Thanks everybody who came out for the great big Halloween photo today! Happy Halloween!

Haider Presenting on Machine Learning

Launching the New Media Manitoba (NMM) Lunch & Learn series this year, our Applied Computer Education (ACE) department chair, Haider Al-Saidi, delivered a compelling presentation on Machine Learning Techniques.

The slide deck is now available to view via SpeakerDeck.com: Read More →

We are excited to announce that Manitoba’s first BTM Talent Mash will take place on Saturday, October 28 at Red River College’s Roblin Centre in Winnipeg’s Exchange District. Talent Mash events are held at post-secondary institutions across Canada which offer Business Technology Management (BTM) programs.

This event will give students, industry representatives, and RRC staff the opportunity to talk about the BTM program and how graduates can help to bridge the gap between the business and technology functions of an organization. Speakers representing various industries will discuss the roles, skills, and career paths of business analysts and other related professionals in their organizations.

BTM is a new diploma program at Red River College and our first students will graduate in December. The program includes a co-op or industry project term so that students can apply the skills they have learned.

The BTM Talent Mash includes a keynote speaker, panel discussions, and a networking event:

9:30    Registration and breakfast
10:00  Welcome and Opening Remarks (Kirk Johnson, Jan Hall, David Jones)
10:15  Keynote Address – Loren Cisyk (IBM)
11:15  Business Analyst Alumni Panel
12:00  Lunch
1:00  Industry Panel
1:45 – 3:30  Networking session
2:30 and 3:30  Tours of the ACE Space at 321 McDermot Avenue

The Talent Mash is free of charge for BTM students and industry guests. If you register as an industry representative, we will contact you about options to showcase your organization during our afternoon networking sessions. Sponsorship opportunities are also available.

To register, please follow this link.

Partners Terry Davison and Angelo Palleta started the company in November 2016 after a year of planning and license negotiations with the MLCC. Angelo owns the Holiday Inn Express on Ellice Avenue, in Winnipeg, and Terry owns Global Office Software. Currently, Hops has five locations and is growing rapidly. As being first to market was critical, the technology for Hops Pizza was developed quickly. The trade-off was that with many areas of their application required improvement.

The students added a Google Geo-Location system that works with order placement. Upon placing an order, the website can dynamically select the kitchen closest to the customer’s location, instead of the user manually selecting their area in the city. They also added functionality to allow users to buy and use gift cards, using Stripe payment integration. Sign in and sign up functionality was added, so customers do not have to enter their information for every transaction.

Technologies used: WordPress, PHP, Javascript, Google, Stripe

For entrepreneurs, time schedules and full time jobs become major hurdles. Fear of loss discourages small startups.

GigOrDo will helps to connect employers and contractors for small to medium sized jobs. This eliminates the hassle of finding help for small day-to-day jobs that don’t require full time employees.

GigOrDo is a simple and secure web application that handles the process of looking for work and connecting employers and contractors. Designed with a Mobile First attitude, the application is easy and effective at job searching. Features include: real-time messaging; secure online payments; and a rating-review system.

Gigs can be applied for or bid on if the price being offered is not satisfactory. A built-in messaging system facilitates communication between users to discuss details of a job.

Technologies used: Digital Ocean, Stripe, mailgun

Over recent months, two of our students have continued work on the web application project for the Manitoba Association of Food Banks. Each student worked on a respective project, as follows.

One of the student projects was an investigative analysis of options for small scale computers that could be used at participating food bank locations.

While the other student worked on fixing and cleaning up the web application, making it launch ready.

This web application is presently in use at the Selkirk Food Bank and anticipated for use at more rural food banks in the future.

For the first phase of this project, please read more at this link: Manitoba Association of Food Banks

CanU is a local organization that organizes camps and workshops for students from grades 5 to 10. They had a need for an attendance application and automation of some tasks.

The project sponsors wanted staff to be able to assign students to teams and buses. Along with this, they wanted better organization and reporting features, where users can query who is on what team and what bus at all times.

The students created a complete and customized salesforce experience for CanU to use. It is anticipated that this will reduce downtime and increase accuracy of attendance tracking.

Technologies used: SalesForce, Zapier, Google

A project for Sustainable Development, of the Province of Manitoba, Indigenous Place Names maps to geographical locations. The work going into the Indigenous Place Names database is very much groundwork focused with an ultimate goal for the province to interface with elders in recording place names.

On the outset of this project, the client’s database and application existed as a FoxPro application. As a legacy application, it was incapable of supporting new features and frequently presented unexpected errors when using it.

Developing largely in Visual Studio 2015 supported by a SQL Server 2014 database, the students wrote an improved application to replace it’s legacy predecessor. The students created new user interface, migrated the old database to SQL Server, and restructured tables. Additionally, working with technologies accepted by the province, the students worked with ESRI to develop a new map with precise coordinates. Unexpected errors are now fixed and handled and new features can be implemented.

Technologies used: ESRI, Visual Studio, Microsoft SQL Server

Relnos is a platform with the motive of informing students about the different events happening on or near campus. By helping students to keep track of upcoming events, this helps the campus to become a more fun and engaging place.

The team was made of a mix of Business Information Technology and Business Technology Management students. On this project, were tasked with creating a tool that can act as a singular communication channel to receive information on upcoming student events. Additionally, it helps to bridge the gaps in collaboration between student clubs and different engagement points. This helps student users to not miss out on great opportunities.

Event hosts can: create events for students and analyze events. Student users can: rsvp to events, submit payment for events, receive reminders about events of interest, and receive news about all events on and near campus.

Midway through the project term, the student sponsors of Relnos presented their ideas and progress at the North Forge Ramp Up Weekend 10, in June 2017.

The concept behind Tooliaba is to provide a platform for individuals to rent tools that they own to other individuals who are looking for tools to rent. For many individuals, when they need a tool, it isn’t always worth the investment to purchase a tool they will only use for a short while. While individuals who own tools may not use them most of the time. This service would connect these different users together.

On Tooliaba, users could rent their own tools to others and earn extra income, or they could rent somebody else’s tools. As this is a peer to peer model, renting tools this way can be convenient based off of location and price. For peace of mind for the customer and renter, insurance is built into the site as well.

Over the project term, the students developed a minimum viable product that demonstrates proof of concept.

Technologies used: PHP, Javascript, JQuery, Bootstrap, Auth0, Git, CodeIgniter, Digital Ocean, SQL.