Canadian government-backed innovation accelerator DIGITAL has committed C$6.7 million of funding to technology firms, Koonkie and Novamera.
Ontario-based Novamera has secured $3.8 million for a $10.9 million project aimed at developing and applying mineralisation imaging, modelling and robotic extraction tools at a copper deposit in Ontario’s Kirkland Lake district. Micon International and Cam copper project owner Northstar Gold Corp are also tipping in funding.
Ten-year-old Vancouver bioinformatics firm Koonkie has $8.9 million of consortium backing for a multi-lens ecological restoration monitoring and forecasting project. The group includes Miraterra Technologies, Regeneration Rehabilitation Services and Genome British Columbia.
“This project provides the Canadian mining sector with a first-of-its-kind, AI-powered platform for real-time ecological restoration and biodiversity monitoring,” Koonkie said.
“By integrating environmental DNA analytics, soil health data and remote sensing with indigenous ecological knowledge, it addresses the urgent need for science-based insights to track and manage mine closure.”
Project partners expect Koonkie’s platform to shorten restoration timelines by five-to-10 years, helping reduce long-term environmental liabilities. Precision interventions guided by the platform are also projected to reduce restoration costs by up to 40% compared to legacy methods.
DIGITAL has put $2.89 million into the Koonkie project.
It is one of five Canadian federal Global Innovation Clusters (GICs) – not-for-profits set up to accelerate development and commercialisation of Canadian digital technologies.
“North America has no shortage of critical minerals,” Novamera CEO Jim Hollis said.
“We have a shortage of ways to bring them into production quickly and responsibly.
“[Novamera] Surgical Mining was built to solve that gap. With DIGITAL’s support we’re accelerating a solution that can unlock domestic copper and rare earth supply faster, with lower capital and a far smaller environmental footprint.”
