2021 Innovation Awards Recipients

May 17-20 is Canadian Innovation Week, an event recognizing Canadian innovation from coast to coast. The university is proud to participate in this initiative with its innovation generator celebration—spotlighting some examples of how our research and innovation is helping drive change and shape the future. We are also launching our Innovation Awards celebration.

These awards were created by TEC Edmonton in 2013 to celebrate the university’s annual commercialization achievements—specifically US patents granted, and spinoff companies created. Now that technology transfer services have moved back to the university, it seemed fitting to continue these awards, while beginning to expand to highlight other U of A entrepreneurial achievements. This year, for the first time, we include our eHUB student entrepreneur awards.

The Innovation Awards are one way of publicly recognizing how our faculty and students are helping to  create and drive economic and social advancements through entrepreneurial and commercial activities. The virtual awards event, taking place May 20, 3:00-4:00 pm, will celebrate the university’s innovation culture and recognize U of A innovators and entrepreneurs who were granted a US patent with a commercial partner and/or created a spin-off company during 2019-2021, as well as celebrating student entrepreneurs with eHUB awards.

On behalf of the Vice-President Research and Innovation and the university, I would like to congratulate all the recipients listed below.

Deborah James
Associate Vice President (Innovation and Commercialization)

Awards for US Patents 

U of A Spinoff Companies

Anteligen Technologies - Rashid Mirzavand Boroujeni 
Empowering an intelligent wireless generation by bringing intelligence to antenna technology facilitating the development of radio frequency, microwave, and millimeter wave devices. Anteligen’s AI algorithms will help you get to market faster than any other measurement software.

Mosaic Sensors Corporation - Michael Serpe 
Optical sensor technology for early disease diagnosis (biosensing), light filtration and manipulation (photonic materials), controlled drug delivery, water remediation/waste reclamation and antibacterial coatings.

PulseMedica - Abdulhakem Elezzabi 
Developing a medical device to treat retinal eye diseases that affect over 400 million people worldwide. The device, a real time 3D imaging and surgical platform, enables radically more precise retinal surgery and comprehensive patient treatment including disease detection, surgical planning, surgical treatment, and post-surgery evaluation.

Applied Quantum Materials - Jonathan Veinot 
Metal-free, biocompatible silicon quantum dots and semiconductor nanoparticles for application in sensing, energy, displays, security and bio-diagnostics.

Electronic Grid Systems - Ryan Li 
Helping make renewable energy more affordable through compact and lightweight power electronics systems for solar power generation, energy storage, and electric vehicle applications.

Immunoderm - John F. Elliott 
Developing a new approach to skin allergy testing with innovative materials and processes to make allergy patch testing widely available at a reasonable price.

North Road Photonics - Ray DeCorby 
A new type of widely tunable optical filter, with potential application across spectrometry, radiometry, sensing and spectral imaging for monitoring civil engineering, aerospace, and energy systems infrastructure. The filters provide superior performance over a wide range of wavelengths at a greatly reduced cost.

RJH Biosciences - Hasan Uludag 
Develops superior delivery systems to fully realize the therapeutic potential of nucleic acids in treating a wide range of human diseases. RJH products are commercially available for research use, and the company is currently testing their nanodelivery systems as a treatment for blood cancers.

eHUB Student Awards