hello everybody I hope everybody had a great weekend I know it's Tuesday already so that's uh usually not the proper uh Greetings oh uh good morning everybody my name is Arthur Kong I'm one of the directors of project development here at ngen Canada short for Next Generation manufacturing Canada thank you so much for joining us today for our uh funding webinar uh appropriately titled propelling critical minerals and materials in Canada's EV supply chain and uh we're here to talk tell you more about our newest funding program so our electric vehicle manufacturing value chain program or evmp for short so in your journey as you uh explore opportunities to invest and grow your critical uh minerals and materials companies uh here in Canada please consider engine and our evmp program as one of the many tools in the toolbox that you can take advantage of so we're more than happy to help answer any questions at the end of the presentation so uh just I want to do a sound check everyone can hear me properly perfect okay wonderful um so to Growing vertically integrated and robust Canadian critical minerals and materials sector we need to take like a coordinated and collaborative approach across all of our partners and and sectors so today I want to to acknowledge some of these key players in the Canadian critical minerals materials and EV sector who are working tirelessly to ensure that we take this Collective approach and they are also our partners for today's webinar so the Canadian critical minerals and materials Alliance or C2 m2a for short the battery Metals Association of Canada bmac for short and the accelerate zdv Consortium so first off I'd like to invite Marilyn from c2m2a to tell us a little bit of something about c2m2a so Marilyn um thanks so much uh Arthur it's pleasure being part of this and I think it is key to partner with everybody uh the Canadian critical minerals and materials Alliance are c2m2a for short is really our goal I don't know if you want to move to the next slide but they are really our goal is to Champion Canada's efforts to become a global clean technology manufacturing Hub and we do this by advocating uh to build the domestic production and processing of all the materials that are required to make these intermediate and whanau projects you know products leveraging Canada's critical mineral wealth and our intellectual know-how and that's really uh Ian is the executive director and there's our website and and I think we all move on and these are some of our members we have a few members there that are not listed that just recently joined us but we tied the silos together like this horizontally across the industry thank you perfect thank you Marilyn next we have Sean DeVries also the executive director for the battery Metals Association of Canada Sean all right thanks Arthur it's a pleasure to be here so a little bit of background on bmac we're a non-profit industry Association we represent the entire battery value chain in Canada so we go right from Mining and extraction through the processing production and ultimately uh recycling of batteries at their end of life so we currently have 37 members and collaborating organizations that we work with and our focus is really on helping to build out the battery value chain that's by connecting resourcing and engaging the different organizations from the different segments of the value chain so we have two key pieces of foundational work that we've done that help in these efforts or support these efforts and the first is our roadmap report and this takes a look at what Canada is going to require to meet at zero emission vehicle sales mandates which would be equal to 1.3 million vehicles and 100 gigawatt hours of battery capacity by 2030. so this report quantifies the amount of materials required how many minds or projects that represents and then all the way through the processing production and recycling capacity required to support those developments uh the other resource that we have is our interactive battery ecosystem map so this is just a simplified outline of the framework that you see here on the screen but if you go online you can see a very detailed uh map outline of the organizations across the different segments uh some background on those organizations included their scope of operations and we're regularly updating this map so I encourage you to go there and take a look at it we'll have not only new organizations that we add to it but also additional data points and we're looking at adding some additional data views as well so again those are available online and the last thing I would say and Arthur you can flick the last slide thank you that's our Our member list there we are holding a but the charged battery conference this fall on October 24th in Calgary so uh if you are interested in that come come out uh take a look and you can meet some of our members you can see what's happening in the industry we're gonna have a lot of the industry leaders there talking about some of the challenges the opportunities I ahead and so you can go to our LinkedIn page if you're interested find out more information and register there so thank you Arthur thank you Sean um next last but not least we have Matthew Fortier from accelerates zdb over to umat thanks uh so much Arthur uh it really is a pleasure to be part of this conversation and to be with some true Partners uh I'll talk a little bit about the Partnerships that we have with bmac and c2n2a uh in a second uh but also the partnership we have with engine on particularly on the interactive map that we launched at the beginning of the summer that looks at the the full supply chain from from minerals through to manufacturing of vehicles and everything in between battery materials and battery technologies and parts Etc uh is available on our website it's been great to work with uh with engine on that and some other projects so I'll just talk a little bit about what accelerate is uh and the work that we do so