Next Generation 3D Visualization Cloud Platform for Terris

Research Area: Information Technology   | Status:  Complete | Led By: Student-led

The Challenge

Emergency responders, disaster managers, defense and security mission planners are tasked with making time-critical decisions to deploy resources and keep their teams safe during crisis events. Renewable energy developers, mine operators, and property risk and damage assessors all need to make decisions based on the ground and what is on it. In all these situations, seeing the ground they operate in, or near, with high accuracy and on demand is critical. Providing them the next era of intelligence from space, the air, and underwater, plus advanced visualization, collaboration, and analytics, will allow for quicker, more accurate decisions, which can save lives, money, and time.

Terris is a technology company with a vision to “deliver earth intelligence to help make healthier decisions about developing our planet and improving the safety of people.” Terris is creating an Earth Intelligence SaaS platform to help solve major challenges that many industries are facing, including the renewable energy sector and emergency response sector. The Terris SaaS platform will source and curate data of interest in various formats, create multi-layered detailed visualization, and analyze the data to provide detailed and highly accurate information to aid clients in making important decisions. Terris is a Certified B Corp, is committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and participates in the 1% for the Planet initiative. Emergency responders, disaster managers, defense and security mission planners are tasked with making time-critical decisions to deploy resources and keep their teams safe during crisis events. Renewable energy developers, mine operators, and property risk and damage assessors all need to make decisions based on the ground and what is on it. In all these situations, seeing the ground they operate in, or near, with high accuracy and on demand is critical. Providing them the next era of intelligence from space, the air, and underwater, plus advanced visualization, collaboration, and analytics, will allow for quicker, more accurate decisions, which can save lives, money, and time. Terris is a technology company with a vision to “deliver earth intelligence to help make healthier decisions about developing our planet and improving the safety of people.” Terris is creating an Earth Intelligence SaaS platform to help solve major challenges that many industries are facing, including the renewable energy sector and emergency response sector. The Terris SaaS platform will source and curate data of interest in various formats, create multi-layered detailed visualization, and analyze the data to provide detailed and highly accurate information to aid clients in making important decisions. Terris is a Certified B Corp, is committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and participates in the 1% for the Planet initiative.

The Solution

To support its initiatives, Terris sought to collaborate with NBCC. NBCC instructor subject matter experts co-supervised NBCC student interns who supported programming and business analysis projects at Terris. NBCC IT: Programmer Analyst student Priscilla Phuong Nguyen brought the latest programming skills to the Terris team. She worked alongside Terris software engineers to define and develop the SaaS, cloud-based 3D visualization platform. NBCC IT: Business Analyst student Maksym Kobysh worked with the Terris management and business development team to create materials supporting the launch of a customer support portal, including manuals, FAQ, and other supporting documentation critical to customer success.

About the Collaboration

Working with NBCC allowed Terris to access a workforce ready skillset that compliments their existing team and helps diversify the training and experience of team members in the region by drawing from various post-secondary sources.

The internships provided NBCC students the opportunity to work on a project that supports a local employer while building skills, including critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and results orientation. The opportunity allowed students to simultaneously hone their skills for the local labour market, gain exposure to concepts relevant to applied research and business innovation, and build their professional network.

These internships are part of an initiative called Project FLEX (FLexible educational EXperiences). Project FLEX gives NBCC students internship opportunities that are flexible and paid. FLEX internships provide at least half of the funding needed to compensate the students through the Mitacs Business Strategy Internship program while the company provides the remaining portion. This arrangement ensures the best talents in the province are accessible to budding businesses.

Project Partners/Funders