SASKATCHEWAN POLYTECHNIC
Better health outcomes through data-focused partnerships at Saskatchewan Polytechnic

A growing number of organizations collect information about every aspect of their operation with the intent to convert it into a value-added business advantage. They often arrive at the question, "What do we do with all this data?"

That's where Saskatchewan Polytechnic's Digital Integration Centre of Excellence (DICE) comes into the picture.

"Just as DNA informs the various processes, structures and responses in all of nature from the small to the very large, in a business system, data has become the entity that informs the various processes, structures and responses that enable organizations to survive and thrive," says Terry Peckham, director and research chair at DICE, Saskatchewan's first Technology Access Centre.

DICE researchers perform applied research across a range of business sectors. Common to them all is their use of sensors or computers - a tie that binds nearly every aspect of modern life, he says.

"Today, devices create, manipulate, analyze, store, transmit or display data. By extension, data is at the core of what DICE does," says Dr. Peckham. "We collaborate with clients to develop solutions for data integration, integrity, storage, transmission and analysis."

DICE's clients include existing companies looking to adopt new technologies such as the Internet of Things, which generates lots of data that needs to be stored, or new companies as they plan their technology stack, he says. "The importance of data as a corporate resource and the purposeful storage of that resource is now at the forefront of most clients' requirements."

Read the original article published in the Innovation excellence special feature in the May 31 Globe and Mail, produced by Randall Anthony Communication.