Recognized worldwide as one of the leading experts in artificial intelligence, Yoshua Bengio is most known for his pioneering work in deep learning, earning him the 2018 A.M. Turing Award, “the Nobel Prize of Computing,” with Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun.

He is a Full Professor at Université de Montréal, and the Founder and Scientific Director of Mila – Quebec AI Institute. He co-directs the CIFAR Learning in Machines & Brains program as Senior Fellow and acts as Scientific Director of IVADO.

In 2019, he was awarded the prestigious Killam Prize and in 2022, became the computer scientist with the highest h-index in the world. He is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of London and Canada, Knight of the Legion of Honor of France and Officer of the Order of Canada.

Concerned about the social impact of AI and the objective that AI benefits all, he actively contributed to the Montreal Declaration for the Responsible Development of Artificial Intelligence.

Joelle Pineau is a faculty member at Mila and an Associate Professor and William Dawson Scholar at the School of Computer Science at McGill University, where she co-directs the Reasoning and Learning Lab. She is also co-Managing Director of Facebook AI Research, where she oversees the labs in Montreal, Seattle, Pittsburgh, and Menlo Park.

She holds a BASc in Engineering from the University of Waterloo, and an MSc and PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Pineau’s research focuses on developing new models and algorithms for planning and learning in complex partially-observable domains. She also works on applying these algorithms to complex problems in robotics, health care, games and conversational agents. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research and the Journal of Machine Learning Research and is Past-President of the International Machine Learning Society. She is a recipient of NSERC’s E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship (2018), a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), a Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists by the Royal Society of Canada, and a 2019 recipient of the Governor General’s Innovation Awards.

With eight (8) patents issued and 21 filed, Sol has been awarded “CAO of the Year” “50 Most Powerful Women in Tech”,  “Top 20 CDOs”, and “Forbes Top AI Mavericks of the 21st century”, Sol was part of IBMs 1st-Gen Watson team, one of the first to deploy AI across enterprises at scale. Post Watson Sol served as the Chief Data & Analytics Officer for Merck, EVP & Chief Data  Officer for Sony Music, the Chief Data & AI Officer for Royal Caribbean,  Chief Information & Digital Officer for Soli and is currently the CAO for Estée Lauder.

Sherry Marcus is Director of Applied Science at the AWS Machine Learning Solutions Lab and directs AI/ML science innovation for AWS commercial and government customers. Prior to this, she led analytics and insights for Amazon Advertising and scaled data science solutions to advertisers. Before Amazon, she was Managing Director and head of the Blackrock Artificial Intelligence (AI) Labs where she developed quantitative science solutions for trading and investment businesses and Chief Data Analytics Officer at Millennium Partners (MLP) where she led the development of integration of the AWS public cloud initiative. In other previous positions, Sherry Marcus held senior mission-critical roles in the intelligence community and DoD while leading a series of highly successful scalable analytics solution in support of national missions in counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, and counter-intelligence. Sherry Marcus was  a founding member of the science board at the National Counter Terrorism Center and is an advisory board member of the Allen Institute. She has received the technical medal of excellence from the Central Intelligence Agency. She has authored over 40 papers in nationally recognized journals and is a recognized expert in large- scale graph analytics and learning. Sherry Marcus holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Mathematics and an AB from Cornell University.

As Chief Decision Scientist at Google Cloud, Cassie Kozyrkov advises leadership teams on decision process, AI strategy, and building data-driven organizations. She is the innovator behind bringing the practice of Decision Intelligence to Google, personally training over 20,000 Googlers. Prior to joining Google, Cassie worked as a data scientist and consultant. She holds degrees in mathematical statistics, economics, psychology, and neuroscience.

Marc-Etienne Ouimette is AWS lead for global AI policy at Amazon, is on the AI advisory board of Tortoise Media, and is board chair of the International Centre of Expertise of the Global Partnership on AI, based in Montreal. Before Amazon, he led public policy at Element AI. He holds a Masters of Political Science and Law Degrees from McGill University

Tal Arbel is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where she is the Director of the Probabilistic Vision Group and Medical Imaging Lab in the Centre for Intelligent Machines, McGill University. She is a Canada CIFAR AI Chair and Associate Member of MILA (Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms), and an Associate Member of the Goodman Cancer Research Centre. Prof. Arbel’s research focuses on development of probabilistic, deep learning methods in computer vision and medical image analysis, for a wide range of real-world applications, with a focus on neurological diseases. She is a recipient of the 2019 McGill Engineering Christophe Pierre Research Award. She regularly serves on the organizing team of major international conferences in computer vision and in medical image analysis (e.g.  MICCAI, MIDL, ICCV, CVPR). She is currently the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of the arXiv overlay journal: Machine Learning for Biomedical Imaging (MELBA).

Dr. Sonny Kohli is a practicing Physician in Internal Medicine and Critical Care and is faculty at McMaster University in Canada. He is also the VP of Medical and Regulatory Affairs for Roche Canada Pharma. In 2008/09, Sonny was a top 40 Astronaut Candidate in the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) recruitment campaign. He is also an alumnus of the International Space University, a trained flight surgeon with the Canadian Forces, and was awarded a CSA scholarship to Johnson Space Center & Wyle Labs. While studying at ISU, he helped deploy the Image Reversal In Space (IRIS) experiment on the International Space Station.

In 2010, while volunteering in post-earthquake Haiti, Sonny experienced first-hand the perils of inadequate health care faced by Earth’s most marginalized peoples. Intrigued by space-age and digital solutions to the world’s health problems, Sonny co-founded Cloud DX to create a fully autonomous ‘digital doctor’ called Vitaliti. Sonny and Cloud DX were bestowed as XPRIZE’s first ever ‘Bold Epic Innovator’ as part of the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE competition.

Krish Banerjee, is the Country Managing Director for Accenture Applied Intelligence in Canada, where he leads a team of Data, Analytics and AI practitioners. Krish has more than 20 years of experience working across several industries, as advisor to C-suite executives and helping them shape their Data & Analytics journey and driving value through large and complex transformation programs. 

Krish has an Engineering degree in Computer Science and completed his Executive Management in Finance and Marketing. In his 20+ years of career, Krish has lived and worked across the globe, in UK, Sweden, Japan and US.

Dr. Guy Rosman is the associate director of computation at the Surgical Artificial Intelligence and Innovation Lab at Massachusetts General hospital, as well as the manager of the Human Aware Learning team within the Human Interactive Driving (HID) division at Toyota Research Institute (TRI). His research interests include inference and machine learning techniques in human-aware robotics, and computer vision, applied to intelligent vehicles and to laparoscopic surgical assistive systems, among other domains.

During his postdoc at MIT/CSAIL, Dr. Rosman received the Technion-MIT post-doctoral Fellowship and worked with the Distributed Robotics Lab and the Sensing, Learning, and Inference group. Dr. Rosman received a BSc Summa Cum Laude, MSc Cum Laude, and Ph.D. from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (with the Jacobs-Qualcomm fellowship), in the Computer Science Department, and previously worked at several companies, including IBM Research, RAFAEL Ltd., Medicvision, and Invision Biometrics (Intel Realsense).

Dhru is a technology innovator with responsibilities for AT&T’s robotics program and automation investments for AT&T and its affiliates. Dhru is driving multiple AT&T organizations through an enterprise-wide implementation of artificial intelligence & advanced cognitive solutions with Robotics Process Automation.

Dhru began his career with AT&T in 1996 and has held various positions in Customer Service, Network Engineering, Research, Sales, and Technical Marketing. Prior to his current role, he served as Director Strategy Planning for Platform Investments with responsibility for over $450M in investments. He also served as Director of Innovation and led the creation of new products and services as part of AT&T’s largest global bid at the time. He has also served as General Manager of various managed services engagements. 

Dhru is a seasoned expert in creating and scaling organizations to offer new products and services. He sits on several boards of directors for national non-profit charities. He has received multiple Presidential Volunteer Service Awards and is currently part of AT&T’s National Disaster Recovery team. He resides in Dallas and his daughter, Puja, is a surgical researcher and future surgeon currently studying at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas

Aishwarya Agrawal is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research at University of Montreal. She is also a Canada CIFAR AI Chair and a core academic member of Mila — Quebec AI Institute. She also spends one day a week at DeepMind as a Research Scientist. From Aug 2019 – Dec 2020, Aishwarya was a full time Research Scientist at DeepMind. Aishwarya completed her PhD in 2019 from Georgia Tech, working with Dhruv Batra and Devi Parikh. Aishwarya’s research interests lie at the intersection of following sub-disciplines of Artificial Intelligence (AI): computer vision, deep learning and natural language processing with a focus on developing AI systems that that can ‘see’ (i.e. understand the contents of an image: who, what, where, doing what?) and ‘talk’ (i.e. communicate the understanding to humans in free-form natural language). Aishwarya has received various awards and scholarships, such as the Canada CIFAR AI Chair Award, Georgia Tech 2020 Sigma Xi Best Ph.D. Thesis Award, Georgia Tech 2020 College of Computing Dissertation Award, 2019 Google Fellowship (declined), Facebook Fellowship 2019-2020 (declined) and NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship 2018-2019. Aishwarya was one of the two runner-ups of the 2019 AAAI / ACM SIGAI Dissertation Award. Aishwarya was also selected for the Rising Stars in EECS 2018. Webpage: https://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~agrawal/

Constanza is a mechanism design strategist and entrepreneur. She focuses on harnessing the potential of emerging technologies, such as AI and digital tokens, and models of collective intelligence to amplify social and environmental impact. For the last 16 years, she has taken the role of a mission-driven entrepreneur, founding C Minds, a pioneering action-tank in Latin America; and the global initiative AI for Climate, focused on creating awareness and policy action on how emerging technologies can amplify nature-based solutions; among other ventures. Her trajectory has enabled her to be an advisor and partner to governments and multilateral organizations such as the InterAmerican Development Bank, GIZ, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Huawei, and United Nations. Moreover, she has led diverse high-level global processes such as the co-development of the first AI ethics global agreement led by UNESCO, and was invited to Chair the AI for Humanity Global Future Forum of the World Economic Forum, among other global processes.

Jesslyn Dymond is the Director of Data Ethics at TELUS, leading their world-class approach to responsible data-driven innovation. She is recognized for her leadership in data enablement and an advocate for creative solutions to building customer trust with emerging technology, drawing on a background of privacy and information management expertise. Jesslyn completed a Master of Information from the University of Toronto’s iSchool, is a Certified Information Privacy Professional/Canada (CIPP/C) and Data Ethics Professional from the Open Data Institute.  

Dr. Eckhoff is a senior surgical resident in the Department of General, Visceral, Tumor and Transplant Surgery at the University Hospital Cologne, Germany. She is currently concluding her second year of a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Surgical Artificial Intelligence and Innovation Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. Her research focuses on applying machine learning and computer vision models to minimally invasive surgical imaging and video data to detect and predict clinically relevant features. Meanwhile, Dr. Eckhoff works on creating standardized methodologies for the annotation of surgical target features and ethical, legal, and procedural guidelines for surgical video data management. Her clinical interest is in robotic surgery, specifically robotic esophageal surgery. Dr. Eckhoff is part of the Artificial Intelligence Taskforce of the Society of American Gastrointestinal Surgeons (SAGES) and is part of the SAGES Critical View of Safety Data Challenge Team.

