The conference wasn’t just an event—it was a movement. Designed to prepare students for careers that don’t yet exist, Inspire focused on agility, curiosity, and innovation as the keys to thriving in a rapidly changing world.

With around 50 different sessions, participants explored topics that challenged conventional thinking and sparked new ideas.

Student Quote
“Keynote was GREAT! Steve brought some thought-provoking ideas to me around instilling an innovative culture.”

Highlights from the Day

• Dynamic Agenda: Around 50 different sessions, all aimed at bridging the gap between education and emerging career paths.
• Networking Opportunities: Students connected with professionals at our Exhibitor Lounge, gaining insights into real-world challenges and building relationships.
• Theme in Action: Many of our sessions reinforced the importance of adaptability and lifelong learning in today’s disrupted landscape.

Student Quote
“All sessions were excellent. I learned so many things for my career pathway.”

Why It Matters

The Inspire Conference is more than a single-day event—it’s a catalyst for transformation. By fostering collaboration between academia and industry, it equips students with the tools to navigate uncertainty and seize opportunities.

Looking Ahead

As we reflect on the success of this year’s conference, one thing is clear: the future belongs to those who are ready to adapt, innovate, and lead.

Thank you to our Session Room Sponsors Northfield IT and Canada Life; and to our Exhibitors MB Blue Cross, ID Fusion, Johnston Group, ISACA Winnipeg, New Media Manitoba, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, Pollard Banknote, and Exchange Technology Services.

Stay tuned for next year’s Inspire Conference and continue building the skills that will shape tomorrow’s world. Visit rrc.ca/inspire for more information.

Sprint to Innovate – The Innovation Challenge presented by City of Winnipeg was a great success.  Student teams worked on their chosen challenge from Friday, April 8 to Sunday, April 10.  Each team was given 7 minutes to present the solution to their challenge.

Our judges, Wendy Yan (Futurpreneur), Brent Wennekes (Protein Industries), Tyler Gooch (City of Winnipeg), and Lawrence Lazarko (formerly Manitoba Public Insurance) had a tough decision deciding between the 17 teams that would win our four prizes.

This event was established by Tech Manitoba, RRC Polytech, and the University of Winnipeg’s Faculty of Science.

Here are the winning teams:

FIRST PLACE – North Latin Friends 2.0

City of Winnipeg – Voter Participation Challenge
Mentor: Palmer Rouse
Winning: $6000

SECOND PLACE – Task Force

RRC Polytech – Cyber Security Challenge
Mentor: Drew Carmichael
Winning: $3000

THIRD PLACE – Cmurgh

My Student Wellbeing Challenge
Mentor: Mike Tutthil
Winning: $2000

FOURTH PLACE – The Study Group

RRC Polytech – Cyber Security Challenge
Mentor: Marcus Jungbauer
Winning: $1000

Thank you to our wonderful mentors who supported the student teams throughout the weekend:

Thank you to our challenge representatives who worked to create challenges and help to answer questions throughout the weekend.

A special thank you to our keynote speaker Sean Rayland from Red Rebel Armour for helping to inspire the students as they started the competition. Thank you to Matt Schaubroeck from ioAirFlow for teaching our students how to do their final pitch presentations. Thanks to Al McLeod and Leanne Jones, our innovation experts, for developing our resource kit and providing innovation training to help our students keep on track. Al McLeod also provided support to our mentors.

Thanks to our sponsors we had $12,000 in award money to give our winning teams!

Thank you to our title sponsor, City of Winnipeg; and our event sponsors Payworks, InVision Edge, CIPS Manitoba, BHER, Riipen, Western Financial Group, RRC Polytech, and the University of Manitoba – Faculty of Science.

One student commented “It pushed my boundaries and let me grow more as a person.  I can feel more confident pitching, working in teams and presenting.”

Congratulations to all of our teams, mentors, and challenge reps on a great job!  We look forward to our next Sprint to Innovate in the fall.

