Buildings keep popping up

By Sonia Sharma

Engineers will have even more space to breathe once the Calgary Centre for Innovative Technology is built by the University of Calgary.

The research centre will provide professors and students from various faculties including engineering, medicine and kinesiology an opportunity to conduct research in the fields of bioengineering, information technologies, the environment, manufacturing and navigational systems.

"We are confident that the CCIT will be a key asset to the U of C
and to the excellent researchers and graduate students associated with this state-of-the-art facility," said LorneTaylor, Alberta Minister of
Innovation and Science.

The CCIT will be a world-class engineering research and education centre. This latest endeavour received $35 million in provincial and private sector funding. The largest single investment, $14 million, came from the Alberta Intellectual Infrastructure Partnership Program.

The CCIT was conceptualized as a response to provincial and federal requests for proposals for major research infrastructure.

"We held a national workshop with participation from some US
researchers also, and they also validated the approach," said Dean of Engineering Dr. Chan Wirasinghe. Researchers from many other faculties at U of C are involved with CCIT research."

Construction for the three-storey centre will begin this spring. The building will be located west of the Faculty of Engineering block. Laboratories and student team workplaces will be built and the faculty plans to house the centre with $17 million worth of research equipment.

The centre will accommodate an additional 150 graduate students and support a large number of undergraduate research projects.

"Engineering is a technically-based faculty and big, expensive equipment goes hand-in-hand with the big infrastructure," said Students’ Union Vice-president Academic Mark Hoekstra. Good students and high-quality faculty are obviously attracted to a place where there is money/funding and technology."