Marcelo Cabrol leads all efforts related to scalability, knowledge, and impact within IDB Lab (the innovation laboratory of the Inter-American Development Bank).   

Prior to this role, he served as Manager of the Social Sector, Manager of External Relations, and Head of the Education Division of the IDB. In each of these roles, he introduced themes of innovation, creativity, and the application of technology.   

Marcelo is an expert in the application of artificial intelligence under the principles of ethics and transparency. Co-author with Roberto Sánchez of “Who’s Afraid of Artificial Intelligence? Possibilities and risks of artificial intelligence in the digital state,” where Marcelo calls for discussions between public authorities and technical specialists on how to take advantage of this technology to improve lives.   

Marcelo has a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Universidad Del Salvador in Buenos Aires, a master’s degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University, and completed doctoral studies (ABD) in government and public policy from Georgetown University.   

Azra Dhalla is the Director of Health AI Implementation at the Vector Institute – one of Canada’s
leading institutes dedicated to research in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), excelling in
machine and deep learning. She is responsible for driving health AI deployment within the
Ontario health care system in order to improve patient outcomes and health care delivery. Azra
has over a decade of experience at the intersection of healthcare and technology with globally
recognized leaders including the Hospital for Sick Children, the University Health Network and the Aga Khan Development Network. In a volunteer capacity, Azra works with the Women’s College Hospital Foundation leading fundraising and advocacy programs to support and build awareness of hospital services. Azra has an MBA with a specialization in Health Services Management from McMaster University and is a certified project and change management leader.

Dr. Matthew E. Taylor is a Fellow-in-Residence and Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) and an Associate Professor of Computing Science at the University of Alberta. He is the Director of the Intelligent Robot Learning (IRL) Lab and a Principal Investigator at the Reinforcement Learning & Artificial Intelligence (RLAI) Lab, both at the University of Alberta. Matt is also Adjunct Professor at Washington State University and was formerly the Principal Researcher at Borealis AI in Edmonton, the artificial intelligence research lab for the Royal Bank of Canada. He has been a PI or co-PI on over $6M USD in competitively awarded research funding from federal, state, and industrial sources, including the National Science Foundation CAREER award. He has (co-)supervised seven graduated PhD students and six graduated MS students, as well as published over 100 peer-reviewed papers in conferences and journals. Please see Matt’s complete list of publications: https://irll.ca/publications

Deval is Director of AI Engineering at Vector Institute and Member of task force for Digitalisation of Energy at UN Economic commission of Europe.  He is passionate about building Responsible Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning systems. He and his team are focused on building tools and implementations that lower the barrier to adoption of breakthrough AI research at Vector.  Prior to joining Vector, Deval was leading the Data Science team at Shell focusing on application in New Energies and Asset management. During his career, he has led the development of scalable machine learning applications in the domains of nature-based solutions, predictive maintenance, e-mobility, microgrid optimizations and hydrogen value chain.  He mentors and advises various startups at the intersection of AI and Climate change and is also a mentor at Creative Destruction Lab. Deval always makes time to cook and travel.

Head of Ericsson Global AI Accelerator – AI Hub Canada & Head of Montreal Site

Prasad brings in 20+ years of experience, with a passion for data centric solutions that handle large volumes of data for business intelligence, analytical insights leveraging machine learning & open-source platforms. He worked in areas such as: Product Strategies, R&D establishing research collaborations with academia and worked with customers in different regions. He worked at Ericsson during 1997-2013 in various roles, worked at Xoanon Analytics AB (Startup) as Head of Technologies during 2013-2018 and Canadian National Railways, as Senior Manager, Operational Technologies & Data Services during 2018-2019. He is currently the Ericsson’s Head of Global AI Accelerator in Montreal since 2019 and in 2023 he takes the responsibility as the Head of Ericsson Montreal Site. Prasad comes with an entrepreneurial spirit and innovative mindset, coupled with strong leadership qualities that prioritize results and strategic thinking, as well as deep understanding of business operations to execute long-term plans to ensure the organization’s future. He a has proven track record of fostering a collaborative team environment to achieve outcomes with agility and motivating individual to perform their best. Prasad holds a Master of Science in Engineering (Telematics), NTNU – Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.

Anthony is a recognized thought leader, author, consultant and advisor in Artificial Intelligence, Knowledge Management, Big Data, Information Architecture, and Innovation. Since 1990 Anthony has served as CEO/Principal Consultant of A.J. Rhem & Associates Inc., a consulting, training & research firm specializing in Knowledge Management (KM) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). As an advisor, Dr Rhem’s work includes Founding Editorial Board Member of AI and Ethics Journal by Springer; Advisory Board member of Halen Technologies, Advisory Board of ABAN Innovations, Inc., Former Chairman – Board of Trustees Knowledge Systems Institute; Industry Advisory Board – International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE); Technology Council of Advisors Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG) on Artificial Intelligence and Knowledge Management; Former Chairman – International Bar Association (IBA) Law Firm Management Committee; and Former Member of the National Science Foundation SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research) Review Panel in the areas of AI, Blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), Knowledge Management (KM) and Education Solutions. As a thought leader Anthony continues to be an active presenter at AI, and Knowledge Management (KM) conferences. In addition, Anthony has written several books and 100’s of articles for trade journals in technology, management, and law including writing in his blog The Knowledge Management Depot.

Fiona J McEvoy is an AI ethics writer, researcher, speaker, and thought leader based in San Francisco, CA. She was named one of the 30 Women Influencing AI in San Francisco by RE•WORK, and was recently honored in the inaugural Brilliant Women in AI Ethics™ Hall of Fame, established at the end of 2020 to recognize “brilliant women who have made exceptional contributions to the space of AI Ethics and diversity.”

Fiona is the founder of YouTheData.com, a platform for the discussion of the societal impact of tech and AI, and she has had numerous articles published in media outlets including Slate, VentureBeat, The Next Web, Offscreen, and All Turtles.  Fiona is also regularly asked to present her ideas to AI conferences across the US and internationally, and in recent years has addressed events in Canada, Spain, Portugal, and Mexico. Her work has been referenced in books, including Francine Banner’s Crowdsourcing the Law, David Vance’s Business Essentials, and Jeff Mapua’s Virtual Reality and You.

Fiona holds a graduate degree in Philosophy, with a special focus on ethics and technology.

Matthieu Ousset is a Senior Manager with Accenture, senior leader in the Canadian Applied Intelligence practice, and founder and leader of Accenture’s Canadian Data Studio. Matthieu leverages his experience with consulting, data, and cloud technologies to shape and implement complex programs for companies across several industries, unlocking business value and accelerating their Data and AI transformation.

Matthieu has an Engineering degree in Computer Science and has lived and worked in France and the UK before moving to Canada. Matthieu has been based in Montreal for the last 13 years and is passionate about contributing to the growth of the Data and AI ecosystem in Quebec.

Guillaume is a serial corporate entrepreneur who brings 25 years of leadership experience from technology-driven industries, including aerospace, healthcare, defense and modeling and simulation. He was President and CEO of Presagis, Founder and CEO of CAE Healthcare, held various senior leadership roles at CAE Inc., is a highly sought-after consultant in strategic planning and innovation, and successfully published Winning at Intrapreneurship. Guillaume has also been very active mentoring founders of technology start-ups at FounderFuel, Techstars, Concordia District 3, and CTS Health and is Chairman of the Board of CTS Health and CMLabs.

Mirco Ravanelli is an assistant professor at Concordia University, an adjunct professor at Université de Montréal, and a Mila associate member. He is an expert in deep learning and Conversational AI and has published over 60 papers in these fields. He is mainly focusing on novel deep learning modalities such as self-supervised, continual, multimodal, and cooperative learning. Mirco completed his post-doctorate at Mila under the supervision of Prof. Yoshua Bengio. He earned his Ph.D. (with cum laude distinction and best Ph.D. award) from the University of Trento (Italy) in December 2017. Mirco is an active member of the speech and machine learning communities, showing a strong commitment to open, transparent, and reproducible research. He is also the founder and leader of the SpeechBrain toolkit, one of the most widely adopted toolkits in the field of speech processing and conversational AI.

Natalie Mayerhofer is Associate to the Chief Learning Officer at the CHUM. During her international career, she has developed expertise in innovation policy, program evaluation, and strategic planning. She thrives on innovative projects, including her greatest challenge, the development of CHUM’s School of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare.

Jason Behrmann is the Senior Director of Marketing and Business Development at Zetane, a Montreal-based company specializing in industrial applications of AI. Previously he was a marketing and communications specialist at several AI start-ups that produced advanced technologies for industries that range from healthcare to agriculture. He also was the Vice-President of Queer Tech Montreal, a non-profit advocacy group that encourages members of the LGBTQ+ community to pursue careers in the technology sector. You may recognize his voice from the radio and podcast show, Passion with Dr. Laurie Betito, where he is a repeat guest that informs the public about the many ways technology is impacting sex, love and relationships. Dr. Behrmann was a leading researcher that analyzed the social and ethical implications of new technology in healthcare, where he completed his post-doctoral research at McGill University and his doctorate at the University of Montreal.

Kim currently serves as the Chief Strategy Officer at POZAlabs, where he leads the development of business strategies and AI models. Prior to joining POZAlabs, Kim was a part of Hyundai MOBIS’ data science team where he was responsible for AI planning and development. Recognizing his planning ability using AI, Hyundai MOBIS awarded him the MOBIS Employee Award for the shortest time in MOBIS’ history. As of 2022, he filed 14 AI patents (5 overseas, 9 domestic), published journals in the world-class computer vision conference, CVPR (Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition) and won first place in the Video Understanding Challenge. He is the principal author of the paper for AI music generation – ‘ComMU: Dataset for Combinatorial Music Generation’, which was presented at NeurIPS in December 2022. Kim graduated from Yonsei University with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer science.

Patricia Thaine is a Computer Science PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto and a Vector Institute alumna doing research on privacy-preserving natural language processing with a focus on applied cryptography. She also does research on computational methods for lost language decipherment. Patricia is a recipient of the NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship the RBC Graduate Fellowship the Beatrice “Trixie” Worsley Graduate Scholarship in Computer Science and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. She has eight years of research and software development experience including at the McGill Language Development Lab the University of Toronto’s Computational Linguistics Lab the University of Toronto’s Department of Linguistics and the Public Health Agency of Canada. 

Chris is a Technology Sector Specialist at the UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT), working in the Technology and Smart Cities Team. In this role, he assists technology companies to establish a presence in the UK, and UK tech companies to do trade overseas. Chris covers the Software sector, with interests in artificial intelligence, data analytics, cloud computing, IoT, digital twins, data centres, and cyber security. He has also been engaged with the development of the UK’s National AI Strategy, working closely with the Office for AI.

Prior to this role, he spent nearly two years working in the Tech City Investment Organisation, where he assisted technology companies based outside of the UK to set-up in London’s Tech City (Silicon Roundabout). Chris was also the Programme Architect for the Global Graduate Entrepreneurs (Sirius) Programme, which brought global entrepreneurial talent to set up new businesses in the UK.

Chris has over 25 years industry experience in research, technology development management, manufacturing and marketing in the USA and Europe. He has experience covering knowledge transfer, innovation, Intellectual Property assessment, engagement with early-stage companies, the VC community and developing routes to market.

