Are you wondering how standards have been helpful for others? Are you looking for real-life examples of how standards have been leveraged to solve complex challenges, improve efficiency, or drive innovation? Explore our case studies to see how Canadian organizations are harnessing the power of standardization to achieve their AI and data objectives. Whether you’re new to AI and data or looking to deepen your understanding, these stories will offer valuable insights and inspiration. Dive in to discover the transformative impact of standardization in action!
The WCCD, is a not-for-profit organization, headquartered in Toronto. It is the global leader in standardized city data – creating smart, sustainable, resilient, and prosperous cities around the world. WCCD hosts a network of 100 cities across 39 countries building the highest caliber globally comparable and independently verified city data.
Standardization is at the core of the work that WCCD does. In 2014, the organization implemented the first international standard on city data: ISO 37120. This demand-led standard defines and establishes definitions and methods for a suite of fully numeric Key Performance Indicators to steer and measure the performance of city services and quality of life. Most recently, WCCD has led the development of two new standards that are now being implemented in cities worldwide – ISO 37122 (Indicators for Smart Cities) & ISO 37123 (Indicators for Resilient Cities).
Before the development of these standards, cities worldwide struggled to build solid data sets because there were no clear definitions of what was being measured or the methodologies used to compile these measurements. As a result, cities could not speak to each other – or learn from each other.
With relatively little experience in navigating the world of standards development, Standards Council of Canada (SCC)'s advice and guidance were invaluable to WCCD. Our support has also helped to solidify WCCD's global reputation as the "go-to" organization to help cities embrace standardized city data to build smarter, more prosperous, resilient, and sustainable future for residents of cities in Canada and worldwide.
Delvinia is a Toronto-based company that offers a suite of technology platforms that organizations use to collect consumer data to enable them to make quicker, better and more cost-effective business decisions. Delvinia's long-term goal is to lead the way in the automation and virtualization of the entire market research process through data collection technologies and artificial intelligence.
With the increasing importance of faster decision making and "big data" in modern economies, all types of industries are turning to data collection companies like Delvinia to provide accurate, relevant, reliable, and current market information. But to gain a competitive advantage globally, Delvinia needed to be able to demonstrate an understanding of the threats to data privacy and protection, and country-or state-specific compliance requirements.
SCC provided the company with the strategic advice and support it needed to obtain ISO 27001 certification. ISO 27001 is an international standard used around the world to manage the security of information. Certification to ISO 27001 has allowed Delvinia to prove to its customers that information security is a top priority. It is also enabling Delvinia to compete in the global marketplace because it can now demonstrate to clients around the world that it is following best practices in data security and to easily meet procurement requirements when responding to RFPs. In the process, it has helped positioned Canada as an innovator and global leader in the transformation of market research.
Moov AI is a data valorization and artificial intelligence consulting firm that trains clients, helps them find the best opportunities to apply AI and develops useful solutions that generate concrete results. Some of the use cases it focuses on are demand forecasting, commodity price forecasting, predictive maintenance, natural language processing and operationalization of machine learning solutions.
Although Canada is a leader in AI research, it falls behind other countries in terms of its business adoption of the technology. Moov AI is trying to bridge this gap by developing a tool that measures the usefulness and quality of AI systems. The tool, called Snitch AI, provides quality assurance for machine learning by allowing organizations to validate the usefulness of their AI systems. It also offers AI system validation services. Ultimately, Moov AI's goal is to democratize the use of AI by making it more accessible and valuable to a broader group.
SCC worked with Moov AI to help them develop a technical specification at ISO/IEC SC 42. The company led the development of a document called Guidance for quality evaluation of AI systems. It provides a list of concrete guidelines that align with Snitch AI and with ML model validation framework. Having these specifications will enable companies who are interested in making use of AI to have confidence in it because they will have concrete guidelines for implementing AI in their organization.
MappedIn is an innovative company based in Waterloo, Ontario, with a mission to make the indoors discoverable – whether a mall, hospital, retail store, campus, warehouse, or airport.
It developed an indoor geographical information system (GIS) to allow property owners and managers to maintain accurate maps of indoor spaces by delivering a dataset of what's indoors, providing a better digital experience for their visitors. MappedIn's main customers are major real estate investment trusts from around the globe, but the platform can be used for other spaces as well, such as commercial office space at healthcare locations.
However, there was inconsistency between mapping tools and digital maps offered by service providers and property owner maps. This lack of consistency and interoperability was creating inefficiencies across the industry. SCC provided the company with the support it needed to lead an international industry consortium of major mall facility owners and digital device providers that developed an international standard for the indoor mapping industry to address this issue.
ISARA is a cybersecurity company based in Waterloo, ON, with offices in California and the UK. Its goal is to create a world where the possibilities and benefits offered by quantum computing can be tapped into – without giving up digital trust and privacy. ISARA specializes in creating quantum-safe cryptography solutions that can be embedded into commercial products to secure and protect data.
To give the world confidence that their quantum-safe cryptography solutions would stand up to scrutiny, ISARA turned to the SCC. With SCC's support, ISARA joined efforts to influence the development of a suite of global quantum-safe cryptographic standards that will be used around the world to protect personal information, banking transactions, online shopping, government communications, and health records, among other types of sensitive information.
ISARA is positioned to be a global leader in the quantum-safe cybersecurity industry. Its work will help establish Canada's leadership in this growing field as the quantum revolution approaches.