we're uh an alliance that came together uh just over 18 months ago uh and it's you know the private sector it's government it's labor it's researchers uh it's strain associations uh and really anybody who wants to roll in the same direction in that direction is how do we make Canada's uh zero Mission vehicle industry strong competitive and an important part of Canada's economy in the future so ours is kind of the the organization that's got that mandate to sort of organize and align the supply chain and uh you know through our our direct members and uh collaborators we sort of represent and touch about 500 different uh stakeholders across the country and that's including uh governments and Indigenous interests as well uh and we're not the profit organization that works with foundations and and corporate Partners you just go to the next slide please so um as I said you know we've got a bunch of different collaborators the way that we approach our work is to kind of try to bring people into uh the same tent it's not a tent that we own it's a tent that we're part of uh but trying to collaborate and organize and and align some of the initiatives that are across the country so you know the work that the oems are doing to manufacture vehicles and turn their uh production schedules around uh to meet uh growing demand uh working with government on regulation and policy issues and working with uh with um you know mining companies battery companies to figure out what they need to succeed in this Brave New World uh next slide please so I I mentioned some of the work that we're doing with bmac and c2m2a this is a task force that came together about a year ago uh it also involves a mining Association of Canada and the Prospectors and developers uh Association as well as enter can at the federal level and uh the First Nations major project Coalition and this is an effort to bring together uh industry voices and other voices to figure out what good looks like for the country when it comes to critical minerals for this supply chain so uh you know we have a critical mineral strategy in this country that was launched at the end of last year uh how are we going to catalyze activity within that framework so that's the work that we're doing together to try to figure out what actions need to be uh you know accomplished now what are the metrics for Success so we're on that route to fulfill the opportunity that we clearly have we've done the 31 critical minerals and we've got you know six priority minerals that are identified we have the potential but we need to catalyze action so so I would just leave it there I think there is actually one more slide I just as we think about the value chain you know the next the next step along the way uh is kind of batteries and so how do we you know uh leverage the opportunity that we have in minerals and transform that into sort of higher value-added materials through battery materials and Battery manufacturing so we've got a battery task force that's already produced uh some terrific work uh you know and working with the federal government to Think Through what success looks like for Canada when it comes to battery materials production and Battery manufacturing I'll leave it there thanks very much thank you so much Matt um yeah so you know you everyone's heard of the saying it takes a village to raise children well it also takes a village to have to kind of Foster and build this vertically integrated electric vehicle value chain and fall away from the mine to the vehicle so yeah so again thank you so much to all of our partners we have included their websites and contact information here for any follow-up discussions again I think all of our our partners here will be happy to take any questions at the end of the presentation as well if any so yeah yeah so let's get started on on our funding program the engine funding program that we have today so uh to give you a little bit of a little bit of a background on who we are so at engine we are an industry-led organization that's been tasked by the federal government to uh Implement Canada's Advanced manufacturing Global Innovation cluster or formerly known as super cluster for those of you who are familiar with government lingo and um and and as implied in our in our name engine has a mandate to to enhance and build our country's Advanced manufacturing capabilities and we do so by supporting the scale up and commercialization of Advanced Technologies across the many manufacturing verticals that we have here in Canada whether that be mining materials or or Automotive or Aerospace or food or biomanufacturing you name it we work in that space and we do so through uh five different functions first of all we help promote Canadian capabilities here at home and abroad so I'd like to flag that uh Canada will be the partner country for Hanover Messe 2025. so for those of you who are not familiar Hanover Messe is the world's largest Advanced manufacturing trade show in Hanover Germany uh so we will be uh reaching out to uh the Canadian kind of uh manufacturing ecosystem for those interested in in taking part as part of the Canadian delegation uh in the Years coming up so please sign up for our newsletter if you uh want to stay tuned for that opportunity uh we also help build connections so uh our our job is to help catalyze Partnerships and collaborations to make sure that that uh you know we come together to build Innovation that may not have otherwise occurred uh as part of engine we also have Workforce Development and management capacity building programs and I'll talk more about that later on in the presentation we also have industry-led advisory councils or groups that that help develop tools and resources uh uh to help SME manufacturers adopt Advanced Technologies and last but not least where my team comes in is that that middle icon is we provide collaborative and r d funding for advanced manufacturing projects in 2021 ngen launched our first electric vehicle