About

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About

The New Brunswick Community College's Mobile First Technology Initiative (MFTi) provides applied research and development services to private and public sector entities in New Brunswick.

MFTi is supported primarily by an National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) – Industrial Research Chair for Colleges grant; and financial and in-kind support from industrial partners IGT, T4G, TVC, Mariner, Accreon, and Stellar Learning Strategies.

MFTi has received additional support through grants from New Brunswick Innovation Foundation (NBIF), National Research Council of Canada – Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC–IRAP), PETL, Springboard, UNB, Knowledge Park, and TechImpact.

Commercializable innovations that MFTi has completed include

  • An audio adaptor method method to improve the accessibility of text-to-speech apps on mobile phone calls (US PATENT APP. NO. 14/953170 GRANTED MAR. 2017);
  • A custom hardware & software system that enables BMM Test Labs to increase efficiencies in testing of electronic gaming machines;
  • The NBCC Wellbeing App for Android, BlackBerry, & iOS that provides emergency contact information for and authoritative information about mental health and mindfulness;
  • An Apple TV app for the Abigail Massey At McAdam Station book series by New Brunswick author Mark Walma.

Broader impacts

Broader impacts include development of highly qualified personnel (HQP) through faculty secondments, student research assistantships, and knowledge transfer into the classroom.

Mandates

MFTi is mandated to develop and manage the following functions in support of New Brunswick companies and organizations, and NBCC students, faculty, and staff:

  • Conducting applied research and experimental development,
  • Fostering early-stage innovation,
  • Enhancing teaching and learning in mobile information and communication technologies,
  • Performing knowledge transfer, and
  • Developing resources to sustain MFTi.

Vision

Approach

Services

History

The Chair

William McIver, Jr., PhD (Bill) is the NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Mobile First Technology at the New Brunswick Community College (NBCC). He conducts applied research in the practical application of mobile information and communication technologies to a wide range of industrial and social use cases. He also manages the NBCC Mobile Ideaspace, a physical and virtual laboratory spanning the NBCC's six campuses and designed to leverage NBCC’s competencies, tools, and infrastructure in support of early-stage innovation across the province. Bill has performed research in academic, federal, and industrial contexts. He has patented and licensed technologies. He is a former Senior Research Officer in the Institute for Information Technologies of the National Research Council (NRC) in Fredericton. He led research projects in NRC that designed and implemented Web-based video prototypes for remote health care use cases and a production system for automated vehicle location and next stop announcement for public transit. The latter project received the 2010 KIRA Award in the category Technology Advancement / Private with Redball Internet. His current research interests include interconnected user experience between mobile and television-based app frameworks, captology, and design thinking.

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