SPONSORS

Title Sponsor

Event Sponsors

ACE Spotlight Series

This is the first in a series of spotlight articles, presented by Applied Computer Education (ACE), where we feature members and projects from the ACE department.

Introducing Al McLeod

Al McLeod is an honorary member of the ACE department, we met with Al to ask some questions about himself.

Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I am a proud graduate of the Red River College Polytechnic’s Computer Analyst/Programmer (CA/P) Program. I had a rewarding 40-year career spanning many roles, companies and industries. I retired in 2019 and started a consulting company focused on helping a variety of organizations with innovation capabilities and projects. After experimenting with a mixture of for-fee and pro-bono services for over a year, I decided to focus entirely on volunteering.

I support a number of Startup’s, non-profits, and corporations as an advisor and enjoy collaborating with other Innovators on projects as well.

But the main role I’m focused on now is working with Red River College Polytechnic in support of its innovation agenda. I took on the role of Chair, ACE Project Space Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) Advisory Board in 2020. We help the ACE program prioritize projects for the space.

And finally, I work with ACE Chair Karen Kabel and the ACE team to develop and deliver innovation training and programs within the ACE Program.

For example, one interesting project I’ve worked on with Karen and team is the Sprint to Innovate (STI) Challenge. This is a 48-hour student innovation challenge in cooperation with industry partners, the University of Manitoba and Tech Manitoba.

In the STI Challenge, industry partners provide real businesses challenges and student teams work with Mentors to develop innovative business solutions over a weekend, then pitch to a panel of judges. There are cash prizes for the top three pitches. We provide Design Thinking and pitch training at the start of the event. It’s an excellent event. We’re in the processes of preparing for our second event on April 8-10, 2022.

Why did you choose to be an instructor/mentor at this point in your career?

After trying a number of different experiments to see what would interest me and allow me to give back in retirement, I got the opportunity to collaborate with the ACE team. I quickly figured out that the ACE leadership, instructors and students were really great to work with. Everyone is bright, creative and fun to work with. Dean Kirk Johnson and ACE Chair Karen Kabel are very innovative and most importantly, they make things happen.

I’m also learning a lot from the ACE team and ACE students – especially about teaching. I have a much better appreciation for how difficult the job is now. I really appreciate the feedback I get from students on the training I provide as well.

Plus, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Red River College Polytechnic for preparing me for a challenging and fulfilling career in IT. Before I started in the CA/P program, I was definitely on a really bad career path.

And finally, I enjoy and believe strongly in the importance of mentoring, it allows me to both give back and pay it forward. Some of my mentees have become Startup founders, so I just naturally continued advising them as founders as well.

What do you love most about teaching?

It’s such a great opportunity to make a real impact every day.

It’s extremely rewarding to work with the great ACE team and have the opportunity to both share my knowledge with them and learn from them. It’s a truly collaborative relationship.

And most importantly, I enjoy working with the ACE students. It’s an honour to connect with them and do my best to broaden their expertise and influence them in critical areas such as the importance of creativity, innovation, continuous learning and other important non-IT skills which I know will benefit them regardless of their career path.

What inspires you about IT?

I had a 40-year career in IT that was extremely interesting and challenging. I loved it. I got to experience firsthand the tremendous value IT can bring to businesses. Especially those businesses that can get their heads around the potential value of IT.

Because every company uses IT to run their business, IT skills are very transportable between industries. This allowed me to move between companies and industries during my career, providing me with an incredible range of career options – which I took full advantage of. I worked in government, technology services, financial services, media, telecommunications and insurance.

I’m inspired by both the digital transformations innovative corporations have been able to achieve and even more inspired by the ability of tech-driven startups to disrupt many industries and create cool, innovative solutions that positively impact society.

And looking forward, I’m inspired by the fact that the amazing advances that are happening in fields as diverse as financial services, transportation and healthcare are being driven by IT. How cool is that? As investor Marc Andreessen said in 2011, “Software is eating the world”.

What advice do you have for new students starting an IT program?