menu uh electric vehicle manufacturing related program we received over 180 million dollars worth of applications across 80 industry Partners we ended up funding 76 million dollars worth of projects so that represents over 34 industry Partners across 15 projects seven of those projects uh were inter-provincial uh inter-provincial collaboration so that that's fantastic that we get different companies that are from different provinces working to together to create our a really exciting projects overall at engine we've cumulatively funded over 140 million dollars while worth of of projects uh from across 100 industry partners and across the evaluation all the way from the processing of critical minerals that we're here to talk about today all the way to battery and vehicle Manufacturing Spectrum um yeah so so as you can see uh uh you know we're really excited to launch our our program this year in 2023 but you know a lot has changed you know since uh in in Canada's automotive industry since our last 2021 funding program we've seen it billions of dollars of anchor Investments being made across Canada you know from the recently uh announced Ford SK Eco Pro VM battery plant in big cup called Quebec to uh the Volkswagen Powerco battery plant in St Thomas to you know Atlantis LG Energy Solutions battery plant in Windsor so you know that that floodgates have started opening here in Canada so we're really excited to see that um and we know that Canada has the the potential to be a leading provider of critical minerals materials here in Canada as you've heard from all of our partners earlier however you know bottlenecks exists in in Midstream operations to help transform these critical minerals into materials with high Purity levels that are suitable for for uh oops sorry it's uh suitable for for uh Houston battery grade products and other EV related technology so you know it's really our Collective responsibility to ensure that these emerging Eevee value chains in Canada are built with made in Canada minerals Innovation and technology so we need to make sure that the economic value and benefits are kept here in Canada every step along the way in the value chain Federal industry Minister Khan Suave champagne calls these Investments a generational opportunity and uh one of the biggest Transformations that we've seen in the industrial landscape in modern times so our objective at engine is to use our funding to complement and support these major anchor Investments that are coming here in Canada and help build out these emerging electric vehicle value chains uh with made in Canada Manufacturing Technologies and capabilities so this evmp program we're targeting transformative industry-led collaborative Advanced manufacturing projects across the EV value chain specifically the value changes of on-road battery electric vehicles and Fuel Cell electric vehicles and across the value chain all the way from processing and refining of critical minerals to the manufacturing of battery magnetic semiconductor and lightweighting materials and components as well um for those of you who are not familiar with ngen projects regardless of the program that we we uh we push out all projects need to meet five key pillars or criteria first and foremost all of our projects need to focus on processed Innovation so uh you're either developing an advanced manufacturing technology and or a transformative production processor like a new flow sheet for instance um so we want to contrast that with product development product innovation all engine projects also need to be transformative in nature so we're looking for projects that will help put Canada on the map and help us LeapFrog over other jurisdictions so we often so all of our projects we will ask uh uh companies to identify pieces of Novel and transformative intellectual property that will result and come out of the project all of our projects need to be collaborative in nature so all of our projects need to demonstrate meaningful collaboration without these two industry Partners one of which needs to be a small medium Enterprise Which is less than 500 employees globally and I'll go on more into that on a later slide all of our engine projects need to generate significant uh commercial benefit so we're not looking for early stage experimental projects but projects that have a short to medium path to commercialization and and cut the market and last but not least as with any government funding you will apply to all of our projects need to demonstrate a broader benefit to Canada's Advanced manufacturing ecosystem whether that be Workforce developments uh or other kind of environmental social and and uh governance or another Economic Development methods now let's take a look at eligible project types and eligible EV value chain areas as I had mentioned ngen focuses on process Innovation so we're looking at uh projects that focus on either the development of an advanced manufacturing technology and novel manufacturing process or circular economy processes and capabilities as this is an EV Focus program all projects need to be related or targeted at one of the following areas across the EV value chain so we're looking at uh the either the develop the the processing of critical minerals and materials the manufacturing of traction batteries and the related components and systems the manufacturing of fuel cells in the related systems and components Power Electronics uh electric machines including electric motors and uh and they're the gearbox as well as significant vehicle light weighting that has a uh direct uh uh direct relation to EV objectives and I want to note that the manufacturing scale up of hybrid powertrains are in skill but only for the electric and zero emission aspects of the architecture but I'm assuming the audience here today will be more focused on the processing of critical minerals and the manufacturing of traction battery so the Upstream uh end of the EV value chain okay um I won't list each of