Three technology projects in Whitehorse are getting tens of thousands of dollars in government funding.
Dan Vandal, the minister of Northern Affairs and the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor), announced in a release on May 20 the federal government is spending nearly $128,000 to support the Yukon’s innovation sector.
A backgrounder on the funding states that Total North Communications is getting $54,000 from CanNor, as well as more than $25,000 from the Yukon government and $29,500 from the proponent, for a one-year project that seeks to improve mobile units used throughout the North and northern B.C. as data centres, fibre optics facilities, mountaintop communications sites, shop spaces and storage facilities. This funding allocation will help address the need for Canadian Standards Association-certified shelters that can be used in harsh Arctic environments.
The backgrounder outlines another $45,000 in CanNor money for a Yukon tech project, along with $45,000 from the territorial government and $60,000 from Scale AI, a consortium of private entities, research centres, academia and startups.
The new program, known as North of AI, will help build capacity in the territory’s technology industry related to artificial intelligence, according to the backgrounder.
Lastly, the backgrounder identifies CanNor invested more than $28,000 in a project by Discovelo Inc. Yukon University Innovation and Entrepreneurship put in more than $16,000 and the proponent contributed more than $15,000 to the project related to content and market expansion for gamified software.
Contact Dana Hatherly at dana.hatherly@yukon-news.com