Students enrol in an IT program to learn the technical disciplines required for a successful career in IT. That’s very important as technology skills are critical for the future in all industries.

But what’s just as important, both now and for the future, are the “soft” or non-technical skills such as creativity, critical thinking, complex problem resolution, empathy, communications, etc., and to understand the business and industry you’re working in.

Companies have started focusing their hiring more on soft skills because the ideal employees of the future will be the ones best able to deal with change. Also, these skills will provide you with the tools to best navigate your career, wherever it may lead you.

Secondly, once you graduate, always devote part of your energy to learning the business and industry you’re working in. Too many IT employees focus nearly 100% of their learning on purely technical subjects, while completely ignoring gaining business knowledge. IT employees who spend the time to understand the company they work for and the industry they work in are more well-rounded employees and will have significantly more opportunities in their career.

What advice do you have for prospective ACE employees?

Adopt a growth mindset as an Educator. Then encourage this mindset in your students. It will help both you and your students in your careers.

Be a continuous learner and encourage the same in your students. Technology is changing daily. And the rate of change is increasing due to the exponential impact of converged technology. Also encourage students to learn soft skills, business skills and to take a broad view of technology.

Find ways to make your teaching engaging and interactive. Put yourself in your student’s shoes and ask yourself “Am I teaching in a manner that’s as engaging as possible?”

Continue to network with external industry folks – don’t stay completely immersed in academia. A broad, diverse network can be of great benefit to you in a teaching career.

IT professionals are in high demand – both now and in the future. As an ACE Instructor you have the opportunity to prepare students for a fulfilling career in IT and help meet the demand for more IT professionals.

I find collaborating and engaging with ACE Instructors and students very fulfilling. In fact, I find it more fulfilling than many of the jobs I had during my career.

The ACE Project Space Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) Program is a terrific program. It provides students with the opportunity for a unique Work Integrated Learning (WIL) experience with additional training and valuable project experience. I also appreciate that the ACE Project Space EIR program supports local entrepreneurs.

What is something interesting about you that you would like to share?

I call myself an “Innovation Enthusiast” because there’s nothing, I’d rather be doing than collaborating with innovative people in creative environments.

My Wife Wendy and I are proud Manitobans… Although we had a lot of opportunities to leave Manitoba during my career, we always chose to stay in our hometown – even if it meant changing companies from time to time. Working with Red River College Polytechnic gives me an opportunity to pay it back to the College while helping develop the innovation community within Manitoba.

What does a typical day look like for you?

I wake up early every day. Then coffee, breakfast and an hour walk with my wife Wendy – regardless of the weather.

I plan my days and weeks carefully. Not too many meetings per day. Preferably no more than one or two. Then I fill the rest of the week with family and friends time, learning, creating, networking and mentoring.

I spend most days working with the various teams I support, interacting with the folks I mentor, networking with collaborators, and developing various innovation tools and training materials. And I’m always either preparing for or involved in an upcoming RRC Polytechnic event of some kind as well.

I also take time to learn every day – one of my most important goals. I journal throughout the day, it helps me stay organized and be as time efficient as possible, while also providing an opportunity for my mind to wander into ideas.

What do you wish you had known before you started this career (teaching or IT)?

If I’d known how much I would enjoy volunteering in the academic space, I would have never started my consulting company after I retired and I would have immediately engaged in working with RRC Polytech.

This news release originally appeared in RRC’s PR newsletter, November 5, 2020. Web version published here.

Red River College is now one of the fastest growing research colleges in Canada thanks to two new grants totaling $300,000 awarded by Mitacs earlier last month.

“Red River College is proud to be a leading Canadian institution in applied research,” said Fred Meier, RRC President and CEO. “We continue to expand our research efforts into new and emerging areas of technology – such as AI and machine learning – and through collaboration with businesses across Manitoba and our ACE Project Space.”

“These partnerships with Mitacs help support more opportunities for our students to use their hands on training and skills to think creatively for their clients, to problem solve and implement innovative solutions, and drive industry forward.”

