Ottawa Inventors

Inspired by the CBC-TV program The Greatest Canadian Inventions, we thought we’d present a list of a few of the great concepts devised by some of Ottawa’s citizenry.

Green Genius

University of Ottawa professor and chemist Dr Abdelhamid Sayari and his research team spent three years developing a material that can absorb carbon dioxide contained in various industrial gases and prevent it from being released into the atmosphere, thus reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global climate change.

Keeping Up the Pace

Dr John Alexander Hopps—originally from Winnipeg but a resident of Ottawa for many Years—is known internationally as the inventor of the world’s first heart pacemaker, introduced in 1951. In collaboration with Dr Wilfred Bigelow and Dr John Callaghan as part of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), he spent most of his career at the Montreal Road branch of the NRC. Their creation was first implanted in a human body in 1958. Poignantly, the very device Dr Hopps had developed was implanted in his own chest 30 years after its invention to correct his erratic heartbeat.

R-r-r-roll up the R-r-r-rim

After three years of developing a different invention, Ottawa inventor Paul Kind introduced his “Rimroller,” created to cleanly slice and unroll a Tim Hortons coffee cup rim in one motion, thus giving coffee drinkers easy access to the coffee chain’s promotional give-a-ways (the notifications are hidden under the cup rim, which can be difficult to unroll). Considering that Tim Hortons sells in the area of 300 million take-out cups of coffee a year, the invention is not nearly as foolish as it may seem. With the help of L-D Tool & Die in nearby Stittsville, the Rimroller became a reality in 2006 and is available at Lee Valley Tools, and at $1.95, is just a bit more than the price of a cup of coffee. This is not the only creation from the fertile mind of Mr Kind. He also invented the Handyfold, to perfectly fold letters to fit into envelopes, and the Bookhug, to hold your book open for you while you read.