these out line by line but uh there will be certain projects that are considered out of scope so projects that Focus primarily on product development uh projects that don't contribute to an EV value stream uh projects that are related to the manufacturing of off-road vehicles and their components uh projects related to uh and as you know applied in as an EV program projects related to internal combustion engine based powertrains are out of scope as well as projects related to the manufacturing of EV charging infrastructure so we're looking at uh Canada's bread and butter which are on vehicle and Innovation and I want to note that at ngen we consider manual manufacturing as everything Downstream from extraction so uh so anything related to refining and processing onward is considered manufacturing so extraction and the physical work of digging raw or out of the ground is not considered thank you going to the next slide as I mentioned before all of our projects need to be collaborative in nature so applicants will need to apply as a project Consortium so a project consortia needs to include at least two unassociated industry partners and we Define a formal collaborative partner as somebody who contributes cash to the project contributes background IP to the project and you're going to work collaboratively to develop new foreground IP and hence you will also receive funding from engine so that's how we Define a formal collaborative partner we also need at least one small medium Enterprise to be part of the Consortium so less than 500 employees globally uh so in relation to that multinational corporations are certainly welcome to be part of the Consortium as long as there is one SME and the third bullet there this is something new that's been added on since our last EV manufacturing program there there must demonstrate a clear path to commercialization into our evalu chain so we're looking for the involvement and or support from either an industry-based Market poll company so someone Downstream from you like a potential customer or a Vehicle Manufacturer or a tier one business so the involvement or support would would ideally come in the form of a formal collaborative partnership so somebody would come on to the Consortium as a as a uh full-fledged partner or somebody providing an or entity that will be providing in-kind support if not a formal collaborative partnership nor in kind support then we would request a strong and credible letter of support to uh uh demonstrate an agreement to commercialize project outcomes um now let's get into the nitty-gritties of the program terms and requirements so who's eligible to apply for engine funding so we're looking for for-profit organizations or private sector entities that are registered here in Canada and with value-added presence in Canada as well uh non-profit organizations that facilitate r d whose funding is primarily received from the private sector uh non-federal Crown Corps whose funding is primarily from the commercial activities as well as indigenous organizations so at engine we work on a reimbursement model so we're looking for projects between one and a half and eight million dollars will reimburse up to 37 of eligible expenses so at engine we consider eligible as expenses everything from labor so any researchers or Engineers that are working on the project their hours that are dedicated to the project can be reimbursed as a as a can be considered an eligible expense subcontractors up to a specific percentage of total project value capital and Equipment up to a specific percentage Material supplies travel and other costs such as IP really costs um and to ensure that the the project remains collaborative in nature we're saying that any one partner cannot receive more than 70 percent of engine's funding so on that 37 that you get back from us or think that any one partner cannot receive more than 70 of that that's that's just to make sure that all partners are contributing to the project and are benefiting from the project as well uh and we're giving projects a fairly healthy timeline until the end of the 2027-28 fiscal year so March 31st 2028 to get all their claims and expenses in uh our program is also 100 stackable with other sources of government funding as well um now let's take a look at the application processing P dates two major gateways I've bolded here are I have bolded here so it's screening and full application so applicants have to submit their projects for screening by October 11 2023 5 PM Eastern I'll go more I'll go into detail what on What screening entails in a later slide once the project development team uh assesses the applications to ensure that their scope will pass you through screening and once we pass you through screening applicants will gain access to the full application which is due by November 15th at 5 PM Eastern so the full application is the bulk of the work so we recommend applicants to submit their projects for screening earlier rather than later and the application portal is open now to accept application so I'm going to go uh more about this in the later slide as well so once the full application is submitted it will then be passed on to an independent panel of experts Google grade and assess each uh each application um if your project is successful and recommended for funding they will then enter a Contracting stage where documents are brought up to a certain standard and quality and we're bigly binding documents will be developed and executed for example we have a collaboration agreement between the partners of the consortia oops as well as a uh as well as the master project agreement which is an agreement between engine sorry as well and once the Contracting period is complete projects will commence and start and can start improving expenses so that's a high level overview of what our application process looks like now let's go into our the requirements for screening so we're looking for by October 11 2023 we're looking for a