Golnoosh Farnadi holds several academic positions, including assistant professor at HEC Montréal, adjunct professor at UdeM, and core academic member at Mila. In 2021, she was appointed as a Canada AI CIFAR chair, showcasing her expertise in ethical and responsible AI. Golnoosh has been instrumental in organizing workshops, invited talks, and schools on this topic, including the 1st MILA/IVADO summer school on Bias and Discrimination in 2018, and the Montreal AI Symposium in 2022. She has also organized international workshops on algorithmic discrimination at NeurIPS for three consecutive years (2020-2022), where she gave a tutorial on algorithmic fairness in 2022.

In addition to her academic contributions, Golnoosh has received numerous accolades in recognition of her work. Her research has garnered over 1000 citations, and she has won two paper awards. In 2021, she received the Google Scholar Award, Facebook Research Award, and was named one of the Rising Stars, a list of 20 emerging talents in AI Ethics. In 2022, Golnoosh was awarded the Google Research Excellence Award and co-authored a whitepaper with UN-Habitat on AI’s risks, applications, and governance in cities. Her latest accomplishment in 2023 includes publishing a book on missing links in AI governance, as part of a collaborative effort between Mila and UNESCO.

Parasvil Patel is a Partner with Radical Ventures, the largest AI focused VC firm in North America. He partners with visionary entrepreneurs building AI tools as well as using AI to transform industries. Prior to joining Radical, Parasvil was with KKR where he supported diligence and portfolio value creation efforts across multiple asset classes and industries. During business school, he led go-to-market and fundraising activities for an early-stage cloud optimization startup. Parasvil started his career as a consultant with BCG where he advised senior management across India and US on strategic and operational topics. He received a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay and an MBA with High Distinction from Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar.

Sarah Blair is the Manager of Outreach and Engagement for Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security and is charged with the promotion of the program both internally and externally, recruiting innovators to apply their solutions to the DND/CAF challenges, and developing communication products and channels. She joined the IDEaS team at its onset in 2019 and has held various positions within the program. Over the past 15 years in the public service, Sarah has developed, implemented, and managed various complex government funding programs with large funding envelopes and significant public visibility.

Wade has more than 25 years of experience in bringing innovative products to market and helping align business needs with technology. He has been at the forefront of the SaaS technology wave since 2003 when he was a founding team member of Intelivote. A respected thought leader and public speaker, Wade has held leadership positions with forward-thinking companies such as Radian6, Salesforce and Martello and provided strategic go-to-market consulting for numerous technology companies throughout the United States and Canada. His customer-first approach to innovation challenges the companies he works with to solve real-world problems and deliver simple and compelling solutions.

Frincy is an award-winning Artificial Intelligence leader, community builder and changemaker, with drive and passion for empowering more women to enter careers in AI. She has 8+ years of diverse experience in Telecom, Information & Technology, Consumer goods and Education sectors. 

As the Canadian Ambassador for Women in AI (WAI), Frincy leads many strategic initiatives to inspire, connect, mentor and celebrate women AI professionals.

Frincy has received several awards and recognitions for her contributions to AI, including being named 2022 Canada’s Most Powerful Women Top 100™ by Women Executive Network, 2022 Advocate of the Year by Women in IT Awards and 2022 Women in AI Ambassador of the Year by Women in AI. She was also featured in the 2023 Top 100+ Women Advancing AI and Top 25 Women in AI – Canada Edition by Re.Work.

Frincy is currently working as a Principal Data Scientist at ADP and previously held Data Science roles at AltaML and TELUS Business for three years. She was awarded the “Connection Honors Leaders of Excellence” Award in the category of Emerging Leaders by TELUS in 2021 for her contributions to empowering women in STEM careers.

Patrick Seguin is the Outreach and Marketing Officer for Innovative Solutions Canada.Patrick has a Bachelor’s degree in Communications with a minor in Political Science from the University of Ottawa.Patrick has worked for the department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development for seven years. The last five years have been spent working in communications and marketing roles for small business funding programs.

Ivey is the manager of Special Projects and Innovation at TELUS.  She works on a diverse portfolio of data science and AI projects including those in sustainability, agriculture, health and responsible AI.  She has been accorded a Special Jury Recognition by the Women in AI Association and she has been awarded the Intern Supervisor of Merit award by the University of Calgary.  She holds a Masters and PhD in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering from the University of Toronto and has over 20 conference papers and journal papers in the area of AI and Design Engineering.  She holds the peer-elect position of Vice President of the TELUS Engineering Community and is a registered Professional Engineer with the Professional Engineers of Ontario.

Chau works on core search and question answering at Glean. He previously worked at Meta on No Language Left Behind – a multilingual translation model for 200 languages, and at Quora on the machine learning for feed ranking and expert matching.

François Chabot is Co-Founder, Technology at AI Redefined (AIR). François has diverse expertise bridging the worlds of machine learning and simulation. Over the course of his career, François has led advanced technology integration initiatives with a focus on AI, gameplay programming, low-leveloptimization, and systems design. He specializes in designing software architectures to solve problems that stretch resources to their limit. Drawing on his earlier experiences at Google, Capcom, Opal-RT Technologies and Blue Castle Games, François helps AI Redefined bridge the gap between engineering, research, and all things interactive.

Jordan Jacobs is Managing Partner and co-founder of Radical Ventures. Before Radical, Jordan co-founded Layer 6 AI and was co-CEO prior to its acquisition by TD Bank Group where he joined as Chief AI Officer (Business & Strategy).

Jordan is also a founder of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Toronto, a concept he devised with Radical Ventures and Layer 6 co-founder Tomi Poutanen and Professor Geoffrey Hinton. Jordan is a Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), which administers on behalf of the Government of Canada the world’s first national AI strategy, which Jordan helped author. Jordan is also a member of the University of Waterloo President’s International Advisory Board, a Director of Tennis Canada, and has been selected as one of Toronto’s 50 Most Influential People.

Jordan previously co-founded Milq, a cultural content discovery platform and early adopter of machine learning for personalization. He also founded SpyBox Media, through which he developed and partnered with Elton John’s Rocket Pictures to executive produce the Emmy-nominated music TV series Spectacle, hosted by Elvis Costello.

Jordan started his career as a technology and entertainment lawyer, and received his JD from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto where he was admitted at age 19.

Nammi Sriharan is an accomplished Executive Coach and a visionary leader in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) digital transformation, with over 19 years of experience in change management, program delivery, PMO implementation, business and digital transformation in the private and public sector including International experience. Holding an MBA and certifications in PMP, CSM, and DSTL, Nammi is also a certified Executive Coach from UC Berkeley, showcasing her commitment to leadership development.

Nammi leverages AI and data-driven strategies to enable digital transformation for organizations, staying at the forefront of cutting-edge technologies through her studies in AI from reputable institutions such as York University, MITx, and eCornell. Her specialized focus on areas such as Supply Chain Analytics and People Analytics makes her a sought-after leader in the field.

Beyond her professional achievements, Nammi is actively engaged in the community, serving as the Toronto City Lead for Women in AI (WAI) and mentoring at York University Ten Thousand Coffees club. 

With extensive experience, diverse skill set, and unwavering commitment to excellence, Nammi is poised to drive success and innovation in organizations seeking to thrive in the era of AI and digital disruption.

Mike has over a decade of executive and senior management experience in the technology sector, with the last five years focussing on AI and machine learning. As co-founder of Revela, he is currently applying his expertise to grow the business into becoming a major ML monitoring contender by addressing the needs of large incumbent enterprises such as banks, telcos, and energy companies. Mike has shaped Revela’s unique go-to-market strategy and established the initial sales and fundraising roadmaps. Prior to Revela, Mike was the co-founder and CTO of EyeSpy Innovations, where he successfully led the design and commercialization of a highly secured asset-tracking system. To this day, law enforcement agencies globally leverage this tech to reduce crime from small-town bike theft to international drug smuggling. Then, with Allsalt Maritime, he led a team of scientists and engineers to launch ML-powered products for the marine sector. These products are used by government, military, and commercial organizations around the world to monitor the health of boat crews. Mike is passionate about all things AI and is committed to laying the engineering foundation necessary for achieving true AI industrialization.

Kristine Pearce is a Principal ML Business Development Manager at Amazon Web Services (AWS). She has over two decades of experience in business transformation and information technologies, and is an expert in designing and implementing innovative AI/ML solutions that drive efficiency and growth for organizations. Prior to joining AWS, Kristine held several senior leadership positions, including a Digital Services Innovation Leader, where she championed the development of new digital services and products at Thermo Fisher Scientific. In recognition of her outstanding contributions to promoting diversity and inclusion, Kristine was awarded the AWS Women in Worldwide Commercial Operations (WiWCO) Diversity and Inclusion Award in 2020. She is an active member of the advisory board for UC Irvine’s Customer Experience Program, where she shares her expertise in design thinking, cloud adoption, and AI/ML technologies to drive innovation. Kristine holds a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and frequently speaks at events to share her insights on how to leverage AI/ML and other cutting-edge technologies to drive business growth and success.

Meena Thandavarayan is a AI/ML Specialist at Amazon Web Services (AWS). He has a passion to design, create and promote human-centered Data and Analytics experiences. Meena focuses on developing sustainable systems that deliver measurable competitive advantage for Strategic Customers of AWS. Meena is a connector, design thinker, and strives to drive business to new ways of working through innovation, incubation and democratization.

Dr. Naeem Komeilipoor is a visionary engineer-turned-entrepreneur driven by a relentless pursuit to discover solutions with the potential to significantly and positively impact people’s lives. He has extensive experience in the fields of Neuroscience, Biomedical Engineering, and AI, spanning multiple countries. Recently, he has received several recognitions including being named one of C2’s Top 25 Emerging Entrepreneurs of 2021, receiving a nomination for Quebec Entrepreneur of the Year 2022 from the Association of Young Chambers of Commerce of Quebec, and being selected as one of Top 100 Innovators and Entrepreneurs by The Top 100 Magazine, as well as being included in InspiredMind’s official “Ones to Watch” list for 2022.

Kevin Poirier joined the Nuvoola AI team in 2022 as AI Product Development Manager, engaging across the entire supply chain and logistics by introducing innovative solutions under the core mission to offer visibility, resilience and fluidity to road, rail, maritime and air transport.

Entrepreneur by nature, his career path led him to start several companies at a young age and to be involved in industrial, electrical and computer engineering for several years. Kevin is motivated and driven by the passion to help people raise awareness of planetary sustainability and environment issues.

Kevin joined Nuvoola determined to deliver on Nuvoola’s mission conveyed by the founders’ vision to automate the most mundane tasks and increase operational efficiencies using AI technologies.

He joins a dedicated team of AI scientists to help create and develop pioneering technologies designed to improve decision making using new performance indicators, break down language barriers, optimize automation and real-time operations visibility across logistics ecosystem and supply chain operations.

Nancy Coblenz is a dynamic leader as the CEO of MyBrand AI, an enterprise all-in-one content generation platform using generative AI. In her role, Nancy is commoditizing the information economy using generative AI, driving substantive digital transformation in the marketing and technology sectors. Nancy has over 15 years of future forward marketing experience, as head of marketing for a multi-billion dollar enterprise and scaling a marketing agency specializing in spatial computing.  She has secured marketing partnerships with major organizations, including NASCAR and Dress for Success, all with the goal of advancing women in STEM  and building momentum toward a more diverse and equitable workforce.

