Minerva Intelligence, in Partnership with Ebbwater Consulting, Announces Commercial Contract with Natural Resources Canada

VANCOUVER, May 20, 2020 /CNW/ - Minerva Intelligence Inc. (TSXV:MVAI) ("Minerva" or the "Company"), an artificial intelligence company focused on knowledge engineering, in partnership with Ebbwater Consulting Inc. ("Ebbwater"), is pleased to announce the signing of a contract with Natural Resources Canada ("NRCan") to produce a National Flood Hazard Data Layer. This project will see the development of an inventory and common schema to present all authoritative Canadian flood hazard data, as outlined in NRCan's public request for proposals.

As leaders in Canadian flood management, Ebbwater will head up the data inventory, collection and stakeholder engagement phases of the project, while Minerva will leverage their "knowledge engineering" approach using their revolutionary SOLACE workflow to transform and deliver the flood maps in a standardized data layer. SOLACE is Minerva's consulting and software service that unites disparate data from multiple projects under a single standard.

Under the Emergency Management Strategy for Canada, NRCan carries out activities that advance guidance, information sharing, and methods in flood mapping to support the development of a flood risk management regime in Canada. This project represents a crucial first step toward the federal government's initiative to inform a national risk profile for overland flooding, by assembling and harmonizing the current Canadian flood hazard data inventory. The compilation of this information will also address a critical knowledge gap in state of flood mapping in Canada and directly benefit the Government's science-based policy and decision-making framework.

"With the impact of climate change, the magnitude and frequency of floods in Canada is increasing, with deep costs to the Canadian economy. The Government of Canada is committed to working with the provinces and territories and Indigenous Peoples to complete all flood maps and ensure all Canadians have access to the information they need," said the Honourable Seamus O'Regan, Canada's Minister of Natural Resources.

Ebbwater's core service is delivering data, such as flood maps, to private and public sector clients to support them in making good decisions that will reduce flood risk. The Ebbwater team has been challenged on many projects over the years due to the lack of a consistent framework and single portal of flood information within Canada. 

"We are genuinely thrilled to have an opportunity to inform and build a foundational tool for flood risk reduction that we will undoubtedly use ourselves in future," said Tamsin Lyle, Founder and Principal of Ebbwater. "We applaud NRCan on this initiative that will fill a large data gap in flood hazard understanding in Canada. Minerva's approach to artificial intelligence is unparalleled and we believe it will be instrumental in achieving a standardized data layer for flood maps."

A central challenge of this project is the harmonization of legacy flood hazard mapping data. Minerva Intelligence is well-suited to overcome this challenge, offering expertise in natural hazards and a set of internal tools and workflows to create clean, standardized and interoperable geospatial datasets that are free of logical inconsistency.  

To produce a national flood hazard data schema that will persevere, interoperability must be achieved using logically consistent and well-defined taxonomies of terms. Minerva has expertise in the requisite knowledge engineering, geospatial data transformation, and application development for the successful implementation of a National Flood Hazard Data Layer.

 "The development of a National Flood Hazard Data Layer represents an exciting opportunity for Minerva and really for all Canadians," says Scott Tillman, CEO of Minerva Intelligence. "We are honoured to be working with the flood experts at Ebbwater to complete this project for NRCan. As one of the most highly respected flood management firms in Canada, Ebbwater's holistic approach to flooding hazards meshes extremely well with Minerva's expert-based methodology. This project will showcase Minerva's capacity to process data 'from the ground up,' starting with stakeholder engagement and incorporating expert input to develop standards that bridge the gap between software developers and end users to produce practical geospatial applications."   

About Minerva Intelligence, Inc. 

Minerva Intelligence Inc. is a knowledge engineering company based in Vancouver, Canada, with a subsidiary office in Darmstadt, Germany. Their proprietary evidence-based decision-making software is bringing the benefits of artificial intelligence technology to industries dependent on reasoning with complex technical and scientific data. 

Although Minerva's applications currently focus on earth science-related domains including natural hazards and mineral exploration, their technology has application in diverse industries and domains. 

Minerva's common shares are currently listed on the TSX Venture (symbol MVAI).  

For further details, please refer to their website (www.minervaintelligence.com). 

About Ebbwater Consulting

Ebbwater is a Vancouver, BC-based consulting company that focuses on providing its clients with intelligent, thoughtful and complete flood management solutions.

For further details, please refer to their website (http://www.ebbwater.ca). 

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements 

Forward Looking Information: This news release includes certain information that may be deemed "forward-looking information". Forward-looking information can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may", "will", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "continue", "plans" or similar terminology. All information in this release, other than information of historical facts, including, without limitation, the availability of financing to the Company are forward-looking information that involve various risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes that the expectations expressed in such forward-looking information are based on reasonable assumptions, such expectations are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is based on a number of material factors and assumptions. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking information include changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, future metal prices, availability of capital and financing on acceptable terms, general economic, market or business conditions, regulatory changes, delays in receiving approvals, and other risks detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulatory authorities in Canada. Mineral exploration and development of mines is an inherently risky business. Accordingly, actual events may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. For more information on the Company and the risks and challenges of our business, investors should review our continuous disclosure filings which are available at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. 

The TSX Venture Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved of the contents of this press release. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

SOURCE Minerva Intelligence Inc.

Dan Vroon, Business Development Manager, Minerva Intelligence, [phone], [email protected]; Tamsin Lyle, Principal, Ebbwater Consulting, [email protected]; Virtus Advisory Group, Investor Relations, [phone], [email protected]