Edmonton, Alberta (January 22, 2021) - Advancing the state-of-the-art in Edmonton, RUNWITHIT SyntheticsInc. (RWI) and the University of Alberta's (U of A) high performance computing and resources via ISAIC
(Industry Sandbox and AI Computing), have joined forces to explore massive scale Single Synthetic
Environments without compute restriction in the areas of human movement and behaviour, energy
transition, and cyber outages.
RWI has a long running relationship with the U of A. 72% of RWI's team are U of A graduates. Through
RWI's support of U of A work experience and internship programs, RWI continues to benefit from a pool
of international, diverse talent. Other RWI U of A collaborations include capstone project opportunities
for both Computer Science 401 and MBA students in Strategic Management and Organization 641. RWI
is also working on some ground-breaking research into COVID-19 and Grid Resilience, recently awarded
one of the few National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) COVID-19
Alliance projects outside of Health, with Dr. Hao Liang, the Canada Research Chair in Intelligent Energy
Systems.
Continuing this relationship, RWI is beginning to work with ISAIC. ISAIC provides high performance
computing and resources and was originally funded by Western Economic Diversification and is housed at the University of Alberta's Faculty of Engineering providing small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs),
like RWI, with affordable, tailorable and scalable infrastructure and high-performance computing
resources.
œISAIC's team takes away the worry by keeping up to speed with the fast evolution of computing
infrastructure, says Myrna Bittner, CEO and Co-founder of RWI, œour IT team and management can focus on what is core to RWI's business with confidence our data is secure, stays local and IP remains ours.
ISAIC's mission is to accelerate adoption and commercialization of AI technology in Western Canada
through infrastructure and applied knowledge. Entrepreneurs and innovators have access to a dedicated,
open, secure cloud computing environment that can quickly scale based on the needs of local
businesses.
œISAIC was founded by a group of entrepreneurs to ensure local start-ups had access to affordable,
scalable high-performance computing whenever they needed, explains Crys Vanier, Executive Director,
œour clients, future-enabling companies like RWI, are guiding ISAIC's drive to be a local sandbox environment where companies can access diverse datasets and bring together various domain and
application experts, researchers and students to solve real problems at a scale that is often out of reach.
RWI's journey with supercomputers began several decades ago when RWI was given access to Cray Y-
MP EL, a computer from Seymour Cray that, at the time, was gaining more widespread availability.
These technologies allowed for the exploration and formulation of the many innovations that RWI has
brought to market. Having this technology as a business resource in Western Canada shows
commitment to the next generation of infrastructure and U of A's investment and contribution to the
technology ecosystem.
When discussing the opportunity to use ISAIC's high performance infrastructure, Dean Bittner, Co-Founder
and CVO, said, œwe are excited to be rediscovering this tradition by beginning to explore our latest
generation of technology, i2, on virtual machines at ISAIC, right here in our founding city, Edmonton,
Alberta. This collaboration will allow RWI to refine our technologies coming to market in the near and far
future.
ABOUT RUNWITHIT SYNTHETICS (RWI)
RUNWITHIT Synthetics (RWI) is a women-led, Certified Aboriginal Business accelerating the new
requirements of complex, multivariate decision support. In Single Synthetic Environments, RWI brings
people, technology, infrastructure and the environment to life, in-silico, to de-risk and optimize energy
transition, mobility solutions, resilience investments, sustainable technology, and disaster response.
These hyper-localized interconnected modelling environments address disruptive changes that require a
new approach for designing and deploying various combinations of solutions to meet specific locational
needs and objectives.
ABOUT INDUSTRY SANDBOX AND AI COMPUTING (ISAIC)
ISAIC (Industry Sandbox and AI Computing) provides local high-performance computing that is
affordable, tailorable, and scalable. As a data sandbox, ISAIC offers SMEs, large enterprises, and
academics pursuing applied AI/ML projects to experiment and collaborate seamlessly in a secure virtual
environment. Through strategic partnerships, ISAIC connects applied knowledge and resources to help
local entrepreneurs and businesses accelerate their AI projects in Western Canada.
RUNWITHIT SYNTHETIC Inc. MEDIA CONTACT:
Myrna Bittner CEO Founder
1 780 999 3755
myrna@runwithitsynthetics.com
www.runwithitsynthetics.com
ISAIC's MEDIA CONTACT:
Crys Vanier Executive Director, ISAIC
crys.vanier@ualberta.ca
www.isaic.ai
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