DHDP Year in Review 2025

January/February/March—Acceleration

The Digital Health & Discovery Platform accelerated into 2025 under the expert guidance of a renewed Executive Committee and AI Working Group. With a new technology strategy and roadmap from Solutions Architect, Ethan Hoang, development adopted an agile approach, implementing Jira and Confluence for project management.

Team:  New partners, DT Consulting, along with Human Health Factors and Mindsea, joined technical partners, integrate ai, CanDIG and Myant (bitnobi) moving the Platform to a cloud-based format. Keeping ahead of data sharing best practices, the Platform will build around a Flower ai framework for federated learning, with OMOP for data standardization.

Tech: Platform functionality was demonstrated to the Terry Fox Research Institute (TFRI) Board, showing how to search for biomarkers important for successful immune-oncology therapy.

Programs: In preparation for launch, Program Manager, Ashley Girgis worked with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) and TFRI to build and refine the RFA for the Digital Health Innovation Fund (DHIF, Innovation Fund), ensuring that all materials were available in both official languages. Outreach to potential applicants and sectors helped build a strong digital community that could help amplify the launch at the end of March.

Outreach: Working with the TFRI communications team, DHDP prepared a joint press release with ISED. The DHIF announcement published towards the end of March, brought forward to accommodate the expected announcement for a federal election. A week later, the Innovation Fund launched with a Request for Applications (RFA). The social media announcement went viral.

April/May/June—Picking up speed 

The DHDP team grew in size this quarter, bringing Charles Crosbie onboard as Product Owner, and Amanda Maxwell as Communications Specialist. Doubling the size of the internal team helped push toward goals for tech and program development—bringing users on board and building a sandbox for them to explore.

Tech: Working with external contractors, Human Health Factors and Mindsea, Platform development gained detailed user profiles to guide tech implementation. Interviews with researchers, data scientists and providers helped build personas for the eventual users of the technology; these detailed use cases help determine probable pathways to discover, prepare and analyse data. Built by users, for users, the Platform sandbox became closer in reality, with two streams in development.

The scrum and agile development approach gathered steam, with DT Consulting demonstrating framework solution, Flower ai to the DHDP Executive Committee as one of the development streams. Approval was gained for the Flower framework and Broadsea 3.0 implementation for OHDSI applications and OMOP data standardization. Work continued with the three technical partners, CanDIG,  integrate ai and Myant/bitnobi on integrating their solutions as one platform.

Programs: Support for DHIF RFA applicants was provided in both official languages, with DHDP Executive Committee member, François Bergeron, Vice-President, Partnerships at MEDTEQ+ hosting the French informational webinar alongside DHDP’s Ethan Hoang. The webinars drew more than 200 registrations and stimulated a lively Q&A session, with recordings made available on the website that have been viewed more than 400 times.

Outreach: Following the viral DHIF launch announcements, the targeted mail list grew to 497, with continued growth from a Subscribe button on the website and digital outreach campaigns to drive readership. Sharing with existing and new communications partners, DHDP communications created a media kit and started an e-newsletter, Bulletin to drive and amplify awareness of the Innovation Fund.

July/August/September—Full (s)team ahead

Gearing up for Platform product release and user sandbox testing, DHDP added 2.5 FTE (full time equivalents) to the internal team. Welcome to Alejandro Tapia, as Program Coordinator, and Pankhuri Gupta, who came on board from her contractor role to be DHDP scrum master. Farnoosh Abbas Aghababazadeh, a senior research fellow with DHDP member, University Health Network, joined part time from her contractor role to oversee UI/UX.

Programs: The deadline for Expressions of Interest and enrolment in matchmaking came in mid-July, with 100+ respondents joining the process. DHDP supporting partner, MEDTEQ+, which is a Montreal-based organization focused on accelerating healthcare innovation through industry-led projects, collaborated on matchmaking assistance. Drawing from the company’s experience with envisAGE — a SIF-funded pan-Canadian collaboration on innovation and age technology — the DHDP and MEDTEQ teams delivered 80+ meetings with applicants to clarify and support their Letters of Intent (LOI) submission. The MEDTEQ+ team provided 42 organizations with support, and seven SMEs received in-depth advisory on innovation.

Alongside program development, DHDP worked with TFRI on go live for LOI submission in mid-September using a new online tracking system, TerryFoxTrack (TFT). In addition to uploading all application requirements, the programs team also created user guides in English and French alongside running an informational webinar for more than 80 LOI applicants.

Outreach: Communications network expansion and digital campaigns increased mail list subscribers to 645, with media kit and campaign amplification from a number of DHDP supporters. TFRI HR also launched the search for a new DHDP National Director, which DHDP communications supported with social media and media kit outreach to supplement agency recruitment activity.

Tech: Flower launched as a framework solution for federated learning on the Platform, ensuring privacy-by-design and security for patient healthcare data. Its eventual release as v1.0f into sandbox user testing was followed closely by v1.0c, the core product integrating tech partner solutions as a single platform. Built by users, for users, applicants to the DHIF RFA were given priority access to sandbox, and their user feedback continues to inform Platform development. 

October/November/December—Where we stand

Programs: DHIF RFA project teams have been invited to full application via TFT, and their application packages are currently under the selection process by a committee comprising research and industry technical experts. These project teams represent 89+ partners across Canada and bring approximately 39 million+ data points onto the Platform. Machine learning and AI tool validation is proposed for a variety of data, including -omics, image and wearables, across disciplines including oncology, neurology and cardiology.

Technology: Development continues for both Platform streams, with Core prioritised as the first v1.1 release to DHIF projects in January. Scrum metrics show that activity has nearly doubled compared to August, with completed items growing 3.5 times. Delivery has accelerated, reflecting the growth in our development team. With both Flower and Core v1.0 versions available, Sandbox user testing has been active; the rolling seven-day metrics show steady engagement with an average 27 logins per day and 10 unique users. Active nodes include Portal, Bitnobi, CanDIG, Jupyter and integrate ai.

Future facing

2026 brings new users to the Platform. The successful DHIF projects will be the first community to use the Digital Health & Discovery Platform for data exploration, preparation and analysis, and we look forward to their feedback. Built by users, for users.

Digital community growth now stands at 2,727 followers on LinkedIn, 76 on Bluesky, and a targeted mail list at close to 700 subscribers. Our growing outreach network continues to support us, with thanks to supporters in life sciences and health care innovation across Canada for their help in amplifying our updates and calls.

We’re also looking at an expanded team to manage Platform technology and support new users, with a current call out for a Scrum Master and QA Specialist. We’re welcoming a Cloud Engineer and a Data Product Owner to supplement the tech team, and look forward to introducing our new National Director, who will lead efforts to connect fully with the healthcare data ecosystem in Canada.

Join us in 2026! Membership is open and you too can be part of accelerating innovation to advance precision medicine across Canada and boosting our knowledge economy.

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