Nancy’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. She has been recognized as a top female executive and entrepreneur at the LA Times Inspirational Women’s Leadership Forum, LA Business Journal’s Women Leadership Symposium, Maverick of the Year from Stevie Awards-Women in Business, Ada Lovelace’s Digital Marketer of The Year, International PlayMaker Digital Leader Award Finalist (London/UK), National Women Tech Founders Finalist (in AR/VR), 32 Under 32 Most Innovative in Marketing/Advertising, and National Women’s Day Entrepreneur of the Year.

 Her recognition is a testament to her dedication and commitment to empowering women in STEM  and driving positive change. As a keynote speaker and contributor at events such as WomenTech Global Conference and Innotech Dallas, Nancy covers important topics, including leadership and digital transformation. Her expertise and insights are invaluable, particularly in today’s digital age, where organizations must navigate rapid technological advancements to remain competitive and relevant. 

With her dedication to building a more diverse and equitable workforce in STEM,  Nancy is creating opportunities for women professionals and driving progress toward a more inclusive society. Her ability to collaborate and innovate with others has enabled her to achieve remarkable success and serve as an inspiration to others.

Nancy is a true visionary. Her efforts to empower women STEM professionals and create a more diverse and equitable workforce are inspiring and impactful. Her recognition as a nominee at several prestigious organizations highlights her dedication and commitment to making a positive difference. As she continues to innovate and collaborate with others, we can be confident that she will continue to drive positive change and leave a lasting impact on our society

Dr. Steve Chien (ai.jpl.nasa.gov) is a JPL Fellow, Senior Research Scientist, and Head of the Artificial Intelligence Group, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.  He has led the deployment of AI software to a wide range of missions including: Autonomous Sciencecraft on EO-1, Earth Observing Sensorweb, WATCH on MER, IPEX, ESA’s Rosetta, ECOSTRESS, OCO-3, and the M2020 Perseverance Rover.

 
Dr. Chien has received numerous awards for these efforts.  He has been recognized four times in the NASA Software of the Year competition (1999, 1999, 2005, and 2011).  He has received four NASA Medals for his work in AI for Space (1997, 2000, 2007, 2015).  In 2011 He was awarded the inaugural AIAA Intelligent Systems Award, for his contributions to Spacecraft Autonomy.

Dr. Chien has advised numerous entities including the U.S. Office of the Undersecretary of Defense, the Defense Sciences Board, USAF Scientific Advisory Board, National Research Council, and the United States Senate.  He was a Commissioner for the National Security Commision on Artificial Intelligence (nscai.gov).

As Chief Decision Scientist at Google Cloud, Cassie Kozyrkov advises leadership teams on decision process, AI strategy, and building data-driven organizations. She is the innovator behind bringing the practice of Decision Intelligence to Google, personally training over 20,000 Googlers. Prior to joining Google, Cassie worked as a data scientist and consultant. She holds degrees in mathematical statistics, economics, psychology, and neuroscience.

Renée Cummings is a criminologist, criminal psychologist, therapeutic jurisprudence specialist, AI ethicist and the historic first Data Activist in Residence, at The School of Data Science, University of Virginia. 

Renée is also a community scholar at Columbia University. Advocating for AI we can trust, more diverse, equitable, and inclusive AI, she is on the frontline of ethical AI, generating real time responses to many of the consequences of AI.

Renée also specializes in AI risk management, justice-oriented AI, social justice AI, AI policy and governance, and using AI to save lives. She is committed to using AI to empower and transform communities by helping governments and organizations navigate the AI landscape and develop future AI leaders.

Renée works at the intersection of AI, criminal justice, racial justice, social justice, design justice, epidemiological and urban criminology, and public health. She has extensive experience in trauma-informed justice interventions, homicide reduction, gun and gang violence prevention, juvenile justice, evidence-based policing and law enforcement leadership. Her work extends to rehabilitation, re-entry and reducing recidivism. 

Renée is committed to fusing AI with criminal justice for ethical real time solutions to improve law enforcement accountability and transparency, reduce violence, enhance public safety, public health, and quality of life. 

A thought-leader, motivational speaker, and mentor, Renée is an articulate, dynamic, and passionate speaker who has mastered the art of creative storytelling and deconstructing complex topics into critical everyday conversations that inform and inspire.

Doina Precup splits her time between McGill University, where she holds a Canada-CIFAR AI chair in the School of Computer Science, and DeepMind Montreal, where she has been leading the research team since its formation in October 2017. 

Dr. Precup obtained her Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2000. She became a senior member of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in 2015, Canada Research Chair in Machine Learning in 2016 and Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research in 2017. Her main research interests are in reinforcement learning, focusing on temporal abstraction and improving generalization and efficiency, as well as applying machine learning to real-world problems, especially in the medical domain. Dr. Precup’s research has received outstanding paper awards at AAAI’2017 and NeurIPS’2021, as well as the Classic Paper award of the Artificial Intelligence Journal in 2019.

Dr. Precup is co-founder and advisor of the AI4Good Lab, an outreach program which aims to improve gender diversity in machine learning since 2017. Dr. Precup is also a core member of Mila (the Quebec AI Institute), and is involved in activities supporting the wider Montreal and Quebec AI ecosystem.

Sam is responsible for delivering innovations in the 25Bn Beauty and Personal Care business across the Skin Care & Cleansing, Prestige, Deodorants, Hair and Oral Care categories. This includes disruptive technologies, external facing scientific authority, insights and claims, underpinned by leading edge scientific expertise and enabling capabilities. She is also responsible for clinical testing across the business which supports disruptive superior claims, and new fundamental understanding.

Prior to Unilever, Sam has over 20 years of experience across Pharmaceuticals and Consumer Healthcare, all focused on innovation. She spent a decade at Johnson & Johnson leading discovery research in the consumer sector, initially on beauty/skin needs then later leading innovation and claims strategy for the baby business. Sam became a fellow of J&J in 2009 and won the prestigious Johnson’s Medal in 2014. Prior to J&J, Sam spent 11 years at Merck focusing on infectious disease, in the area of Malaria, and natural product antibacterial discovery.

She received her MS from Seton Hall University, her PhD from University of Dundee and became a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2016. When she is not learning something new in science, she spends time with her husband, three children, a goofy dog, and as much outside time as possible, for where there is nature there is beauty.

Michael Gilfix is the VP of Product Management for Data & AI and Chief Product Officer for Cloud Paks. His product management responsibilities cover a range of software technologies from data management, data integration, MDM, metadata management and privacy, data science, business analytics, and Watson technologies. In his Chief Product Officer role, he is responsible for defining and driving the next generation platform across all of Cloud & Cognitive software at IBM. In prior roles, he led product management for the Automation division, affecting the change in strategy from focus on cloud integration technologies to automation of all types. Prior to that he had general management responsibility for Digital Business Automation, overseeing product management, engineering, support, and design. He has had numerous roles throughout his career at IBM from software development to sales to services.

Irina Rish is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science and Operations Research Department at the Université de Montréal (UdeM) and a core faculty member of MILA – Quebec AI Institute. She holds Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Autonomous AI and a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Canada AI Chair. She received her MSc and PhD in AI from University of California, Irvine and MSc in Applied Mathematics from Moscow Gubkin Institute. Dr. Rish’s research focus is on machine learning, neural data analysis and neuroscience-inspired AI. Before joining UdeM and MILA in 2019, Irina was a research scientist at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, where she worked on various projects at the intersection of neuroscience and AI and led the Neuro-AI challenge.

She received multiple IBM awards, including IBM Eminence & Excellence Award and IBM Outstanding Innovation Award in 2018, IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award in 2017, and IBM Research Accomplishment Award in 2009. Dr. Rish holds 64 patents, has published over 80 research papers in peer-reviewed conferences and journals, several book chapters, three edited books, and a monograph on Sparse Modeling.

Dr. Alejandro Correa Bahnsen is the Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at RappiBank. With a passion for machine learning, he considers himself a technology evangelist of data science. He has more than a decade of experience applying the use and development of Artificial Intelligence to real-world issues such as cybersecurity, risk management, and marketing.

In addition to advising the RappiBank executive team and its partners on unique data science challenges, Alejandro manages the AI and risk teams. He creates and develops machine learning algorithms related to credit risk, customer churn, user identification, fraud detection and growth. He is constantly working to improve RappiBank’s products with data science and artificial intelligence capabilities. Prior to joining Rappi, he worked at Cyxtera Technologies as Vice President of Research, a leading cybersecurity company, where he was responsible for the creation of next generation anti-fraud tools and algorithms. 

Alejandro is also an Adjunct Professor in the Industrial Engineering department of Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, where he teaches Deep Learning and Applied Data Science classes for the undergraduate and masters programs. He holds a PhD in Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition from Luxembourg University and has published over 20 academic and industrial papers in noteworthy, peer-reviewed publications. Furthermore, he holds 7 US patents on the usage of Artificial Intelligence in Fraud and Cybersecurity.

Dr. Shalini Ghosh is a Principal Research Scientist at Amazon Science in the Alexa AI team. She has 15+ years of experience as an ML researcher, specializing in machine learning/deep learning with applications to various domains, e.g., natural language, speech, computer vision, multimodal AI, security, and trustworthy systems. Previously, Dr. Ghosh was a Director/Principal Scientist in Samsung Research America for 2+ years, where she led a Multimodal AI team and R&D team for video understanding in Samsung Smart TV. Prior to that, Dr. Ghosh was a Principal Scientist at SRI International where she worked on applying machine learning to a broad set of domains. She was also a Visiting Scientist at Google Research, where she worked with the Google Brain team on large-scale language understanding and dialog modeling. Dr. Ghosh got her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. She serves as Area Chair for multiple ML conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML), and her research has won a Best Paper award and a Best Student Paper Runner-up award for applications of ML to dependable computing. She is the lead/co-author of 45+ publications, was selected as one of the “30 Influential Women Advancing AI” in 2019, was an Invited Speaker at the KDD Conference, and her ReWork talk was selected as one of the “Top 5 AI talks” in 2020.  More information about her work can be found at http://shalinighosh.com/.

Dr. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR). A sociologist by training, her work centers on the data used in new computational technologies, and the ways in which these data exacerbate racial, gender, and class inequality. She also works in the area of social movements, focusing on the dynamics of anti-racist campus protest in the US and Canada.

Dr. Hanna has published widely in top-tier venues across the social sciences, including the journals Mobilization, American Behavioral Scientist, and Big Data & Society, and top-tier computer science conferences such as CSCW, FAccT, and NeurIPS. Dr. Hanna serves as a co-chair of Sociologists for Trans Justice, as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies, and sits on the advisory board for the Human Rights Data Analysis Group and the Scholars Council for the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. FastCompany included Dr. Hanna as part of their 2021 Queer 50, and she has been featured in the Cal Academy of Sciences New Science exhibit, which highlights queer and trans scientists of color.

Dr. Vindell Washington joined Verily in January 2020 as the Chief Clinical Officer for the Verily Health Platforms group, as well as the CEO for Onduo. In these roles, Dr. Washington is responsible for clinical thought leadership, strategic planning, and high level product development. He focuses on strategies that will enable advanced technology solutions for healthcare transformation, engaging internal and external partners in developing tools and platforms for improving health outcomes and reducing costs of care.

Previously, Dr. Washington worked as the Chief Medical Officer for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana from 2017-2019, where he served as clinical thought leader and spokesperson and was responsible for developing and executing a strategy that both improves the quality of health care delivered to the company’s members and improves cost and efficiency. As CMO, he was directly responsible for managing an integrated clinical operation that includes utilization management, case management, population health management, quality management and pharmacy management. In addition, he was responsible for network management, provider contracting, and value based payment innovation.

