Born 1962, Sudbury, Ontario. Dianne graduated from the Industrial Design Department at Carleton, University, Ottawa.  She joined Richard Brault to found a company for industrial and graphic deign called Studio Innova in 1984. Diane has received the Canada Awards for Business Excellence in Industrial Design and Innovation and the Ontario Association of Architects Award of Excellence. She teaches at both the Ontario College of Art and Design and the Institute without Boundaries with George Brown College. She is perhaps best known for her development in 1989 of the Actar 911 CPR Mannequin which has been used for CPR training in saving lives.

Born 1961, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Margaret was forced to quit school after grade eight to help support her family. This did not stop her from learning and educating herself. She started working as a chambermaid and has even worked as a butcher. She learned and then taught ballroom dancing. She is currently and inventor and is skilled in product development, production, marketing and sales. She has invented and developed an aroma therapy training for dogs.

Gertrude 'Gert' Edna Kavaner4581

Red River Cereal

née Skilling. Born April 14, 1887, Teeswater, Ontario. Died March 1946, Toronto, Ontario. Gert attended Normal School (teacher's college) became a teacher and taught in the Teeswater rural area prior to working in Calgary, Alberta. June 1, 1915 she married Harvey Kavaner (1886-1962)and the couple had three children. The family settled in Winnipeg in 1920. Gert began to experiment in her kitchen grinding and combining rye, flax and wheat to create a good cereal. Harvey Kavaner worked for the Red River Grain Company and at the company booth in the Food Building at the 1926 Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto Gert handed our samples of her cereal. In 1929 there was a paten which Harvey took out calling it Red River Cereal. Since Gert's name was not on the Paten she was never recognized for her work. In October 1929 when the stock market crashed kicking off the Great Depression, the Kavaner family, like so many other suffered financially and were forced to give up their mansion home and move to less expensive house.  In the mid 1930's Gert returned to Ontario after the death of her mother to help care for her ailing father. To help support herself she took tutoring jobs and part time teaching position at Moulton College. When her son went overseas at the beginning of World war ll in 1939 Gert had a stroke and a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized in Toronto. The cereal she had mixed in her home kitchen was produced produced by various companies over the years: Maple Leaf Foods, Robin Hood Multifoods, and J. M. Smucker Company. In 2021 Smucker Foods ceased production of the cereal. The following year Arva Flower Mills in Ontario obtained the brand and once again made it available. Source: The Winnipeg Woman who invented Red River Cereal online (accessed 2024); Chapter ten Gert Skilling, Skilling Family Memories online (accessed 2024); Canadians either adore Red River Hot breakfast cereal or have never heard of it...online (accessed 2024); Harvey Kavaner, Memorable Manitobans online (accessed 2024)

Inventor

Born November 29. ????  President of Wendy W. Murphy Enterprises Inc. Wendy designed and developed the world’s first evacuation stretcher for infants, the WEEVACS6. The idea for this amazing stretcher came to Wendy as she witnessed the 1985 earthquake rescues in Mexico. The device is made of lightweight aluminium and fire resistant materials. The first stretchers were sold to the Hospital for Sick Kids, Toronto, in 1987. The WEEVAC Line of innovative equipment is used by hospitals, nursing homes and chronic long term care facilities. The WEEVACS'  won the Manning Award for Innovation and the National Research Council of Canada’s Award for Outstanding Innovativeness in Medical Device Technology. ORTECH International presented Wendy with the Joseph Flavelle Award. Wendy is also proud to be a busy single mother with one son. Sources: Kidsdomain :   Inventions (accessed October 2011)  WEEVAC  web site : personal information provided by Wendy Murphy

née Davis. Born April 18, 1889, Devil's Lake, North Dakota, U.S.A. Died October 10, 1975, British Columbia. Olivia grew up on the White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota, U.S.A.  She was a talented pianist and she studied music at Brandon College in Manitoba.  She married Delbert Poole and with the birth of her 1st child in 1910 she combined traditional native design and modern technology to produce her invention of the Jolly Jumper for pre toddler babies. She originally used a broom handle for a suspension bar, a cloth diaper for a harness and she had a blacksmith create a soft-action steel spring. Olivia used this device for each of her seven children. The family settled in British Columbia in 1942 and she was soon making her jumper for her grandchildren. In the 1950's she and her husband began manufacturing her invention which would become a must for all young families. In 1957 she had the Jolly Jumper patent no. 568 775. By 1959 they had a manufacturing factory in North Vancouver and were sending supplies of their product throughout North America, Great Britain, and Australia. The portable device which could be attached to any door way in any home was improved over the years to accommodate health concerns in growing babies.

This inventor began her career when she was only twelve year old. She invented a computer program which uses Blissymbols. These are the symbols which allow non-speaking people to communicate by pointing to specific symbols on a pare or board. Using a touch-sensitive board connected to a computer the message is translated into a language that allows the originator to communicate to people beyond view of the Bliss board. Rachel began her work for a school science fair and it ended up in a World Exhibition of Achievement of Young inventors in Bulgaria!! She is also the winner of a Y T V Achievement Award for Innovation. The system can now be used in many different languages and voice output has been added.

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