SASKATOON — Saskatchewan Polytechnic's Digital Integration Centre of Excellence (DICE) and BetterCart Technologies Inc., a leading grocery-tech company widely known as BetterCart Analytics, have secured funding for a groundbreaking applied research project.
This multi-year artificial intelligence project is funded for $675,000. Funding sources include BetterCart Analytics and grants from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Mitacs.
In collaboration with the DICE team, including two student interns funded by Mitacs, BetterCart Analytics is exploring alternative AI techniques to enhance their processes, systems and operations. This three-year partnership will encompass requirement analysis, design, implementation and prototype testing conducted by DICE. The partnership will also focus on developing data visualizations for customers, improving the flexibility of data parsing technologies and expanding the capabilities of machine learning models.
"We are thrilled to collaborate with Sask Polytech's DICE to unlock the full potential of our grocery-tech solutions," says Dr. Melanie Morrison, BetterCart Analytics founder and CEO. "This applied research partnership will not only enhance our current operations but also provide us with an accelerated competitive advantage in the market. Working with Sask Polytech has many benefits, including access to their digital expertise, equipment and the ability to leverage grant support from NSERC and Mitacs."
A key objective of the project is to enable BetterCart Analytics’ software to differentiate between regularly priced items and sale-priced items using machine learning. This functionality, if successfully implemented, will empower businesses to predict when a product will go on sale, how a product’s pricing may be expected to change several months in advance, and the moves retailers may make with that product futuristically. Another focus of the project is to help improve price differentiation functionality.
The applied research project is expected to yield significant benefits for both BetterCart Analytics and DICE. BetterCart Analytics will gain valuable insights into the grocery retail domain and access to the Mitacs intern training program, potentially leading to employment opportunities for Sask Polytech students after graduation. DICE stands to learn from BetterCart Analytics’ AI expertise and gain a deeper understanding of the grocery retail industry.
A remarkable aspect of the BetterCart Analytics project is that the team, comprised of BetterCart and Sask Polytech staff and students, is 50 per cent women. Typically, women represent only 20 per cent of the technology workforce. For Sask Polytech the women on the team include two student interns, a technician and two project managers.
“We are excited to have a strong female team for the BetterCart Analytics project and are ready to share our expertise to support their growth and success," says Dr. Terry Peckham, director and research chair at DICE. "This collaboration will not only enhance our research capabilities but also provide our students with valuable industry experience working with artificial intelligence and machine learning."
DICE aims to help BetterCart Analytics revolutionize the grocery retail industry and drive profitability for their business. “With the integration of additional cutting-edge AI technology and machine learning, our clients will have better pricing data and competitive intelligence at their fingertips, simplifying the decision-making process and increasing their market share,” says Morrison.
BetterCart Analytics utilizes advanced price analytics and deep behavioural insights to provide value for independent grocery retailers, consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers and food and beverage processors. By leveraging their vast reservoir of pricing data across multiple vendors using machine learning and AI, BetterCart Analytics empowers businesses to make real-time data-driven decisions. The goal is to help food industry companies make data-driven decisions to achieve peak performance and profitability and help consumers’ dollars go even further. BetterCart Analytics is determined to take their product to the next level by working with DICE to better harness the power of AI and machine learning.
Organizations partnering with DICE gain access to exceptional computational facilities, faculty expertise, student researchers, research and development funding and a vast network of connections. DICE, funded by NSERC and Innovation Saskatchewan, is Saskatchewan's first Technology Access Centre (TAC) and specializes in applied research related to data manipulation, analysis, storage, transmission, and display.
Learn more at saskpolytech.ca/dice.
— Submitted by Sask Polytech Media Relations