Prior to his tenure at BCBS, Dr. Washington led clinical teams and health IT initiatives as national coordinator for healthcare information technology in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Prior to that, Washington was at the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System in Baton Rouge for more than seven years, leaving as president of the medical group, which includes more than 500 medical providers and 1,400 employees. While at the health system, he also served as vice president of performance excellence and technology and chief medical information officer.

Washington is a board-certified emergency medicine physician and a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians. Before coming to Baton Rouge, he served as chief executive officer of Piedmont Emergency Medicine Associates, a large private group in Charlotte, North Carolina.

He received his undergraduate degree from Pennsylvania State University and his medical degree from the University of Virginia. He also received a Master of Science degree in healthcare management from the Harvard University School of Public Health.

Washington and his wife, Kimberly, live in Baton Rouge and have four daughters, two of whom work in medicine.

Betsy Greytok is Vice President of Ethics & Policy in the Chief Privacy Office for IBM. She works closely with the IBM AI Ethics Board developing principles, practices and policies driving the ethical development and deployment of technology. Prior to joining the CPO, Betsy was Senior Counsel for IBM and lead a legal team providing business unit support for IBM global mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IP Partnerships, and other complex alliance transactions. She was Synergy Counsel for the Red Hat acquisition, aligning key compliance measures while maintaining Red Hat’s separate identity and culture. Betsy joined IBM in 1999 after working as a trial lawyer. She has provided legal support for various IBM practices & offerings including OEM Channel Sales, Cloud & Cognitive Systems, Power Systems, and the AIX operating system.

As one of Forbes “15 AI Ethics Leaders Showing The World The Way Of The Future”, Elizabeth M. Adams is a highly-sought-after resource in business and professional circles for executives, small business owners, non-profits, institutions of higher learning, and community leaders from all sectors of society, looking to expand their knowledge of AI Ethics and Leadership of Responsible AI™. For over two decades, she has studied the science of business and technology influences on society while leading large-scale technology initiatives for Fortune 500 companies and various government organizations. As a scholar-practitioner, Elizabeth has developed her expertise by interviewing, observing, advising, and working alongside successful technical and non-technical leaders, creating alliances with community that translate theory into results. Elizabeth is pursuing a doctoral degree at Pepperdine University with a research focus on Leadership of Responsible AI™. Elizabeth serves as the Global Chief AI Culture & Ethics Officer for Women in AI, where she volunteers her time building a world-class team and program to support the needs of 8,000 women worldwide.

With more than 20 years of international experience in both the academic and private sectors, Catalina Lopez-Correa’s deep understanding of genomics and innovation has inspired leaders in science and industry to collaborate toward solving some of the world’s greatest challenges.

Before taking on her role as Chief Scientific Officer in July 2021, she served as Executive Director of the Canadian COVID-19 Genomics Network (CanCOGeN).

Dr. Lopez-Correa holds a Medical degree from the UPB in Colombia, a Master’s degree in Human Genetics from Paris V University in France, a PhD in Medical Biosciences from the KULeuven in Belgium, a mini MBA from McGill University in Canada and has trained in innovation leadership at Singularity University.

Before joining Genome Canada, Dr. Lopez-Correa was Chief Operating Officer at Ruta N Medellin. In this capacity, she coordinated the operations of a world class innovation hub that uses cutting edge technologies and approaches to solve the city’s most pressing social and economic challenges. With Ruta N, she supported SMEs, universities and governmental initiatives aiming at putting innovation at the forefront of economic and social development. Prior to joining Ruta N, Dr. Lopez-Correa was the CSO and Vice-President Sectors at Genome British Columbia (2016-2019) and  CSO and Vice-president Scientific Affairs at Genome Quebec (2008-2015), where she was instrumental in developing competitive teams for national and provincial research and innovation initiatives raising the profile of Canadian genomics on the global stage.

Before becoming one of Canada’s leading advocates for genomics, and an international leader in using innovation to solve world challenges, Dr. Lopez-Correa held senior research positions with pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly in the US, the renowned deCODE genetics lab in Iceland and two biotech companies in the UK (Genomica and Informax).

As part of her commitment to international development, Dr. Lopez-Correa has championed several initiatives aimed at demonstrating the impact of genomics and innovation in developing countries. She is also fully committed to advance equity, diversity and inclusion, with a particular interest in gender equity in science that led her to be a co-founder of the IWS Network (International and Immigrant Women in Science).

Dr. Lopez-Correa’s work has been recognized with several awards. In 2017 she received the Canadian Senate 150th Anniversary Medal. In 2013 she was recognized by National Order of Merit Award in the Rank of Officer, appointed by the Honorable President of the Republic of Colombia. In 2012 she was recognized as one of the 100 Colombians living abroad that have been highly successful on their professional career.

Dominique Malenfant was appointed Executive Vice-President and Chief Information and Technology Officer in September 2020. Based in Montreal, Dominique is responsible to deliver CN’s technology strategy, with a focus on automation technology and the digitalization of CN’s network and operations.

Dominique has spent nearly 30 years in global leadership roles in the transportation and rail industries. In his most recent role, Dominique was Senior Vice-President, Engineering and Chief Technology Officer at Wabtec Corporation. Prior to his position at Wabtec Corporation, Dominique held the position of Vice-President of Global Technology at GE Transportation.

During his tenure at Wabtec Corporation and GE Transportation, Dominique was focused on the next generation of Precision Scheduled Railroading and Positive Train Control technologies and spearheaded a major digital industrial evolution in rail.

Previous to GE Transportation, Dominique served as Vice-President of Product and Engineering for the Transportation Propulsion and Control Business at Bombardier Transport. He also managed Bombardier Transport’s North American group, where he was responsible for Product Management, Engineering and Supply Management. He also led the Center of Expertise R&D group, and has experience in Plant Management, Engineering Quality Assurance, Systems Engineering, and Project Management.

Dominique holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Laval University, Quebec.

Dorothy is Convoy’s CTO, overseeing Convoy’s Product and Engineering group and technology strategy, shaping and scaling the company’s innovation and industry-defining technology platforms.

Prior to Convoy, Dorothy held leadership roles at Amazon, most recently as Vice President of BI and Analytics at AWS. During her more than 20 years at Amazon, Dorothy helped build out Amazon’s ecommerce platform and also led and collaborated on products that had visibly impacted customers around the world – from the initial launch of Amazon Prime, to Kindle, and at AWS where she focused on data analytics and BI. Dorothy received her Bachelor of Science at Brigham Young University and studies at Shanghai International Studies University.

Ben is the Co-Founder and General Partner of BootstrapLabs, a leading venture capital firm, based in Silicon Valley and focused on Applied Artificial Intelligence.

Ben has been actively investing in Applied AI software technology startups for nearly a decade and is actively managing a venture portfolio whose aggregate enterprise value grew by nearly $2Bn (~10x) in the last 5 years.

Select investments include: Aeye (IPO NASDAQ: LIDR), Roger.ai (acquired by NYSE: FLT), Indus.ai (acquired by NYSE: PCOR), Qurious (acquired by NASDAQ: PEGA), Fortella (acquired by 6Sense), iUNU, GetAccept, Mendel, Sibly, Myia Health, Hayden.ai, Southie.ai, and many others.

Born in France and living in Silicon Valley for the past 25 years, Ben is a repeat entrepreneur who launched, built, and exited two startups in the financial technology space. Praedea Solutions, a data mining software company using machine learning and image recognition technology, that was acquired by Mergent in 2005, and InsideVenture, a financial social network for the founders of venture-backed pre-IPO startups and long-only institutional investors on Wall Street, that was acquired by SecondMarket in 2009 (and is now part of NASDAQ).

Earlier in his career, Ben was a Technology, Media, and Telecom Investment Banker who advised CxOs of Fortune 500 companies and startup founders on corporate strategy, financing, and M&A. Over a period of 10 years, Ben helped his clients raise over $300M from institutional investors and close over $5B in M&A transactions. His banking experience spans across firms like Lazard, SG Cowen, Houlihan Lokey, Wedbush Securities, and QuantumWave Capital.

Ben is also a member of AAAI (Association for the Advancement of AI), and a frequent keynote speaker on innovation, technology investing, entrepreneurship, and artificial intelligence in the US, Europe, and Asia.

Baiju has led data science, product, and engineering teams to bring data-driven decision making to a range of industries from capital markets to insurance. He is a seasoned executive and entrepreneur with over two decades of experience working with startups, scaleups and large enterprises.

As head of Machine Learning at TD Group, Baiju is responsible for at-scale development and deployment of machine learning algorithms across multiple lines of businesses and that positively impacts millions of customers in North America.

Prior to TD, as SVP of Data Science at Aviva, Baiju built a 120+ strong team of actuaries, product managers, data scientists and engineers and led Aviva’s $100M+ digital and data transformation which resulted in over 160 AI/ML models in production with real-time deployment capabilities. This created end-to-end enterprise value from optimizing customer acquisition costs, product pricing and efficient claims adjudication in a $5B+ business. Baiju was also at OANDA, a FinTech startup that disrupted retail foreign exchange market where he led data science and business growth and was part of a team that scaled the organization from a startup to a 400+ employee global business. Baiju is a is a computer scientist by training and completed his undergraduate and graduate at Queen’s University.

Jack McCauley an Innovator in Residence at Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation at UC Berkeley, Professor at UC Berkeley, Co-Founder of Oculus, an American engineer, hardware designer, inventor, video game developer and philanthropist. Jack is best known for designing the guitars and drums for the Guitar Hero video game series, and as a co-founder and former chief engineer at Oculus VR. At Oculus, Jack designed and built the Oculus DK1 and DK2 virtual reality headsets. Oculus was acquired by Facebook for $2 Billion.  McCauley holds numerous U.S. patents for inventions in software, audio effects, virtual reality, motion control, computer peripherals, and video game hardware and controllers. Jack was awarded a full scholarship to attend University of California, Berkeley where he earned as BSc., EECS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1986.  Jack has authored numerous research papers in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and mathematical modelling of AI-based systems and is currently pursuing new projects at his private R&D facility and hardware incubator in Livermore, California.

Erik J. Larson is a computer scientist and tech entrepreneur. The founder of two DARPA-funded AI startups, he is currently working on core issues in natural language processing and machine learning. He has written for The Atlantic and for professional journals and has tested the technical boundaries of artificial intelligence through his work with the IC2 tech incubator at the University of Texas at Austin.

Carolina is a visionary scientist with a strong business acumen, with 20+ years of experience in research, development, and broad programming. Carolina holds a PhD in fundamental physics and was an award-winning professor and researching before transitioning to industry full-time. A leader in the space of Artificial Intelligence, Carolina was the Director of the Nonlinear Phenomena Lab in Venezuela before moving to Canada. Today, she applies her extensive experience in machine learning to create, innovate, and develop technologies that solve real-world problems.

Vilas Dhar is President and Trustee of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, a 21st century philanthropy advancing artificial intelligence (AI) and data solutions to create a thriving, equitable, and sustainable future for all. A leading voice on equity in a tech-enabled world, Vilas champions a new social compact for the digital age that prioritizes individuals and communities in the development of new products, inspires economic and social opportunity, and empowers the most vulnerable. Vilas also serves as a Trustee of the Christensen Fund, Advisor to MIT SOLVE, Director of the Network of Engaged International Donors, Expert Contributor to OECD.AI, and previously as a Senior Fellow of the Berggruen Institute. Vilas holds a J.D. from NYU School of Law, a Master’s in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and dual Bachelor’s degrees in Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Illinois.

