The Pulse: Feb. 17, 2022

The Edmonton International Airport (EIA) is building its business in a way that positions it at the heart of supporting and developing innovation in the region, says the woman in charge of making those big ideas happen.

"We're really a small city. We have real estate, commercial developments, waterways, (and) we create our own energy. We also have our big aviation and cargo sectors, the core purpose of our airport," Tara Mulrooney, vice-president of technology and innovation, told Taproot Edmonton's innovation podcast, Bloom.

"That gives us this really great testbed where we can try things that any larger city or smart city could do, but in a smaller context."

The level of innovation that EIA is tackling, with projects ranging from drone wildlife management to autonomous-vehicle airport security, is possible because it's a highly regulated environment. Mulrooney said that is crucial because if something can work in the airport, it can work anywhere.

One of the priorities for the airport is sustainability, and looking at how to make the airport itself and its terminal carbon-neutral. The airport has its own natural gas cogeneration facility, which Mulrooney said has helped reduce the terminals' electrical footprint by 50%.

It's also in the midst of building a solar farm in Airport City, which will reduce carbon emissions further.

When it comes to determining where to invest and focus first, Mulrooney said it comes down to how best to grow economic prosperity in the region. In addition to the sustainability pillar, the airport also looks at manufacturing, agriculture, and technology.

"We've been in talks with an organization where they create a 5G or 4G Plus ... simulation lab. And could we get that into our Airport City, which then would allow others to leverage that capability to expand their products and their services," Mulrooney explained.

And in manufacturing, it's looking at how the airport could use its free-trade zone to encourage businesses to bring in more raw materials and do light manufacturing. There are also opportunities to help agriculture companies connect with cargo providers and manufacturers to get products to the international market.

"It's a lot about us being that ... fulcrum to help connect different parts of the region, different municipalities, different businesses together," she said.

• John McDougall, chair of the Edmonton Police Commission, said in an op-ed that the most important duty of the police is "to ensure the public is safe and secure" and said he is confident Chief Dale McFee will "make decisions that ultimately serve to keep Edmontonians safe."
• In a virtual media availability held via YouTube, McFee defended the Edmonton Police Service's handling of the trucker convoy protests and implored community leaders to "turn down the temperature." The chief said EPS is focused on limiting tensions between protestors, residents, and counter-protestors. "Ticketing is great and we realize people have to be held accountable for the noise, but that's not our number one priority," he said.
• Const. Elena Golysheva is on leave while the EPS professional standards branch conducts an investigation into a video she made of herself in uniform supporting the trucker convoy.
• Edmonton police officers are the highest paid in Alberta at $50.89 per hour for officers five years into their careers, reports The Progress Report. This is higher than other major Canadian cities like Montreal ($47.99 per hour), Ottawa ($49.81 per hour), and Vancouver ($45.50 per hour).
• Edmonton Public Schools will spend $6 million to install HEPA filters in classrooms in an attempt to keep COVID-19 numbers down. "HEPA filters will go a long way in terms of increasing our ability to take what we keep calling our 'layered approach' to mitigating the spread of COVID and keeping our classrooms and our kids and our staff as safe as possible," EPSB chair Trisha Estabrooks told Global News.
• Recent changes to provincial tax rules mean at least 64 affordable housing providers in Edmonton would need to pay property taxes as of 2023. A council-directed exemption or grant program to cover the municipal part of the tax burden could cost $5 million annually. Coun. Anne Stevenson plans to bring forward a motion next week to offer an exemption program.
• University of Alberta student Emilia Housch spent 60 hours working on a quilt that visually demonstrates climate change in Edmonton to get her certificate in sustainability. "I wanted to do something cool," Housch told CBC News.
• Edmonton's Bobbi-Jo Green is raising awareness for undiagnosed cardiovascular issues among women. In Alberta, between 2010 and 2020, 300 women were discharged from hospital, but ended up returning after having heart attacks less than a month later.
• Flu vaccination rates are low in Alberta this year, but case counts haven't picked up. So far AHS has detected only 41 cases, while just under 1.2 million doses of the vaccine have been administered.
• The Alberta legislative committee examining safe supply — providing pharmaceutical opioids, heroin, crystal methamphetamine, cocaine, or other substances to people who are addicted to or dependent on these substances — is seeking written submissions, reports Postmedia. Submissions can be made online until March 4. The committee is mandated to produce a report by April 30.

In Episode 4 of Bloom, hosts Emily Rendell-Watson and Faaiza Ramji talk about which Edmonton companies made it onto the top 20 list for Startup TNT's upcoming Cleantech Investment Summit.

Diesel Tech Industries, Element 4 Technologies, GrainFrac, Hydrodine Catalytics, Nanode Battery Technologies, Quantum Silicon Inc., Roshan Water Solutions, and Ruth will compete for a spot in the top five on Feb. 17.

Rendell-Watson and Ramji also cover an introduction to Plug and Play at the University of Alberta, and a strategy from the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) to draw artificial intelligence professionals to the city for AI Week, in hopes that they'll see Alberta as a potential permanent home.

"In the past, maybe the problem has been providing too many business incentives for a company and maybe once those expire, people leave," Ramji said.

"So if this strategy is focused on the people within those companies or within post-secondaries ... maybe that's something they feel will be more effective and easier to actually make those connections and have people stick around for longer."

An interview with the Edmonton International Airport's vice-president of technology and innovation, Tara Mulrooney, rounds out this episode with a look at how and why the airport has become a hub for innovation in the region.

Bloom is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and everywhere else you get your podcasts.