The Ontario government is supporting air-monitoring technology. The provincial government is providing CEM Specialties Inc. (CEMSI) with $2 million through the Ontario Together Fund to help commercialize and accelerate production of its airborne COVID-19 detector Kontrol BioCloud (BioCloud).
The innovative technology monitors in real-time the air in places where people gather, such as schools, offices, long-term care homes, hospitals, public transit, and manufacturing facilities.
The company anticipates that accelerating the production of the BioCloud will create up to 250 direct jobs and up to 750 indirect jobs.
“It’s the creativity and ingenuity of enterprising companies like CEMSI, with its innovative COVID-19 detection technology, that will help Ontario and the rest of the world successfully emerge from this pandemic, while creating hundreds of good jobs for our province’s skilled workers,” said Vic Fedeli, Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation, and Trade.
A release explains that Kontrol BioCloud (BioCloud), developed by CEMSI, is a made-in-Ontario real-time COVID-19 detection device that continuously monitors the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the air.
The air-monitoring technology promotes air circulation, monitors air quality and samples continuously for pathogens like viruses, bacteria, and fungi. When the virus is detected, BioCloud provides an alert in the cloud or over a local intranet.
CEMSI has received all approvals required to commercialize and produce the air-monitoring technology. With Ontario’s support, CEMSI will increase production capacity to 20,000 units per month, with manufacturing in London and more than 85 per cent of its components produced in the province.
“We want to thank the Ontario government for their support for commercializing and accelerating production of BioCloud,” says Paul Ghezzi, CEO of Kontrol Technologies Corp. “Our CEMSI team has been focused on developing a solution to create safer spaces through the real-time monitoring of SARS-CoV-2. BioCloud seeks to provide an early detection mechanism with a silent alerting system.
“Just as smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors are now part of building safety, we have created BioCloud as an innovative viral detection technology to help get the economy and daily life back closer to normal. BioCloud is a complement and support to the province’s vaccination rollout, rapid testing and contact tracing and can be located in schools, offices, places of worship, long-term care homes, hospitals and much more. We are proud to be a made-in Ontario technology and we are very pleased to be hiring and creating new jobs.”
