Solve for X: Innovations to Change the World

As we start to feel the effects of climate change, it’s clear we need to find ways to adapt our communities and lighten the impact on the planet. It can be tempting to just start over somewhere fresh — to build a fully optimized city that’s decked out with the latest technology to be sustainable and efficient. But as we’ve seen in one smart city development after another, these projects often fail to live up to the hype. It might be time to rethink what a smart solution actually looks like. In this episode, we learn about two companies that are harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to retrofit what already exists. By optimizing heating and cooling systems and re-tooling public transit, these two ventures are already helping shrink the carbon footprint of cities. It’s a good reminder of the power of incremental change. Featured in this episode:Sarah Moser is a professor of urban geography at McGill University. She heads up the New Cities Labs and researches these new developments — what they promise and what actually gets built. She speaks to the need of digital literacy to evaluate technology and make sure it serves the needs of the community.David Rolnick is an assistant professor and Canada CIFAR AI Chair in the School of Computer Science at McGill University and at Mila. He also is a co-founder and chair of Climate Change AI, and scientific co-director of Sustainability in the Digital Age. Specializing in machine learning and climate change, he talks us through how machine learning can be used to help us mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis.Sam Ramadori is the CEO of BrainBox AI. We learn about his smart platform, why reducing energy emissions of buildings are so important and why we need to scale this kind of technology.Remi Desa is the co-founder and CEO of Pantonium — a on-demand ride-share app designed for buses. Pantonium’s platform brings real-time insights to public transportation and helps address the challenges faced in fixed-route systems.Marty LeDuc is a bus driver in the city of Fort Erie, and currently drives one of the vehicles utilizing the Pantonium software. With more than 20 years of experience under his belt, he speaks to the differences on-demand transit has made, and how change can be difficult.Further reading: Toronto wants to kill the smart city foreverNine million people in a city 170 km long; will the world ever be ready for a linear metropolis?The Reality of Abu Dhabi's Unfinished UtopiaMila announces a partnership with BrainBox AI to support the launch of the company's first meta-learning projectAddressing climate change by retrofitting Canada’s existing buildings To make U.S mobility more sustainable, improve access to public transit The Mission from MaRS initiative was created to help scale carbon reducing innovations by working to remove the barriers to adopting new technology. Mission from MaRS thanks its founding partners, HSBC, Trottier Family Foundation, RBC Tech for Nature and Thistledown Foundation. It has also received generous support from Peter Gilgan Foundation, BDC, EDC and Mitsubishi Corporation Americas. Learn more about the program at missionfrommars.ca. Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com. 

Our energy grid is something most of us only think about when it isn’t working. But growing demand for electricity is placing an even greater strain on a system that’s already facing increased pressure from extreme weather events. Can we build a more sustainable and dependable grid? In this episode, we explore how when it comes to climate change, the challenge of greening the grid is as much an issue of complex engineering as it is about policy and equity. Featured in this episode:Josh Wong is the CEO of Opus One Solutions, a company that is working to optimize the grid and make it easier for utilities to integrate renewable sources of energy with its data analysis software. Josh is working to address the energy trilemma (reliability, resiliency, decarbonization) by offering greater transparency on the supply and demand of electricity.Destenie Nock is an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University who specializes in public policy, civil and environmental engineering. She’s an expert on how our changing climate is impacting the grid, and what that means for the future. Focusing on energy equity, Destenie explains what’s important to consider in our transition to clean energy.Dana Tizya-Tramm is the chief of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in Old Crow, Yukon. Dana helped establish the Old Crow Solar Project — shifting the northern remote community off diesel to renewables. Through his efforts, Old Crow is making inroads toward energy sovereignty.Further reading: 2021 placed exceptional demands on electricity markets around the worldRenewable Energy Is Great—but the Grid Can Slow It DownGlobal heat waves are so bad that utilities are paying their customers to use less energy“Nation-building” investments in electricity grid needed to reach net-zero, experts sayHow Old Crow's solar farm is changing green energy projects in Yukon | CBC News The Mission from MaRS initiative was created to help scale carbon reducing innovations by working to remove the barriers to adopting new technology. Mission from MaRS thanks its founding partners, HSBC, Trottier Family Foundation, RBC Tech for Nature and Thistledown Foundation. It has also received generous support from Peter Gilgan Foundation, BDC, EDC and Mitsubishi Corporation Americas. Learn more about the program at missionfrommars.ca. Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com. 

This week we’re on pause, returning September 15th to our regular schedule. Exciting things are in the works: in coming episodes I’ll be talking to a scientist behind a robot lab and exploring how we can extract value from waste — even in space. But we also want to hear from you: what climate solutions are you interested in? Is there a certain technology that needs decoding? Send us a note at media@marsdd.com — and don’t forget to turn on alerts for our upcoming episodes! Catch you soon. The Mission from MaRS initiative was created to help scale carbon reducing innovations by working to remove the barriers to adopting new technology. Mission from MaRS thanks its founding partners, HSBC, Trottier Family Foundation, RBC Tech for Nature and Thistledown Foundation. It has also received generous support from Peter Gilgan Foundation, BDC, EDC and Mitsubishi Corporation Americas. Learn more about the program at missionfrommars.ca. Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com. 