high level description of your project contact information for all your partners so at least one lead contact and Finance contact per partner assigned engine application agreement so essentially an NDA by all of your partners I have high level Financial proposal so for each partner please identify the funding that you're looking for from engine the cat your cash contribution your in-kind contribution of any as well as any other confirmed sources of government funding if any and last but not least once you submit a project for screening that's when the engine Finance team will reach out to start a financial due diligence assessment which will uh assess each partner's ability to support their financial commitments to the project by evaluating various factors such as profitability liquidity and cash flow and I want to stress because uh you won't get access to the full application until you submit a project for screening please submit this screening application as early as possible to give sufficient time to complete the full application so what's involved in the full application so we're looking for 10 application questions approximately a thousand words each or seven thousand characters a project plan so a Gantt chart a risk register so a a full-on risk analysis such as like a technical risk commercial risks IP regulatory risks you name it an IP plan so essentially a best guess of the pieces of Ip that you'll be bringing into the project and the pieces of Ip that will come out of the project uh uh we are also looking for One Financial workbook per partner so Financial workbooks will lay out in detail your labor expenses your uh subcontractor expenses etc etc and also additional attachments such as letters of support that I had uh flagged earlier again this is where the bulk of the work and the application process we encourage you to submit a project for screening as soon as possible to give you sufficient time to complete this stage properly see that so that's an overview of our application process if you uh applicants are not in this journey alone so our project development team will be here to support if you need help finding collaborative Partners if you're unsure uh about your uh whether your project ideas and scope or not and if you have any other questions feel free to reach out to us at EV challenge.ca we're happy to hear to help answer any questions to help chat with you one-on-one to uh to make sure that you know your application is as successful as possible again you're not on this journey alone or our team is here to help and support and on a very much related note if you have a project idea and are looking for potential project Partners please feel free to log on to this website engine.ca evmp Dash collaboration Dash portal this will take you to a page where you can post your project ideas as well as browse other project uh partners and ideas that you can potentially join their their Consortium as well we do have upcoming events where you can take part and and again find potential project partners and learn more about our application process uh we on September 6th we have the B2B networking event we will be including that in our upcoming newsletter so feel free to stay tuned for and we'll also be posting uh the event on social media so feel free to to register we look forward to having you join us to network and find potential project partners and and and uh you know find other collaboration opportunities we also have two evmp project development workshops coming up on September 20th and October 17th the October 17th obviously will be targeted at projects who have submitted a project for screening right so um excuse me my nose is running a little bit the project development workshops will essentially provide you with advice on how to uh the best what what uh what an ideal uh uh application would look like and give you any tips and tricks on how to uh put together a great application we do have other funding programs coming up uh our team just closed the general Advanced manufacturing program uh in June uh live right now is our evmp program and later on in the year we will be launching our industrial decarbonization and circular manufacturing program this program is currently under consultation uh so feel free uh we so we don't know what the terms and requirements current of the program will look like so please stay tuned and we'll be sure to update you later on separate from our Project funding engine also has a Workforce Development arm of our organization namely our future what we call our future ready initiative it's helping our Canadian manufacturing footprint modernize and upskilled a Workforce and it's currently made up of two programs our first program is our transformation leadership program or TLP for short so the TLP program is a 12-week program which will help provide leadership teams of SME manufacturers with tools to self-assess their businesses and find areas where they can continue to mature and continually to glow grow globally so this program is grounded upon helping companies undergo a digital transformation toward industry 4.0 so the participating organization will only pay fifteen hundred dollars for the TLP program which would normally cost seven uh 7 500 for such a program on the market So based on those gaps that are identified in a TLP companies have an option to take part in our second initiative called our ampa program where companies can select employees for upskilling based on the gaps that you identified in the top and work with an engine training liaison to undergo assessments and create personalized upskilling plans so through the Nampa program companies will also get 80 reimbursement on upscaling for their selected employees up to a maximum reimbursement of 44 I'm sorry four thousand dollars those uh this also includes skills assessments and upskilling supports worth an additional three thousand dollars so this entire uh 15 uh thousand dollar package will cost an organization