Mitacs fosters growth and innovation opportunities for companies and communities, while supporting applied learning for students across all industry sectors and academic disciplines – making Canadian colleges and polytechnics a natural fit their support.

Red River College is now one of the fastest growing colleges for Mitacs in Canada, and these two initiatives alone will engage 17 RRC student interns in innovative industry research.

The first Mitacs grant – one of the largest – awarded to any college in Canada – is an $180,000 partnership with RRC and IT operations optimization startup, Optimiz. With the support of Mitacs, 12 students from the Business Information Technology (BIT) program will use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning explore new approaches and technology applications to monitor the health of IT systems. This important work will allow for quicker and more effective implementations of AIOps systems, and will result in cost savings to Canadian businesses.

“In today’s ever-changing world, many businesses must quickly adapt to our new norm and over the last six months, digital accessibility has quickly become an essential need in order for them to effectively sustain their business offering,” said Tom McIlwham, Chief Strategy Officer, Optimiz.

“We identified Red River College as an excellent source of enthusiastic and highly qualified students to help us build out our solution for AIOps monitoring and management needs, and Mitacs has provided guidance and expertise to assist us through the funding process. We are very pleased to be collaborating with Mitacs and RRC on this exciting initiative, and we truly appreciate the opportunity to make this win-win-win scenario a reality.”

The second is a $120K joint partnership with RRC, the University of Manitoba (UM) and the Arctic Research Foundation (ARF). With support from the Mitacs Accelerate internship, five students from RRC’s Applied Computer Education (ACE) Department will use their skills to gather data from the Canadian Arctic to create a user-friendly, free, centralized database that will serve governments, universities, Indigenous communities and researchers from around the world, for the first time.

“RRC’s ACE Project space has established itself as a key player in Winnipeg’s start-up community, and with their cross institutional research relationships with the University of Manitoba and others, non-academic partners can receive end-to-end support for their product development with funding from Mitacs,” said Brent Wennekes, Director, Business Development, Mitacs Canada.

“Red River College has been a trailblazer for applied research at the college level and remains a national leader. Mitacs is so pleased to be able to support their researchers, students, and community partners with our Accelerate program.”

Manitoba has been the fastest growing province for Mitacs over the last two years, with over 420 internship units applied for last year alone, equaling over $6 million in research awards to Manitoba institutions.

About Mitacs:
Mitacs is a not-for-profit organization that fosters growth and innovation in Canada by solving business challenges with research solutions from academic institutions. Mitacs is funded by the Government of Canada along with the Government of Alberta, the Government of British Columbia, Research Manitoba, the Government of New Brunswick, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Government of Nova Scotia, the Government of Ontario, Innovation PEI, the Government of Quebec, the Government of Saskatchewan, and the Government of Yukon.

Sponsor your project at the ACE Project Space

If you have an idea you would like to bring to life, consider applying to sponsor your project at the ACE Project Space. There are multiple options available to help fund paid positions for your students including Mitacs’ Accelerate, TECHNATION’s Career Ready, ICTC-CTIC’s WIL Digital programs.

Apply to the ACE Project Space

Learn more about available funding to hire your student:

• Work Integrated Learning Subsidy from ICTC-CTIC
• Mitacs
• Technation’s Career Ready Program

ICTC-CTIC’s WIL Digital is an innovative Work Integrated Learning program that helps employers grow their businesses by providing financial assistance for hiring post-secondary students.

Take Action

Our Success Story

This time last year, one of our student teams at the ACE Project Space were busy developing a solution for GFIT Wellness in their first project term with us.

Fast-forward to Summer 2020, GFIT Wellness had recently completed their second term with us at the ACE Project Space. Our client, Arturo Orellana of GFIT Wellness, was looking for funding to hire our students. Arturo reached out to Cheryl Serpanchy, ICTC-CTIC’s Regional Coordinator for Western Canada, who was able to connect him to WIL Digital funding and to our ACE department chair, Karen Kabel.