To take new climate solutions from the lab out into the world can take hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. But as the pressure intensifies to hit our climate targets, the rapid commercialization of clean technologies is critical. On this special bonus episode, guest host Lara Torvi sits down with cleantech investor Susan Rohac to discuss the opportunities and challenges Canada faces to commercialize climate technologies at full scale.  Featured in this episode:As the vice president of the Cleantech Practice at BDC (the Business Development Bank of Canada), Susan Rohac sees the potential for global impact in climate tech. She leads her team in helping cleantech companies get the support and funding they need to scale successfully. With the responsibility of managing a $600-million fund, she’s one of the largest climate tech investors in the country.Further Reading: Canadian food tech companies could lead the global food revolutionClean Slate: How Canada Can Spur Growth by Procuring From Its Own Cleantech StartupsGenecis Raises US$10 Million in Funding to Commercialize Biodegradable Plastic ProductsClean tech could be worth more than oil by 2030 The Mission from MaRS initiative was created to help scale carbon reducing innovations by working to remove the barriers to adopting new technology. Mission from MaRS thanks its founding partners, HSBC, Trottier Family Foundation, RBC Tech for Nature and Thistledown Foundation. It has also received generous support from Peter Gilgan Foundation, BDC, EDC and Mitsubishi Corporation Americas. Learn more about the program at missionfrommars.ca. Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com. 

Humans are wired to want more. More time, more resources, more money. But what if we could do more with what we already have? When we innovate for resilience, we often think big — bypassing solutions in our own homes. Today, we’re looking at the design of objects (like electric cars and heat pumps) and discovering their purpose can go far beyond the original intent. As we move to more sustainable forms of power, energy storage is becoming increasingly important. Here, we explore novel ways we can address energy intermittency in the future and also look back in history for lessons in making those kinds of changes.  Featured in this episode:François Lefèvre is a senior manager of market intelligence and corporate planning at Nissan Canada. He’s watched the evolution of EVs in Canada — and is an expert on the many models of Nissan LEAF.Ruth Sandwell is an energy historian who teaches at OISE and the University of Toronto. She researches the changes in household behaviour that resulted from the adoption of new forms of energy systems.Imran Noorani is the CSO of Peak Power and a clean energy enthusiast. Peak Power’s AI-based technology optimizes buildings through the intelligent management of energy use, energy storage and EV-grid integration.Wayne Grosko is an applied research scientist who studies renewable energy. Wayne focuses on the piloting of new technologies, one of them being the Stash Energy heat pump.Daniel Larsen, co-founder & CPO of Stash Energy. Stash has created a heat pump that goes further than the traditional. Not only does it heat and cool homes, it actually stores heat energy and uses it during peak hours to offset demand on the grid (and consumer’s wallets).Further Reading: Why You (and the Planet) Really Need a Heat PumpHow storing energy without batteries could be key to N.S. giving up fossil fuelsHow electric vehicles could transform the power gridHow Households Shape Energy TransitionsDriving Change: Transportation And Electric Utility Industries Will Soon Collide – In A Good Way The Mission from MaRS initiative was created to help scale carbon reducing innovations by working to remove the barriers to adopting new technology. Mission from MaRS thanks its founding partners, HSBC, Trottier Family Foundation, RBC Tech for Nature and Thistledown Foundation. It has also received generous support from Peter Gilgan Foundation, BDC, EDC and Mitsubishi Corporation Americas. Learn more about the program at missionfrommars.ca. Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com. 

Net-zero commitments are a critical first step in the fight against climate change. But to stave off the worst effects of a warming planet, we actually have to ensure countries and corporations live up to those promises. In this episode, we chat with Catherine McKenna, head of the UN Task Force against greenwashing, about regulations and accountability when it comes to net-zero targets, as well as how  incentives might help. We need to quickly scale climate solutions; which means tackling bureaucratic hurdles. Nothing is off limits. Featured in this episode:Catherine McKenna, Canada’s former Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. Catherine’s current role (as founder and principal) focuses on scaling Climate and Nature Solutions. She’s also the Chair of the UN Secretary General’s new High-Level Expert Group on Net-Zero Commitments of Non-State Entities, and if that wasn’t enough — Catherine is an avid open water swimmer and mother of three. She shares her perspective on what it takes to make progress on the climate file.Further Reading: Corporate net-zero pledges have a long way to goJust 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissionsClimate Emergency, Calling Intergovernmental Panel’s Report ‘a File of Shame’Catherine McKenna to chair UN panel on climate change progressFour key climate change indicators break records in 2021 The Mission from MaRS initiative was created to help scale carbon reducing innovations by working to remove the barriers to adopting new technology. Mission from MaRS thanks its founding partners, HSBC, Trottier Family Foundation, RBC Tech for Nature and Thistledown Foundation. It has also received generous support from Peter Gilgan Foundation, BDC, EDC and Mitsubishi Corporation Americas. Learn more about the program at missionfrommars.ca. Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com. 