only twenty five hundred dollars to take part so feel free to to reach out if you want to learn more uh we want to stress that funding will be available on a first come first serve basis for 300 manufacturers across Canada so register for the Future Ready program to build your uh company's strategic transformation program and help develop the workforce you will need to succeed in the future so feel free to reach out to our colleagues uh in the other arm of our of our engine team at transformatengine.ca if you have any questions so to close off if you have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out please also visit our website for detailed guides resources and templates so thanks again to uh our partners at accelerate.av at the battery Metals Association of Canada and at c2m2a for uh joining us for our webinar today there's a uh a lot of uh exciting Investments happening in the critical mineral sector so we highly encourage you to uh uh to reach out to understand the different resources and services provided by all of our partners yep so let's uh open up the floor to with uh any questions for myself and any of our partners who've joined us today Tim I don't know if we have any any questions coming in from from the audience uh yeah there are three in the Q a tab below okay yeah okay a question from the audience regarding vehicle lightweighting processes does this include manufacturing processes or additive manufacturing materials used in any part of their vehicle or just the battery related part so that's a that's a very good question so um so vehicle light waiting as long as the vehicle light waiting is directed at any of the objective of growing uh or enhancing the electric vehicle then that's in the scope and that can include uh any part of the vehicle not just the batteries obviously the battery is the main powertrain component and it should be directed is any um kind of lightweighting related to the battery would certainly help uh uh improve the objectives of of of uh of the EV so that's highly encouraged but uh any any other part of the vehicle would be would be acceptable as well but feel free to reach out to us and we can have a conversation as to uh until go more more into detail any other questions for myself and um and our partners today hope we do have some questions down below is the project screening optional or required is it certainly required it is not optional um we will as soon as you submit something for screening we should take 24 to 48 hours to get back to you whether or not you've passed through screen so we'll be sure to be with you along that Journey so if you have any questions along the way we'll we'll be sure to help answer would a technology like direct lithium extraction for brine Supply even though Canada does not have traditional grinds so again you know certainly um anything related to uh the the processing and refining of battery minerals is certainly in scope um and you know especially if you have non-traditional brines and so you made in your project you may be developing novel IP because of the non-traditional brine so I certainly would certainly encourage such a project again this is very much these questions there's these project ideas we can certainly discuss them on a case-by-case basis so please reach out to us at EV Dash Challenge and then gen.ca we can certainly a member of our team can certainly chat with you to to flush those project ideas out can project some other federal or non-governmental funding contributions and any limits so that's a very good question from Susan Carlisle um our funding is a hundred percent stackable with other sources of federal and provincial funding feel free to to let us know if you have any confirmed sources of government funding coming from other plots and uh yeah and we our person our our funding is 100 stackable so we are not the rate we're not the limiting program but if you do have another program that has like maybe 75 percent their their requirement would be the governing and last but not least does minerals extraction from brine fall under processing uh yes because it is not the physical uh work of thinking um materials out of the ground so as soon as you dig material out of the ground and your your uh you're processing them that's considered in scope any other oh one more question from Ryan Burgess is there a higher priority placed on projects producing the final most highly uh refined products for battery manufacturing or with a processing generating an intermediate battery input qualifying so that's a good question Ryan uh we do not prioritize uh whether something's much more upstream or Downstream uh the the intermediate materials would certainly uh uh be in scope for the evmp program and it would not be over prioritized by another something Downstream any other questions for myself and our partners uh no no from my colleague John sagana so wood processing and producing Rare Earth element material required for permanent magnets required for Motors and EVS be eligible 100 so this definitely falls under our program uh processing our Rare Earth elements definitely a gap in our in our in our value chain so uh so yes short answer is yes it would be it's good another question when did you say the industrial decarbonization and circular manufacturing program would be announced uh it's pbd but we're expecting it to be announced later this calendar year yeah any more questions again you know uh if if you guys have any follow-up questions after this webinar please don't hesitate to reach out to us we can also send this deck out to all the participants from this program so you have all of our contact information as well as uh uh our our related guides and templates and resources as well if we have no more questions uh again thank you much everybody for taking time out of your busy Tuesday to take part in this webinar um yeah and we look forward to having follow-up discussions with all of you so feel free to reach out thank you so much