The college and The Ottawa Hospital signed a partnership last fall to collaborate in areas such as health research, innovation and training.

According to a press release, on Nov. 21, 2016, “the college signed a memorandum of understanding with the hospital’s research institute to encourage and facilitate the development of mutually beneficial linkages in areas such as digital health, clinical trials and biotherapeutics manufacturing.”

President Cheryl Jensen, during a classroom visit with journalism students Jan. 12, said, “It’s a great opportunity to provide students with real-life problems to solve.” “We hear across the province and the country that we need more students to have work-integrated learning experience.”

“it’s pretty cool for the college profile to be working with a world-class research institute,” Jensen said.

An example of this collaboration can be found in a recent initiative by Dr. Kumanan Wilson, senior scientist at The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. He was recently working with graphic designers and digital media students at the college on a project that consists of creating a space-themed video comic book to explain how vaccination works for elementary school students.

“The enthusiasm and the quality of their job is hard to be matched by anyone,” said Dr. Wilson in an interview with the Times. “The work that students have done was outstanding; we were all blown away when we saw the video.” It is scheduled to be presented on Jan. 24 at Broadview Public School.

Both institutions are currently working on a new version of the CanImmunize app, which is a free, bilingual digital platform that helps Canadians keep their immunization information at their fingertips, according to information provided on the app’s website.

It’s also expected that the college and the research institute will start to work on an app designed to assist women at mass events called The Night Light App.

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