Tech Radar blog

Industry Hackathon helps solve “digital divide” while supporting professional development

On June 4, 2021, participants from across Alberta presented unique solutions and tactics to the issue of rural internet access gaps following the month-long Bridging the Connectivity Challenge Hackathon. This event, which was spearheaded by Cybera and ISAIC, brought together more than 100 registrants to address the following objectives: Use available data to assess the […]

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Closing the gap: a look back at the Alberta Rural Connectivity Forum

On March 23-24, Cybera hosted the Alberta Rural Connectivity Forum, a two-day virtual event that brought together community leaders and policymakers to discuss the state of connectivity in Alberta. Divided into two days— Community Broadband Updates on day 1 and Regulatory & Technical Solutions on day 2 — the event outlined the infrastructure and funding

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Bi-Fi: Networking with Nature

April Fools! However, the lack of accessible internet is no laughing matter. Cybera would never think of strapping a wifi hotspot to an animal, but we are always thinking about how to improve access to connectivity. As Alberta’s not-for-profit organization responsible for driving economic growth through the use of digital technology, we strive to keep

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Cybera has joined the NLNOG RING: a global tool for network testing (and debugging)

Last fall, Cybera joined the NLNOG RING, a global community of network operators that enables fast network debugging. The RING platform essentially provides a trusted network of virtual machines, allowing individual operators to quickly run tests and analyses to pinpoint routing issues. Cybera is one of only a handful of Canadian network operators that have

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How federal decisions on wholesale rates impacts internet prices for all Canadians

On August 15, 2020, the federal government issued a controversial statement regarding an ongoing disagreement between incumbent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and wholesale internet providers over the wholesale rates set by the CRTC. In its statement, the government seemingly supported an argument advanced by Canada’s big three telecoms providers. They claimed that current regulations requiring

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University of Alberta sees many upsides after switching to IPv6

In 2018, the University of Alberta switched its wifi to IPv6 (internet protocol version 6). Raymond Richmond, Team Lead for IST at the University, talks about his experience with becoming IPv6-enabled, and the benefits that have come with making the change. (One of the biggest benefits right now is being able to offer a more

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Edmonton Public Library becomes first public institution in Alberta to offer eduroam

This summer, the Edmonton Public Library (EPL) became the first non-post-secondary education institution in Alberta to offer eduroam, a world-wide roaming internet access service. This means any staff or students from an eduroam-connected institution — such as NAIT, the University of Alberta, MacEwan University, and Concordia University of Edmonton — who have eduroam set up

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The ties that bind Alberta’s tech administrators

Between May 2019 and February 2020, Cybera held a series of half-day round table sessions in Red Deer, Lethbridge, Grande Prairie, Edmonton and Calgary. Our goal was to review the digital resources currently being used by Alberta’s public and education sectors to create efficiencies and improve computational literacy. We also wanted to identify existing gaps.

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Creating a federation of global computers for science and research

Cybera’s Rapid Access Cloud is a small contributor to a global chain of compute nodes, brought together by the Open Science Grid to support science projects. A computer cluster is when several “tightly connected” computers are made to work on a project together, essentially creating a single system. These clusters are a great means of

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Free webinar will look at IT asset management and cost optimization

Geared to Canadian CIOs and IT heads, this event will review ways to audit (and rationalize) your organization's IT assets. With every passing year, it becomes more challenging to assess and optimize current IT assets. Leaders are facing increasing demands for technology-delivered capabilities, and less organizational tolerance for an IT asset that is not being used (or

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Alberta group models CO2 injection system off the coast of Canada

The dangers of a warming Earth caused by climate change are well documented. Scientists around the world agree: if we are to maintain the health (and even survival) of millions of plants and animal species around the world, we need to cap our carbon emissions now. While reducing overall carbon emissions is the ultimate goal

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Alberta-led project seeks to detect powerful neutrinos off the coast of BC

“They’re messengers of the most interesting things that happen in the Universe.” This is how Dr. Carsten B. Krauss, Director of the Centre for Particle Physics at the University of Alberta, describes high-energy neutrinos. “Neutrinos come from the explosions of stars, and possibly from other sources, like the environment around black holes,” says Krauss. “What’s

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Improving access to clean water around the world through machine learning

In 2018, Cybera’s Data Science for Albertans team partnered with local startup Synauta on a two-week pilot. At the time, founder Dr. Mike Dixon shared an office space with Cybera, and we learned about his new company over conversations in the shared kitchen. We jointly realized there was an opportunity to trial the use of

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New white paper addresses the connectivity crisis in Alberta

The current COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating the connectivity issues faced by rural Albertans. There is an opportunity for the provincial government, and large internet service providers (ISPs), to work together to fix this problem, now. Our policy team has developed a white paper highlighting the current need in the province, and proposing actionable next steps

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Open source “password sniffer” fights back against online phishing

The Canadian Security Information and Event Management initiative, which launched in 2019, has brought together security analysts from across the National Research and Education Network (NREN) to share information and best practices, and collaborate on new cybersecurity tools. One of the more interesting tools they recently implemented was from an idea that came out of

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Alberta cloud resource supports local charity that diverts edible food from the landfill

The Leftovers Foundation is one of Western Canada’s largest food rescue charities. Based in Calgary and Edmonton, the organization works with local restaurants, bakeries and grocers to redirect edible food that is headed to the landfill towards those who need it most. This rescued food helps service agencies such as the Calgary Drop-In Centre, Calgary

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