Trees have an incredible ability to absorb carbon — which means protecting, planting and restoring forests are a (relatively) easy way to address global warming. Climate change, however, is making it more complicated. Our forests are (quite literally) going up in smoke, which has far worse consequences than one might expect. In this episode, we explore the role forests play in carbon sequestration, how increasingly intense fires are threatening to turn them into a carbon bomb, and how technology (think drones, satellites and lasers) can assist in our replanting and conservation efforts. The forests have helped us, it’s time to help them.  Featured in this episode:Lola Fatoyinbo-Agueh is a NASA scientist. Working in the biospheric sciences lab, she studies forest ecology and ecosystem structure, using LiDAR to GEDI (more on that later) to map and measure the amount of carbon sequestered by trees.Faisal Moola, a biologist. He’s an associate professor at the University of Guelph, and an expert on forest conservation, biodiversity (conducting inventory of areas using drones) as well Indigenous partnerships. He helps us understand what we’ve done in the past to hurt forests, and how we can heal them.Amy Cardinal Christianson is a fire research scientist, who specializes in Indigenous fire stewardship and talks about the role of fire in the overall health of trees. She is also a host of a podcast called “Good Fire.”Stephen Elliott is the co-founder and research director of the Forest Restoration Research Unit of Chiang Mai University (FORRU-CMU) in Northern Thailand. He works with communities in replanting efforts and has a particular interest in automated forest restoration.Further Reading: How to build forests to combat climate changeTree Planting Is Booming. Here’s How That Could Help, or Harm, the PlanetOne of Canada’s biggest carbon sinks is circling the drainClimate change could expand forests. But will they cool the planet? | ScienceDrone-based technology remotely assesses health of trees impacted by climate changeLandsat’s Critical Role in Forest Management The Mission from MaRS initiative was created to help scale carbon reducing innovations by working to remove the barriers to adopting new technology. Mission from MaRS thanks its founding partners, HSBC, Trottier Family Foundation, RBC Tech for Nature and Thistledown Foundation. It has also received generous support from Peter Gilgan Foundation, BDC, EDC and Mitsubishi Corporation Americas. Learn more about the program at missionfrommars.ca. Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com. 

In the last 250 years, we’ve released more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than in the previous 20,000 years. To make serious headway in meeting climate-change deadlines, experts are looking at technologies that go beyond simply curbing emissions to those that can also take carbon dioxide out of the air. In this premiere episode of Solve for X, tech journalist Manjula Selvarajah explores what we can do with all this carbon dioxide from burying it underground to turning it into vodka.  Featured in this episode: Roger Highfield, science director at the Science Museum in London, England, who talks about the importance of carbon capture and objects that can store carbon dioxide released by human activity — from toothpaste to yoga mats — as well as a noisy mechanical tree named Cranky that is 1,000 times faster at removing CO2 from the air than a natural tree.Katharine Hayhoe is a Canadian atmospheric scientist, professor of political science at Texas Tech University and the chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy, a global conservation organization known as Nature United in Canada. She explains the potential benefits — and pitfalls — of trying to “fix” the planet.Anna Stukas, vice president of business development at Carbon Engineering, talks about how the B.C. company can take CO2 out of the atmosphere.Stacy Kauk, the head of sustainability at Shopify, talks about carbon pricing and what to know when evaluating carbon offsets.Further reading: The device that reverses CO2 emissionsCarbon Engineering Makes Gasoline by Capturing Carbon Dioxide From the AirCan We Suck Up Enough CO2 to Cool the Planet?Removing emissions directly from the air might be Canada’s best hope for net zero The Mission from MaRS initiative was created to help scale carbon reducing innovations by working to remove the barriers to adopting new technology. Mission from MaRS thanks its founding partners, HSBC, Trottier Family Foundation, RBC Tech for Nature and Thistledown Foundation. It has also received generous support from Peter Gilgan Foundation, BDC, EDC and Mitsubishi Corporation Americas. Learn more about the program at missionfrommars.ca. Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com. 

It’s now or never. Canada is warming at double the rate of other countries, and we have one of the highest GHG emissions footprints per capita in the world. The good news is much of the technology needed to solve the climate crisis already exists. A special new podcast series, Solve for X delves into these Canadian ideas and innovations that could help prevent the most disastrous consequences of climate change and build a cleaner future. From A.I. to advanced materials to energy optimization, tech journalist Manjula Servarajah digs into the big questions and explores some of the challenges innovators face in scaling their solutions.Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS. All episodes were produced by Ellen Payne Smith. Gab Harpelle is our mix engineer, Lara Torvi and Heather O’Brien are the associate producers. David Paterson provided editing support and Mack Swain composed our theme song and all the music in our series. Kathryn Hayward is the executive producer.The Mission from MaRS initiative was created to help scale carbon reducing innovations by working to remove the barriers to adopting new technology. Mission from MaRS thanks its founding partners, HSBC, Trottier Family Foundation, RBC Tech for Nature and Thistledown Foundation. It has also received generous support from Peter Gilgan Foundation, BDC, EDC and Mitsubishi Corporation Americas. Learn more about the program at missionfrommars.ca. Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com.