Luc Rabouin was elected mayor of Le Plateau-Mont-Royal in October 2019. Since December 2019, he has been responsible for economic and business development, and design on the city’s executive committee. Prior to that, Mr. Rabouin was the director of strategic development at the Caisse d’économie solidaire Desjardins, where he held the position for three years. He has also led several organizations, including the Centre d’écologie urbaine de Montréal, Communauto France, as well as the Corporation de développement économique communautaire (CDEC) Centre-sud/Plateau-Mont-Royal, now known as PME MTL Centre-ville.

Meredith M. Broadbent is a Senior Adviser (Non-resident) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. A former Chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission and Commissioner (2012-2017), she served as Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Industry, Market Access, and Telecommunications from 2002-2008. In that position, she was responsible for developing U.S. policy that affects trade in industrial goods, telecommunications, and e-commerce. She led the U.S. negotiating team for the Doha Round negotiations to reduce tariff and nontariff barriers on industrial goods. From 2008 to 2010, she was a Trade Advisor at the Global Business Dialogue. Earlier in her career, she served as a senior professional staff member with the Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives. In that position, she drafted and managed major portions of the Trade and Development Act of 2000, legislation to authorize normal trade relations with China, and the Trade Act of 2002, which included trade promotion authority. She was instrumental in the development and House passage of the implementing bills for the North American Free Trade Agreement and Uruguay Round Agreements. Broadbent holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Middlebury College and a Master of Business Administration degree from the George Washington University School of Business and Public Management.

Elena Fersman is a Vice President and Head of Global AI Accelerator at Ericsson. She is responsible for a distributed team based in USA, Sweden, India and Canada .

Elena is a docent and an adjunct professor in Cyber-Physical Systems specialized in Automation at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from Uppsala University, an MBA from St. Petersburg Polytechnic University and did a postdoc at the University Paris-Saclay.

At Ericsson, she had various positions ranging from product management to research leadership. Elena is a member of the Board of Directors of RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. Elena has co-authored over 50 patent families.

Bruce Stamm is the Senior Director, Application Development & Maintenance and Artificial Intelligence at Air Canada. Bruce has over 20 years of experience leading software development and data engineering teams in a variety of hi-tech industries including flight simulation, video games and more recently, the airline industry. He currently leads application development and AI teams at Air Canada with a principal mandate to broaden the use of machine learning, simulation, and optimization in different areas of the company including Cargo, Operations, Revenue Management and Maintenance in order to drive revenue, reduce costs and enhance the customer experience. Bruce has degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from Bishop’s University.

Rebecca Finlay is the CEO at Partnership on AI overseeing the organization’s mission and strategy. In this role, Rebecca ensures that the PAI Team and our global community of Partners work together so that developments in AI advance positive outcomes for people and society. 

Most recently, Rebecca was Vice President, Engagement and Public Policy at CIFAR. In this role, Rebecca founded the Institute’s global knowledge mobilization practice, bringing together experts in industry, civil society, and government to accelerate the societal impact of CIFAR’s research programs. In 2017, she was responsible for the launch of CIFAR’s AI & Society program to support international working groups on the questions AI poses for all aspects of policy and society. 

In 2019, she launched CIFAR Solution Networks to support multi-year, international teams in the development of responsible approaches to real-world applications of AI. She led CIFAR’s partnerships with governments and public sector organizations, diversifying the organization’s funding sources internationally. 

Prior to joining CIFAR, Rebecca held leadership roles in research and civil society organizations including as Group Director, Public Affairs and Cancer Control for the Canadian Cancer Society and National Cancer Institute of Canada. She began her career in the private sector building strategic partnerships, including as First Vice President, Financial Institution and Partnership Marketing for Bank One International. 

In 2019, Rebecca was honored as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She holds degrees from the University of Cambridge and McGill University. She is an active volunteer and lives with her family in Toronto, Canada.

Markku has over 35 years’ experience both as an award-winning designer and as a thought-leader on design and construction industry transformation issues. His background as a practice owner and industry subject matter expert with strong relationships across disciplines and organizations uniquely positions him to assist in shaping responsive strategies to forces driving change in business and culture today. In his current role, Markku heads up Chandos’ innovation initiatives. 

He is a past president of the Integrated Project Delivery Alliance (www.ipda.ca) in Canada which published “IPD: An Action Guide for Leaders” (Markku was a co-author) as well as several influential IPD research studies, and provides IPD training for industry. Markku also held positions at the American Institute of Architects, where he was instrumental in developing the AIA’s “Integrated Project Delivery: A Guide” in 2007.

Prof Dr. Konrad Tollmar is the Research Director at SEED Electronic Arts. He is also co-leading the focus area Gaming at WASP Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program. His current research is focused on driving innovative AI for computer games and future interactive entertainment. Prior to EA, he was an Associate Professor at KTH and lead the Mobile Service Lab, a faculty member at Ingvar Kamprad Design Centre – Lund University, Research Scientist at MIT CSAIL, a Postdoc at MIT AI-Lab, and Research Scientist at the Interactive Institute.

Mauritz Kop is a Stanford Law School TTLF Fellow, Founder of MusicaJuridica and strategic intellectual property lawyer at AIRecht, a technology consultancy firm based in Amsterdam. His work on regulating AI, machine learning training data and quantum technology has been published by Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley and Yale scholarly journals.

Mauritz delivered copyright expertise to the European Parliament during the EU Copyright Directive legislative process, and provided recommendations to the European Commission during the codification of the Artificial Intelligence Act, and the Data Act. He held IP, music and technology law guest teaching positions at Leiden University, Utrecht University and Maastricht University, and provided postdoctoral legal training to Supreme Court justices and lawyers at Radboud University.

Mauritz teaches AI, Data & IP law at CEIPI, University of Strasbourg, and is a member of the European AI Alliance (European Commission), IPREDICT (United Nations), the Dutch Copyright Society (VvA), CLAIRE, ECP, and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Mauritz is a frequently asked international conference speaker on topics in the nexus of AI, Data, Quantum and Law. His present cross-disciplinary, comparative research focuses on human-centered AI, quantum-ELSPI and sustainable disruptive innovation policy pluralism.

In his free time Mauritz enjoys tennis, yachting, long walks on the beach, and performing classical & electronic music. 

https://law.stanford.edu/directory/mauritz-kop/  

Bill has 20+ years of AI and data analytics experience from his technical and consulting roles at Dell Technologies, Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM. He currently leads the AI and Data Analytics practice in Canada for Dell Technologies, and spends his time working with healthcare and life sciences research organizations to define their AI strategy and deploy data-centric solutions to accelerate business insights. He is the writer and editor for an quarterly AI newsletter that is distributed worldwide, authored a number of books on advanced analytics, including a book focused on Bioinformatics and Proteomics, and recently became a contributing author for a paper published in Chemical Science, with researchers from UBC, focused on advancing drug discovery techniques by accelerating molecular docking with machine learning.

John is Boomi’s Global Healthcare CTO.  With over 30 years of experience in IT infrastructure and organizational management experience has held roles in Product Management, Healthcare Solutions Development and Chief Technology Officer.  In addition to Boomi, he has worked for technology OEMs: Dell, EMC, Lenovo, IBM, Motorola, and government agencies across different industry verticals.  John is focused on cloud, analytics and security solutions and manages Healthcare ISV relationships and their solutions efforts within the HCLS ecosystem.  His 20 years of software development efforts in the areas of healthcare standards and interoperability has created products focused on clinical information sharing and clinical imaging integration efforts.  In non-vendor roles, John has worked for payors and providers and has held positions as CTO/CISO for Healthcare Delivery Organizations focusing on technical transformation initiatives to support system wide clinical initiatives. He holds a Master of Science in Health Informatics from Northeastern University.

Dr. Sasha Luccioni is a Research Scientist working at Hugging Face. Her work aims to study the societal and ethical impacts of AI, and her goal is to find ways to maximize the positive effects of AI while minimizing the negative ones, be it from a research or application perspective. Sasha’s work has been featured in various news and media outlets such as MIT Technology Review, WIRED and the Wall Street Journal, among others, both her projects on the environmental impact of AI and those on how to reduce it. She is also a 2020 National Geographic Explorer and a founding member of Climate Change AI. 

Rahul G. Krishnan is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Medicine (Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology).

He is a member of the Vector Institute where he holds a CIFAR AI Chair. His research has developed new algorithms for probabilistic inference, and applied machine learning to problems in healthcare such as modeling disease progression and risk stratification.

He received his MS from New York University and his PhD in computer science from MIT in 2020. His research has been published in top machine learning venues such as NeurIPS, ICML, AISTATS and AAAI.

Gillian K. Hadfield is the director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. She is the Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society, professor of law and of strategic management at the University of Toronto, a faculty affiliate at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and a senior policy advisor at OpenAI. Her current research is focused on innovative design for legal and regulatory systems for AI and other complex global technologies; computational models of human normative systems; and working with machine learning researchers to build ML systems that understand and respond to human norms. Her book, Rules for a Flat World: Why Humans Invented Law and How to Reinvent It for a Complex Global Economy, is now available in paperback and on Audible.

Mo Chen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada, where he directs the Multi-Agent Robotic Systems Lab. He is also a CIFAR AI Chair, Amii Fellow, and NCRN Distal Fellow. Mo completed his PhD in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department at the University of California, Berkeley in 2017, and received his BASc in Engineering Physics from the University of British Columbia in 2011. From 2017 to 2018, He was a postdoctoral researcher in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at Stanford University. Mo’s research interests include optimal control, multi-agent systems, safety-critical systems, reinforcement learning, and human-robot interactions.

Dr. José-Marie Griffiths is president of Dakota State University in Madison, South Dakota.  President Griffiths has spent her career in research, teaching, public service, corporate leadership, workforce and economic development, and higher education administration, with special focus on work in STEM fields.  She has served in presidential appointments to the National Science Board, the U.S.  President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee, and the U.S.  National Commission on Libraries and Information Science.  She is a member of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, part of the John S.  McCain National Defense Authorization Act for 2020. She has led projects for over 28 U.S.  federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Department of Energy, and various intelligence and military agencies, with over 20 major corporations such as AT&T Bell Laboratories, IBM and Apple, in over 35 countries, and has worked with seven major international organizations, including NATO and the United Nations.  She has received over 20 significant awards in science, technology, teaching, and the advancement of women in these fields. 

President Griffiths has a B.Sc. (Honors) in Physics from University College, London; a Ph.D. in Information Science from University College, London; and completed a Post-Doctoral fellowship in Computer Science and Statistics at University College, London. She was also awarded an Honorary degree (D.Sc.) from University College, London for her career and success in science & technology, higher education, and regional/national leadership.

Davood Shamsi is a Senior Engineering Manager in Apple specialized in Optimization, AI and ML. He has led many projects that require in-depth interaction of real-world data, optimization and machine learning. Previously, he worked at advertising.com and developed various large scaling algorithms for ad optimization in digital advertising.  He received his PhD from Stanford University in Management Science and Engineering, and his Master’s degree from Rice University in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Caroline Schuerger is a Biotechnology Research Fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), where she works on emerging issues in biotechnology and AI. Her work at CSET focuses on bioeconomy, biosecurity, gain of function research, dual use research of concern, and genetic editing technologies. In addition to researching and publishing on these topics, Caroline has testified before the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense.

