Mohawk College project gets federal funding to preserve national history

The Mohawk College team behind a project designed to digitize the stories of Canadian soldiers is making significant progress.

Over 230,000 faces have now been detected through the “Remembering Their Faces” website – which uses AI technology to help families reconnect to their history.

Stephen Adams is a professor at Mohawk College who is leading a group of students working on the website.

When CHCH News met up with them a year ago, the website was a concept and now it’s up and running.

“You are able to search through any of the 7,000 pictures we’ve already received,” Adams said.

Still a work in progress, the idea came from all the requests museums get from the public to search their archives for family members.

READ MORE: Mohawk College researcher identifying veterans through AI technology

By digitizing and using AI technology as the background search engine, the process became a lot easier.

“We sometimes forget that Canadian soldiers have served in Korea or have served in the Remembering Their Faces”, they served in Afghanistan,” said Adams. “And if we don’t show their story in a respectful way we could understand if they don’t feel appreciated. – I wouldn’t want that,” he said.

The National Science and Engineering Research Council has awarded this group $360,000 to continue documenting the stories of for the next three years.

One student discovered a part of her own history working on the project.

Not only soldiers are being archived but the machines they used too.

If you go on the website and don’t find what you are looking for, the research group is encouraging you to reach out to them directly.