The ConnectIN project was a two-year pilot project evaluating the internet connectivity in First Nations communities in BC, Alberta and Manitoba. Led by three First Nations’ regional technology organizations, and facilitated by Cybera, the goal of this project was to better assess gaps in infrastructure and services. ConnectIN wrapped up in February 2020. In this post, we […]
Cybera and its partners in Canada’s National Research and Education Network (NREN) are working to ensure that our infrastructure continues to support the needs of Canadian research and education communities as the COVID-19 situation rapidly evolves. Our network teams are on alert and sharing information as they monitor network operations across the country. We are
COVID-19 update: Network and cloud resources available to Albertans Read More »
Alberta’s ShareIT public procurement program has now added a variety of telephony equipment, licensing, and services to its catalogue of offerings. The “unified communications” (UC) services will make it easier for education institutions to administer secure phone and videoconferencing tools across their entire organizations. This is expected to further ease costs and reduce workloads for
Alberta’s public shared procurement program adds communications hardware and services Read More »
This morning, over 100 Grades 7-12 students are learning in-demand digital literacy skills – including data analysis and coding – at the Southwest Alberta Hackathon, hosted by Cybera, the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS), and Palliser Regional Schools. Working out of the Picture Butte High School gym, students will use open data from
To combat rising cybersecurity threats to education and research organizations, Alberta’s 26 post-secondary institutions (PSIs) are teaming up to collectively share information and strategies to enhance the security and privacy of their digital assets. Facilitated by Cybera, this first-of-its-kind collaboration will not only save time and money for individual organizations looking to tackle these issues,
Alberta post-secondaries come together to fight cybersecurity threats Read More »
Friday the 13th marks an appropriate day for Cybera to announce the 13th major price decrease for the Internet Buying Group since its launch in 2012. As of January 1, 2020, the price of bandwidth for Group members will go down from $1.50 per Mbps to $1.35 per Mbps, a 10% drop. The Internet Buying
People have been intrigued by the majesty of the Aurora Borealis for thousands of years. Far from just a beautiful atmospheric phenomenon, auroras help us model and predict space weather, understand the earth’s magnetosphere, and experiment with plasma physics. Through decades of aurora research, we have uncovered a treasure trove of scientific information about the
Understanding our planet through aurora: An NREN case study by Cybera Read More »
Last week, Cybera submitted a response to the Competition Bureau’s call for comments on anti-competitive conduct in the digital economy. In its discussion document, the Competition Bureau called attention to the increasing market concentration of certain core digital markets, including digital platforms such as Facebook and Google. The Bureau noted the role that big data
Last week, Canada’s largest telecommunications providers, including Bell, Rogers and Telus, petitioned the federal government to reverse the CRTC’s August 2019 decision to lower wholesale rates. These rates are what the large telecommunication firms charge to resellers to provide internet services. In its August 2019 decision, the CRTC stated that; “The Commission considers that the
Cybera’s response to telco petition to increase wholesale internet rates Read More »
In January 2019, Edmonton-based entrepreneur Mike Zouhri was injured in a car accident, requiring him to navigate Alberta’s complex legal system. Like the other 17,000 automobile injury claims that happen in Alberta every year, he had a complex legal claim he needed help to resolve. In order to do that, Zouhri realized he would need
Since it launched in 2017, ShareIT has saved Alberta’s education sector nearly $9.5 million. Alberta educators have come to rely on cloud-based tools to deliver classroom learning content, as well as to manage their back-end operations. To meet this growing need for cloud services, Alberta’s ShareIT public procurement program has added Amazon Web Services (AWS)
A free interactive learning platform that brings computational thinking, coding, and data science skills into classrooms is rolling out across the country, thanks to new funding from the national CanCode program. Callysto is a curriculum-based learning and skills development platform for students in Grades 5-12 that is accessible from any device with an internet connection. The tool
Callysto’s nation-wide classroom rollout is underway Read More »
In early September, Cybera submitted its response to a consultation by Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) Canada on the modernization of Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). (This followed our August submission to an Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) consultation on transfers for processing.) Comments were requested on a number
There have been many interesting news stories popping up recently about artificial intelligence (AI) being trained to identify human emotions. Like so much else to do with humans, reading emotions is a nuanced, complicated endeavour, particularly for machines. But the benefits of having technology that can do this are immense — far beyond just creating
Student login management is one of those little-talked-about but painfully frustrating tasks for school administrators. Each year, across Alberta, thousands of student accounts are created or updated to allow them to login to their Adobe or Google (or dozens of other) online tools, which have become foundational for modern education. But as well as creating
Easing schools’ student login headaches with Cybera’s Pika service Read More »
As Cybera prepares to launch its next 3-year Strategic Plan, we are planning a series of collaborative discussions with our community. Our next stops will be Lethbridge and Grande Prairie. These free, half-day sessions will review the digital resources available to Alberta’s public and education sectors to create efficiencies and improve computational literacy. They will also identify
Cybera roadshow coming to Lethbridge and Grande Prairie Read More »