'By and for the North.' $1.5M Arctic Inspiration Prize awarded to 3 projects

A safehouse for Nunavik families, a computer science curriculum in Nunavut and a Nunatsiavutsea ice social enterprise will share the 2016 Arctic Inspiration Prize, which was awarded Thursday night at a ceremony in Winnipeg'sCentennial Concert Hall.

The three winners were chosen from amongeight finalistsand will split the $1.5-million award.

"This is by and for the North," says Kyla Kakfwi-Scott, chair of this year'sselection committee. The prize supports multidisciplinary northern teamsworking towarda better Canadian Arctic.

• The 2016 Arctic Inspiration Award short list

Kakfwi-Scott saysthe proposals excelled for "the diversity of the team, the people who are going to be involved in the execution of the project and how are they collaborating in unusual ways to achieve something that has otherwise not been possible."

This is by and for the North.- KylaKakfwi-Scott

This year's prize totaled $1.5 million, the largest sum of $700,000 going to Qarmaapik House in Kangiqsualujjuaq, Quebec. Qarmaapik provides social and cultural resources to helpfamiliesrediscover and build their own care providing capacity, as well as a "safe house"to allow children taken out of the home to remain in the community.

• 'Heartbreaking' number of Inuit children in care spurs village to build 'family house'

The teams behind the projects te(a)ch and SmartICE,the night's other winners, wereawarded $400,000 each.

The Nunavut-basedte(a)chhas developed an online curriculum in programming, game design, engineering and computer science subjects not currently taught inNunavut schools from beginner to advanced levels.

SmartICE, from Nunatsiavut, is working on a system that monitors and disseminates near real-time information on sea ice levels. The system integrates in-situ sensors and satellite imaging with traditional and land-based Inuit knowledge.

• Pilot project making winter travel safer for people in Pond Inlet, Nunavut

"We're going to be able to expand out of pilot communities into communities across the arctic," says SmartICE team lead professor Trevor Bell when asked how the prize will impact their work. The team hopes to expand eveninternationallyto Alaska, Greenland orRussia, "wherever the service is needed."

Not only will the reach of the project expand with this new funding, but also the delivery methods. "Everything from an app on a smartphone for those communities that have cell phone access, to putting it on flat screen TVs in locations around the community, to just printing off the map and having people sit around with a cup of coffee and talking about what they see," says Bell. "The community is centre to it. It's a service by them for them. [They tell] us how it operates in the community and how that information is shared."

Since the award's launch in 2012, eleven teams have received prizes totalling $4.5 million for projects designed to address the causes, not the symptoms, of challenges facing northern communities. The projects address issuesin the areas of education, human health, socio-cultural issues, the environment and the economy.

Kakfwi-Scott says that as the prize has established itself, the selection committee has seen many exceptional ideas proposed.The opportunityprovides "almost the freedom to come up with crazy ideas," she says."Something that maybe was a smaller idea that an organization was going to do,they're able to think 'what would the million dollar version of this be?'"