Prior to joining CSET, Caroline earned her PhD in Molecular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, where she researched epigenetic targets for non-toxic bladder cancer therapies to translate into the clinic. She was a 2020 Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Caroline also interned with the French Consulate of Atlanta as a Policy Analyst in the Office of Science and Technology. She has earned Bachelor degrees in Biology and Chemistry from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

Dr. Matthew E. Taylor is a Fellow-in-Residence and Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) and an Associate Professor of Computing Science at the University of Alberta. He is the Director of the Intelligent Robot Learning (IRL) Lab and a Principal Investigator at the Reinforcement Learning & Artificial Intelligence (RLAI) Lab, both at the University of Alberta. Matt is also Adjunct Professor at Washington State University and was formerly the Principal Researcher at Borealis AI in Edmonton, the artificial intelligence research lab for the Royal Bank of Canada. He has been a PI or co-PI on over $6M USD in competitively awarded research funding from federal, state, and industrial sources, including the National Science Foundation CAREER award. He has (co-)supervised seven graduated PhD students and six graduated MS students, as well as published over 100 peer-reviewed papers in conferences and journals. Please see Matt’s complete list of publications: https://irll.ca/publications

Claude Théoret is the founder and CEO of X Machina-AI. He had previously founded and exited Nexalogy, one of Montreal’s first AI companies. He played an active role in the birth and growth of Québec’s startup ecosystem. He is one of the top 40 startup mentors in the worldwide Founder Institute network. And is now an angel investor and mentor of several data oriented startups.

A former Astrophysicist he forged his technical skillset at the inception of bigdata and the web, while working with CERN he built his first website in 1994.

Previously, Claude was an astrophysicist with expertise in the management of innovation. One of the founding members of McGill University’s astronomy department, Claude was ranked first in the astronomy and astrophysics postdoctoral fellowship competition in Québec. He conducted his postdoctoral research at the Collège de France as a member of the prestigious HESS Collaboration (where he published twice in Nature and once in Science). After teaching as a professor of physics and statistics at the American University in Paris, Claude focused his analytical expertise on Co-Word Analysis, Actor Network Theory and their practical applications. Claude has done deep AI driven political and military intelligence work and has a “secret” level clearance with the CAF.

In 2019 he was appointed COO of Intema Solutions Inc ($ITM.V) and engineered a growth by acquisition strategy.

He is now a partner in his own micro VC and is an LP in several Canadian VC funds.

Claude has been an invited speaker at SXSW, InfoPresse and Creative Mornings, Datavore, TEDxMcGill, BigData Toronto, StartupFest, New York Internet week and many more conferences. Nexalogy finished 5th in the CIX top 20 startups in Canada in 2011 and won the best startup demo prize at the inaugural Startup Festival.

http://www.techvibes.com/blog/nexalogy-2014-11-07

http://www.montrealintechnology.com/inspiring-founders-nexalogys-claude-theoret-dusts-his-shoulders-off/

Dr Loubna Bouarfa is a machine learning scientist turned entrepreneur. She is an electrical engineer with a Doctorate in machine learning for healthcare applications. Dr Loubna Bouarfa is the founder and CEO of OKRA.ai – a leading artificial intelligence (AI) company for life sciences, that supports the industry in bringing the right drug to the right patient at speed. Prior to OKRA.ai, Loubna led different machine learning positions in startups and academia. Loubna was a member of the European Union High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, where she particularly focused on achieving competitive business impact with AI.

She was named an MIT Technology Review Top Innovator Under 35, a Forbes 50 Top Women In Tech, and won several prizes, including CEO of Year 2019 at the Cambridge Independent Science and Technology Awards and Best Female-Led Startup at the StartUp Europe Awards in 2019. Recently, Loubna has been selected as a European Young Leader (EYL40) for 2022. 2018-2021 Loubna contributed as a thought leader within European institutions, by supporting the European Commission and member states in the drafting of ethical guidelines for the future of artificial intelligence. She has also acted as an adviser in the recent work UN has undertaken on AI, which will lead to the creation of guidelines for the use and application of AI by SMEs in developing countries.

On a personal level, she is a strong advocate for diversity, women and challenging the status quo.

Patrick St-Amant is the CTO and co-founder of Zetane that patented the company’s technology underlying its software products for visual, intuitive displays of AI.

Previously, he was a mathematics professor at Collège International Saint-Anne and an independent researcher in numbers theory, set theory and fundamentals of mathematics. He also founded and managed the innovation Makerspace at College Saint-Anne where he guided and mentored over 100 student projects in mathematics. He received the Virtual and Augmented Reality Grant from Entente Canada-Quebec in 2016 to support the development of virtual and augmented reality applications for learning languages.

Patrick advanced research in mathematics, categories theories and foundation of computing groups at the University of Ottawa (2007). He was an invited scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2006 & 2007) where he studied neural sciences. He holds a M.Sc. in computer science and fundamental mathematics from UQAM (2007) and a Bachelor of Mathematics and Physics from UQAM (2004).

Topher White is a Conservation Technologist and the Founder / CEO of Rainforest Connection. As an inventor, field engineer and social entrepreneur, his accolades include such titles as WEF Young Global Leader, ROLEX Associate Laureate, NATGEO Explorer, DRK Fellow and an IEEE Engineering Hero.

Topher’s background is primarily in Physics, software development and Communication, having received a degree in Physics at Kenyon College and going on to work for years at SLAC Natl Accelerator Lab (High Energy Physics) and the ITER Organization (Fusion Power) in France. Along the way, he also served as CTO for two start-ups in San Francisco, where he obtained industry-level experience in software development–the foundation of the Rainforest Connection platform. 

His love of nature brought him to Borneo, Indonesia in 2011, where he came face-to-face with rampant tree poaching in reserves actively under protection by paid guards. The conclusion was that literal protection could only be possible if surveillance and accountability were made real-time, globally accessible, and inexpensive. From a technological standpoint, the solution to real-time detection was clear, but the true power rested in the potential of such technology in finally leveraging modern social paradigms and global enthusiasm to incentivize a decrease in deforestation at the local level. To realize this potential, Rainforest Connection was born.

Noha is the CEO for the Institute for Transformative Technologies (ITT) whose mission is to develop breakthrough technologies and spin-off businesses to address issues affecting low-income communities. ITT’s portfolio spans energy access, sanitation, food security and health. She also serves as President of Oxygen Hub, an initiative of ITT.

Prior to ITT, Noha served as founder and president of Engineering for Change, LLC (E4C), a global alliance of 15 organizations and 1 million+ individuals dedicated to promoting sustainable and accessible technology-based solutions for under-served communities worldwide. Noha also served as the Executive Director of the ASME Foundation in New York City, focusing on K-16 STEM education, innovation, and sustainable design.

Noha earned her BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineering from Columbia University and has two U.S. patents related to broadband equipment design. She served as Adjunct Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU in Brooklyn, N.Y. Noha currently chairs the External Advisory Board of Columbia University’s Mechanical Engineering Department. In 2013 she was named the recipient of the American Association of Engineering Societies’ Kenneth Andrew Roe Award and more recently, she was selected as one of New York Business Journal’s Women of Influence.

Olivier is co-founder and VP of decision science at Moov AI. He is the editor of the international ISO standard that defines the quality of artificial intelligence systems, where he leads a team of 50 AI professionals from around the world.
His cutting-edge AI and machine learning knowledge have led him to implement a data culture in various industries and support digital transformation projects in many companies such as Pratt & Whitney, Metro, Sharethrough, and Premier Tech.

He is a mentor for in AI for Creative Destruction Labs and coaches several start-ups. As a speaker, his topics of choice are adopting and applying AI and responsible AI.

Olivier is the recipient of the prestigious “30 under 30” award (Infopresse – 2019) and is co-author of a patent for an advanced algorithm that evaluates a borrower’s creditworthiness.

Hunter is a co-founder and the CEO of Terrafuse. Before Terrafuse AI, Hunter worked at Ajax Strategies, where she invested in early stage climate technology companies, seven of which have since exited including three public offerings. She also served on the philanthropy team at Energy Innovation supporting nonprofits focused on decarbonization. Prior to that, Hunter designed solutions for climate change adaptation and habitat restoration as an environmental engineer. Hunter studied business at The Wharton School’s MBA program and Environmental Science at UCLA.

Dorian Kieken is a tech leader and entrepreneur who founded AIR (AI Redefined). The company leverages the advent of AI to the benefit of humankind through human-AI collaboration technology. AIR’s platform Cogment has been recognized with the 2021 AI TechAward for “Best in Open Source AI Technology”, among other accolades. Prior to founding AIR, Dorian held multiple leadership roles at DC Studios, Minority Media and BioWare, where he co-founded and developed the company’s Montreal studio into a thriving enterprise. His passion for strategic team building and collaborative innovation has yielded multiple Game of the Year awards. An active member of the Montreal AI Ethics Group, Dorian is a strong believer in taking key actions today to nudge humanity towards a good future.

Highly qualified Chief Technology Officer and Technology Strategist with more than 20 years of experience in IT strategy formulation, business strategy formulation, business scenario development, and innovation. Profound knowledge of service architecture development, IT governance formulation, new technology evaluation, and IT risk management. Competent in planning, execution, and lead of complex technology programs in different sectors (Financial, Mining, Education, Engineering, & Telecommunication).Certifications:Electrical & Electronic Engineering, from Middle East Technical University, Turkey; Mini-MBA, Executive Development, from McGill University; Strategic Leadership & Innovation, from York University; Economy of Artificial Intelligence, from University of Toronto; Design of Digital Building, from Harvard University; More than 50 technical certificates from PMI, Microsoft, CISCO, AWS, IASA, C|EH, APC

Fiona J McEvoy is an AI ethics writer, researcher, speaker, and thought leader based in San Francisco, CA. She was named one of the 30 Women Influencing AI in San Francisco by RE•WORK, and was recently honored in the inaugural Brilliant Women in AI Ethics™ Hall of Fame, established at the end of 2020 to recognize “brilliant women who have made exceptional contributions to the space of AI Ethics and diversity.”

Fiona is the founder of YouTheData.com, a platform for the discussion of the societal impact of tech and AI, and she has had numerous articles published in media outlets including Slate, VentureBeat, The Next Web, Offscreen, and All Turtles.  Fiona is also regularly asked to present her ideas to AI conferences across the US and internationally, and in recent years has addressed events in Canada, Spain, Portugal, and Mexico. Her work has been referenced in books, including Francine Banner’s Crowdsourcing the Law, David Vance’s Business Essentials, and Jeff Mapua’s Virtual Reality and You.

Fiona holds a graduate degree in Philosophy, with a special focus on ethics and technology.

During her career, she has performed the role of director, manager, consultant and clinician. Wherever she has worked, she has created and has piloted projects that go beyond the framework. She has also excelled at team management and organizational development.

She is a passionate person who acts to transform health systems for the benefit of the patients, the public and health teams. Currently, her greatest, most central challenge is to make the CHUM one of the best places in the world to learn, teach and create the health of the future. 

Natalie Mayerhofer is Associate to the Chief Learning Officer at the CHUM. During her international career, she has developed expertise in innovation policy, program evaluation, and strategic planning. She thrives on innovative projects, including her greatest challenge, the development of CHUM’s School of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare.