WIL Digital is designed to connect employers with funding to employ post-secondary students. In GFIT Wellness’ case, they were able to access $7,500 in funding to pay their first student-employee. The funding from ICTC-CTIC made it possible for GFIT Wellness to hire one of our project students from the ACE Project Space. Since their first student-hire, GFIT has hired 8 students using WIL Digital funding, $7,500 per student, to work for their company. They plan to employ more students in 2021 using WIL Digital funding.

GFIT’s story is one of many success stories from the ACE Project Space, as we encourage new clients to take advantage of sponsoring a project at the ACE Project Space and accessing funding opportunities.

Why Should You Hire One of Our Students?

Here at the Applied Computer Education (ACE) department at RRC, hiring students typically happens in one of three ways: Co-op Education, Industry Project at the ACE Project Space, or post-project to the ACE Project Space.

Hiring a student to work on your product is a practical and financially viable way to test business ideas or launch your start-up. When our students work for you, not only is it an opportunity to access technical skills to build your product, it is also a way for students to build up expertise and business knowledge that brings value to your organization. In a world where it can be challenging for students to build up work experience, hiring a student to your organization is a way for them to gain valuable work experience and potential references.

Which Institutions are Using ICTC-CTIC’s WIL Subsidy?

Colleges and Universities across Canada have accessed ICTC-CTIC’s WIL funding to create employment opportunities for students. The program is only applicable to Canadian and Permanent-Resident students.

• The University of Alberta hired 30 students to help create an online curriculum

• The University of Manitoba actively uses this program

• Atlantic Colleges Atlantique (ACA), with 7 post-secondary institution members, have a partnership with ICTC-CTIC’s WIL Digital program

ICTC-CTIC partners with educational institutions on programs that offer dual credits, and micro-credentials.

Take Action

Access ICTC-CTIC’s WIL Digital’s Funding

Apply for funding through WIL Digital and consider hiring a student from one of the Applied Computer Education (ACE) department’s programs.

Contact ICTC-CTIC’s Western Canada’s Regional Coordinator:

Cheryl Serpanchy
Phone: 204-808-1167 ext. 833
Email: c.serpanchy@ictc-ctic.ca

Or, apply online:

Apply for ICTC-CTIC’s WIL Digital Subsidy

Create a co-op employment opportunity

Considering hiring a student for co-op from one of our ACE programs?

• Business Information Technology
• Business Technology Management
• Information Security

Contact our co-op coordinator:

Dan Greenberg
Phone: 204-949-8382
Email: dgreenberg@rrc.ca

Develop and lauch your product while paying students

Do you have an idea you want to bring to life? Discuss opportunities to bring your project to be developed at the ACE Project Space.

Contact our ACE Project Space coordinator:

Ralph Dueck Email: rwdueck@rrc.ca
Or, apply to have your project developed with us:

Apply to the ACE Project Space

Learn More about our experience with GFIT

Read about GFIT Wellness’ story at ICTC-CTIC 

Read about gfit’s first project term with the ACE Project Space

Red River College, Tech Manitoba’s MAVEN program and local tech companies want to help you retool for a career in tech. Join our conversation and learn about the many fulfilling and lucrative opportunities in the field of technology. The event is FREE and includes beverages and a light snack.

Why Attend this Important Session Geared to Women?

• Gain a better understanding of careers in technology
• Meet and talk with industry representatives
• Learn about pathways to exciting career opportunities
• Experience live demonstrations and meet current IT students and educators

Register

Demonstrations

Humanizing Technology with VR

We’ve been using VR in the classroom over at the ACE Project Space to help students improve their presentation skills. Using this tool along with encouragement from our instructors, students have gone from terrified to terrific in less than a term. Take a test drive and see for yourself the difference VR makes!

