Established in 2018, RTEI is a participatory research program intended to co-develop solutions to infrastructure-related challenges faced by Indigenous communities across Canada. Working directly with the elders and residents of Georgina Island, Sioux Lookout and Cat Lake First Nations, we have been exploring pathways for participatory engineering research for some of the most pressing problems in those communities.
By engaging in projects which blend traditional knowledge and western engineering research precepts, RTEI seeks to facilitate long-term partnerships between engineering researchers and communities on focus areas including food security, clean water, housing, energy and transportation.
Our ongoing projects include:
Healthy Housing Exploring a human centered design process involved in co-participatory research on Indigenous housing, comparing and contrasting moisture and ventilation in conventional build vs. natural alternatives and technical design considerations for appropriate housing for northern climate/conditions
Logistics Optimization of transportation routes for food and emergency services in Northern Ontario, through techniques in artificial intelligence, operations research, and machine learning
Exploring the feasibility of waste-to-energy plants in remote, indigenous communities as a path toward energy sovereignty
