INSPIRE

It's that time of year again! Whether you're an industry ally or an undergraduate still discovering your passions, join us this October to chat, snack and network.

Hi everyone! We are excited to announce that Shyla Burns and Remee Brown, have started a podcast, “Inspire-d at UVic”, hosted by INSPIRE: Stem for Social Impact. Shyla and Remee were previous INSPIRE AG members in Fall 2023, and are excited to stay engaged with the INSPIRE program and connect with more people at UVic. They have released 5 episodes on Spotify, and are lining up exciting guests for the rest of the season. The most recent episode, featuring the UVic Innovation Center, discusses entrepreneurship opportunities at UVic. You can listen to episodes on topics like life as a student-athlete, learning strategies for success, and discussions about entrepreneurship opportunities at UVic here: https://lnkd.in/gNEbUv32 If you have anything you want to hear them discuss or any guests you want them to bring on, let us know in the comments below! #InspiredatUVic #podcast #innovation #inspiring

FireForce team here! We had a fantastic time presenting our projects at the INSPIRE Industry Success Networking Event on Monday. It was an incredible learning experience, as we were able to practice our presentation and public speaking skills in front of an engaged audience. We are grateful for that unique opportunity to connect, learn, and collaborate with fellow students and panelists.🔥 #Innovation #NetworkingEvent (Photo Left to Right): SHUYI YU, Annette Constabel RPF, Shyla Burns, Ucheoma Okoma, Puwentao Yan, and Nigel Burrows

It's been amazing working on this project with such talented teammates. I'm so excited for our final results.

The women of INSPIRE had a fantastic opportunity to speak at a networking event, the Women in Engineering Summit, at UVIC’s University Club. This was our first time speaking at a professional event unrelated to our university studies and although it was intimidating at first, we felt reassured by the supportive audience. This experience boosted our confidence in speaking at future events like this one! It meant a lot to be able to share how INSPIRE has personally impacted all of us from the very start. The resources available for developing our soft and hard skills have taught us to think outside the box and how to be team players in small diverse teams. It was also our pleasure to have the chance to show other students what co-op opportunities are out there. It was rewarding to see the audience engage with our projects and inquire further about them after our pitches. We take pride in our projects and the dedicated effort we've invested in them throughout this semester. We hope we were able to inspire the other women in the room to continue in this field and hopefully join INSPIRE in the next round of projects. Pictured left to right: Ucheoma Okoma Shyla Burns Remee Brown Valeriya Savchenko

FireForce Team here!! Here is a photo of us playing around with some versions of YOLO for our proposed solution. We are considering using YOLO v8 because of its improved accuracy and speed. Our next step is to continue researching how to train specific fire and smoke models. We would love to hear your thoughts and any questions you may have in the comments below :) (Left to Right): Ucheoma Okoma, SHUYI YU, Shyla Burns, Puwentao Yan

We are excited to introduce another INSPIRE project happening this year, IndigenUS. In an effort to encourage UVIC students, staff, and faculty to learn more about the local Indigenous communities on whose land UVIC stands, this four-month project aims to develop an application that incorporates Indigenous ways of learning. The team, Team Honey, will work with Indigenous community partners to codesign the application and to truly understand what the community partners would like everyone else to learn about their cultures, values, and the land. The team, Isla Stiven - 3rd year Biomedical Engineering Jon Edwards - 3rd year Computer Science Kanwarpreet Toor - 4th year Computer Science Valeriya Savchenko - 5th year Software Engineering To follow the project's progress, check out the site https://lnkd.in/g9nxEckk

Check out what the RainWise group has been working on over the past two weeks in their biweekly blog post! https://lnkd.in/g5cs5rRe

We are happy to announce one of this year's INSPIRE projects, FireForce. FireForce is a four-month-long development and design-thinking project that aims to enhance wildfire and security management in Victoria's Capital Region District (CRD). The FireForce team will work directly with field and tech experts to innovate existing software and develop new tools to optimize the CRD’s current fire detection practices. Introducing the FireForce Team! - Shyla Burns, 3rd year Software Engineering Student - Puwentao Yan, 4th year Computer Science and Statistics Student  - Ucheoma Okoma, 1st year Computer Science Student - SHUYI YU, 4th year Computer Engineering Student - Ahmed Momoh, project ambassador If you are interested in following our project, you can check out the INSPIRE website where we will be posting biweekly project reflections. The posts can be found at the bottom of the main FireForce page: https://lnkd.in/gsdBVB4u 

FireForce Team here!! Here is a photo of us playing around with some versions of YOLO for our proposed solution. We are considering using YOLO v8 because of its improved accuracy and speed. Our next step is to continue researching how to train specific fire and smoke models. We would love to hear your thoughts and any questions you may have in the comments below :) (Left to Right): Ucheoma Okoma, SHUYI YU, Shyla Burns, Puwentao Yan