Simplifying Project Management with Ralphware

With the high number and variety of industry projects entering the ACE Project Space every term, our resident project space instructor, Ralph Dueck, found a need to provide a quick, simple, effective, and repeatable way of managing agile projects using the Scrum methodology with students and their clients. See how Ralphware has been used effectively over the past two years to keep students on track in a fast-moving project-based environment.

Using Online Learning to Create Mentorship Opportunities

The competency-based education (CBE) model has been used at the ACE project Space to provide students with opportunities to develop and prove their skills. The focus is less on lectures and more on experiential education and mentorship. Instructors in Applied Computer Education are updating their courses to enable their course content to be taught in online and blended learning formats. Learn how you can incorporate online learning in the classroom while freeing up time for providing in-class mentorship opportunities.

About the Conference

DisruptED Future is a two-day conference where the local tech industry and educational institutions meet to inspire the next generation of innovators. The conference is being held at the RBC Convention Centre located at 375 York Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The students tested 20 “users” and provided a Tim Hortons gift card as compensation for the participant’s time.

The five-second test is a powerful usability testing tool designed to capture a user’s first impression of a webpage. The test length is purposely chosen as studies have shown that five seconds is enough time for users to formulate an immediate qualitative impression of the webpage without having enough time to begin to focus on specific design elements.

Pauline Gerard, Deputy Director, IISD-ELA and Corporate Secretary, talked to our BIT, BTM, InfoSec, and PTEC students about the challenges the IISD is working to resolve in protecting and cleaning up our fresh water resources and species right here in Manitoba. Lake Winnipeg, which is the 11^th largest fresh water lake in the world, is under threat due to excessive pollutants entering the watershed. The lake also serves as the sole source of potable water for many northern communities and supplies a significant commercial fishing stock. Gerard called for students’ help in assisting the organization in signing up to develop technology-backed ideas and solutions to stop further degradation of our precious fresh water resources.

Pauline Gerard, Deputy Director, IISD-ELA and Corporate Secretary describes AquaHacking

Gerard guided students through the process of developing sustainable ideas by working on a common challenge affecting the agriculture sector today: providing agriculture producers with cost-effective solutions for managing drainage and the climate. The students were split into groups to discuss ideas around how the problem could be solved. One student from each group shared their idea to the audience. Ideas involved Internet-connected sensors, apps, and more.

The five challenges the IISD is working on for Lake Winnipeg include:

• Providing agricultural producers with cost-effective solutions for water and land management
• Assessing fish populations and health using non-invasive techniques
• Preventing microplastics from entering the lake
• Enabling local testing of drinking water quality in remote northern communities
• Financing sustainable development initiatives by connecting individual and group funding sources

The AquaHacking Challenge is an 8-month long competition for the best ideas, connecting teams of innovative people with mentors from industry and workshops to create innovative and sustainable solutions. Technology-minded youth between the ages of 18 and 35 are encouraged to register to be part of a solution team for this competition, which starts in February with winners declared in October. Winners will receive part of a $50,000 prize pool to fund further development of their solutions.

To learn more about the AquaHacking 2020 Challenge for Lake Winnipeg and how to participate, visit https://bit.ly/HackLakeWpg or stop by the IISD booth on January 31^st during the DisruptED Conference at the RBC Convention Centre.

Selling used physical items online has traditionally been a time-consuming process. Writing a good product description and pricing it appropriately can be challenging. Sponsored by North Forge, the RID team came to the ACE Project Space to find a way to create an application to simplify the selling process. Our BIT and BTM students built a prototype application that quickly populates a product description by simply taking a photo of the product. The students developed a web application that supports user authentication using Firebase, Google for photo storage, and integration of Vision AI and the eBay API to populate recognize products, populate descriptions, and determine price ranges.

Deliverables

The RID student team completed the following deliverables for the project during the fall term at the ACE Project Space:

• User authentication
• Mobile compatible view
• Integrated image recognition feature
• Product fields input

Technologies used

• React
• Vision AI
• eBay API
• Firebase
• Node
• Bootstrap
• Material UI

Item Capture Screen

Image Upload Screen

Price Chart