program interfaces (APIs) that allow financial institutions to connect directly to a company’s ERP system, quickly sending and receiving the data they need to complete transactions. Businesses know almost instantly if a payment has been processed.