Todd Coleman is the Founder, President and CEO of eStruxture. Todd brings more than 25 years’ experience in the IT, data center and telecommunications industries. Previously, Todd was the Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of Cologix. He has also held several senior positions at Level 3 Communications, a global telecommunications company, including Senior Vice President of Data Centers, Senior Vice President of Media Operations, and President of Level 3 Communications Europe. Todd holds a juris doctorate and a bachelor’s degree in computer information systems. Todd is a sought-after industry speaker and an advocate of sustainable digital infrastructure ecosystems, as well as DE&I. At the same time, Todd is an accomplished race car driver, competing in the Ferrari Challenge and the GT4 Challenge.

Michael Akinwumi leads NFHA’s Tech Equity Initiative. The Tech Equity Initiative (TEI) is a multi-faceted effort launched by NFHA to increase the fairness of and re-shape the design of algorithmic systems in the housing and financial services industries. Conducting research to advance the AI fairness field is a cornerstone of the TEI.

Dr. Akinwumi coordinates stakeholder activities involving identifying, testing, validating, and publicizing AI-centric underwriting and pricing methodologies which responsibly advance fair lending and fair housing. He is responsible for acquiring and managing data and technologies for the Initiative while managing cross-functional relationships to ensure that solutions that result from the Initiative meet needs across NFHA and of other stakeholders. Previously, Dr. Akinwumi led governance engineering efforts at a FinTech by minimizing exposures to regulatory risks, managed a machine learning-powered recommender system that presents product and service offers to retail customers of a bank, and pioneered the use of machine learning solutions in auto and property insurance pricing of a P&C insurance company. Dr. Akinwumi lives his belief that “only a life lived for others is worth living.”

As a Tech Equity Analyst and FairOps Team Lead, Snigdha manages policy and development requests related to tech equity from within and outside NFHA. She also researches regulations that are applicable to works within the Tech Equity department and assures solutions developed within the department pass FAIR (Fairness, Auditability, Interpretability, and Responsibility) checks.

Courtney Cole is the Founder and CEO at ForaHealthyMe Inc. The ForaHealthyMe AI Tele-Rehab solution is multi-language cloud-based platform. It is an open intuitive AI platform, with all-in-one applications for remote therapy management and proven efficacy in physical rehabilitation support.  The solution utilizes AI, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Conversational Computing and Gaming technologies. The platform addresses gaps in care during the discharge and home care phases of care. It delivers all-in-one comprehensive care tools to address the complex needs of patients with Musculoskeletal, Cardiology, Neurological and Cognitive health issues.  

As an entrepreneur and founder, he has worked with partners and customers in the United States, Europe, and Asia to solve complex health challenges for mental health, spinal cord injury, musculoskeletal, cardiac, long COVID and related issues. His collaborations and products have resulted in system improvements and demonstrated costs savings and health outcomes improvements for patients. Output has included multiple publications in international academic journals.  

As a thought leader and panelist, he has presented at several international trade shows. These conferences including the Canadian Space Agency Annual Colloquium Healthcare Without Boundaries, and the Digital Therapy Industry in China Forum. He mentors and coaches STEM students and graduates on applying skills in software development, AI, UX Design and biomedical engineering to solve complex health issues.  

Aurélie Labbe is a full professor at HEC Montréal in the Department of Decision Sciences. After receiving her PhD in statistics in 2005 from the university of Waterloo , Ms. Labbe was hired as an associate professor in Université Laval’s math and statistics department, where she taught until 2009. During her four years at Université Laval, she consolidated her knowledge and expanded her network of partners in the field of genetic statistics. In 2009, she joined the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University, where she was first an assistant professor, then an associate professor until 2016. She was also a researcher at The Douglas Hospital Research Centre, a McGill affiliate. She has developed her research portfolio as a lead researcher on several projects funded in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) with the goal of developing statistical tools for analyzing gene data and methylation. These tools have further applications in neuroscience. She has also taken part in a number of collaborative projects in these fields.

In 2016, Ms. Labbe joined the Department of Decision Sciences at HEC Montréal as an associate professor. She has since branched out to other fields of data science, focusing on the analytical challenges generated by data from intelligent transportation systems. In 2019, she was awarded a FRQ-IVADO research chair in data science.

A former rector of Université de Montréal as well as Vice-Principal (Academic) and Provost of McGill University, Dr. Luc Vinet has been Director of the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) since 2013.

He is also Aisenstadt Professor of Physics at Université de Montréal. Dr. Vinet was a founding director of MITACS, Canada’s national network of centres of excellence, and has also been instrumental in the creation of many other leading research networks in Québec and the rest of Canada. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Officer of the Ordre National du Québec, and the recipient of multiple distinctions in Québec, Canada and internationally for his achievements, including the Government of Québec’s prestigious Armand-Frappier Prize. He has made many scientific contributions in various fields of theoretical physics and mathematics.

In August 2021, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of IVADO, the Institute for Data Valorization, a joint initiative of HEC Montréal, Polytechnique Montréal and Université de Montréal. IVADO, comprising more than 150 industry, institutional and government partners, is an institute for research and advanced transfer in data science, operations research and artificial intelligence with more than 1,400 scientists in its network.

Born in Montréal, Dr. Vinet holds a doctorate (3rd cycle) from Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris) and a PhD from Université de Montréal, both in theoretical physics. After two years as a research associate at MIT, he was appointed as assistant professor in the Physics Department at Université de Montréal in the early 1980s and promoted to full professor in 1992. His research work focuses generally on the exact solution of physical models through the study of symmetries and their description in terms of algebraic structures.

His numerous distinctions include the prestigious Armand-Frappier Prize, awarded by the Government of Québec in 2009, and the CAP-CRM Prize, which he received in 2012 in recognition of his work in theoretical and mathematical physics. Dr. Vinet also holds an honorary doctorate from Université Claude-Bernard in Lyon, France.

Rahul Raina is a Senior Data Scientist at Microsoft focussed on Power & Utilities, Retail, Manufacturing, Healthcare and Financial Services verticals in Canada. Previously, Rahul has implemented AI, Blockchain, Big Data & Analytics solutions at firms such as the Bank of America, Bell Canada, Deloitte and Ernst & Young (EY). Rahul holds MSc and BSc in Computer Science from the University of Oxford, and the University of Toronto, respectively. He also holds MBA from York University.

Maxime is the Scale AI Chair Professor of Retail and Operations Management and co-director of the Retail Innovation Lab at McGill University. He is the Chief AI Officer of ELNA Medical and a Scientific Advisor in AI and Data Science at IVADO Labs. He is actively advising corporations, retailers, and startups on topics related to pricing, retail, and data science. He has collaborated with many companies including Google, Waze, Oracle, IBM Research, Via, Spotify, Aldo Group, CoucheTard and he is on the advisory board of several startups.

Marie-Claude is an artificial intelligence and operations research specialist, mainly focused on retail and supply chain applications. Before joining IVADO Labs, she created and developed Element AI’s AI core group, the principal group responsible for building the AI technology for the company’s products, as well as led JDA Labs’ data science team. She is co-inventor of more than 10 patents and holds a PhD in applied mathematics from École Polytechnique de Montréal.

With 20+ years experience developing enterprise-grade supply chain technology solutions for Fortune 1000 clients, Serge has proven he can build and run global technology organizations. Most recently, he was the global CTO for JDA. He was also a member of the Google Cloud Advisory Board for several years and co-authored the book “Supply Chain for Dummies”.

Ainesh Pandey is a Senior Data Scientist on IBM’s Data Science Elite Team. Ainesh holds Bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Business Data Analytics, and he has a Master’s in “data science-y stuff” from Carnegie Mellon University. He’s been an individual contributor and led engagements on the DSE for over four years, with a focus on forecasting and ML models for various manufacturing, retail, marketing, finance, telecommunications, and government clients.

Sarah Jenna is the co-founder and CEO of My Intelligent Machines Inc. (MIMs) and was also an associate professor specialized in genomics and genetics at the department of biochemistry at UQÀM.  

Sarah received her Ph.D. in Cell and Structural Biology, from Aix-Marseille University in France. She completed her postdoctoral training in cell signalling at McGill University and was also platform manager of the Montréal Proteomic Network. In 2006, her dual expertise in cellular and genomic signalling led her to be awarded a NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) Junior Canada Research Chair in Integrative Genomics and Cell Signaling at UQÀM, where she also co-founded and was the director of Pharmaqam, a university research center focusing on drug development. 

As a principal investigator at UQÀM, Sarah directed a research laboratory developing new integrative genomics strategies to better understand the functional interactions between genes in model organisms and in breast cancer in humans. As co-founder and CEO of MIMs, she translates her 20 years of experience and expertise to provide MIMs’ clients with cutting edge integrative genomics strategies & systems biology while paying particular attention to the specific needs of life scientists working in BioPharma, and research institutes.

Sarah is a board member of CQDM, PINQ and BioQuebec.

Aaron Labbé is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of LUCID, an AI digital music therapy startup. LUCID is working to revolutionize mental health through the power of music and machine learning. Their mission is to transform music into medicine, and create a more empathetic approach to mental health care through personalized music-based interventions.

 
After facing severe mental health battles in his youth, Aaron developed the initial concept for LUCID during his thesis in New Media and Computational Art at Ryerson University. He is the recipient of several Canada Council awards. He has guest lectured at Ryerson University, and spoken at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, Dutch Design Week, Toronto Interior Design Show, and Wallifornia Music Tech.

 
Aaron has authored three patents, including the Affective Music Recommendation System (AMRS) which is the core of LUCID’s therapeutic music technology. AMRS is a deep reinforcement learning system that predicts and generates playlists to help users move towards their target mood state.

An experienced Analytics Leader & Strategist with 10+ years of working in the consumer goods industry, Daniel Lavinskas has been involved in various branches of BRP from M&A to Strategic Planning. For the last 2 years he has been leading the strategy & implementation of the Analytics & AI Centre of Excellence for BRP. His focus has been on enabling innovation and AI transformations by building development teams from the ground up. Daniel has been instrumental in identifying and spearheading the AI initiative(s) at BRP and as CoE Lead will be heavily involved in the project to ensure its success by steering the team towards the right business value and by participating in key workshops and model and output review sessions providing the expertise which bridges the AI and business strategies.

Kenny Chen is a Master in Public Policy student at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a student researcher at Harvard’s Technology and Public Purpose Project, where he explores trustworthy human-AI systems and evaluates pathways for improving the governance of digital platforms. He also works as a graduate intern at the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), where he analyzes interventions and countermeasures against mis-/dis-/malinformation. In 2018, Kenny co-founded the Partnership to Advance Responsible Technology (PART), a nonprofit think tank that engages diverse stakeholders in guiding the responsible development and governance of data-driven technologies.

Kenny received a bachelor’s degree in social psychology from UC Berkeley in 2012, and has spent the last decade working across a wide range of sectors and industries, including education, behavioral research, federal government, local government, philanthropy, nonprofits, economic development, investment, and entrepreneurship. Going forward, his key concerns and interests lie at the intersection of US-China relations and technology governance, where he is dedicated to helping mitigate global catastrophic risks.

Patricia Thaine is a Computer Science PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto and a Vector Institute alumna doing research on privacy-preserving natural language processing with a focus on applied cryptography. She also does research on computational methods for lost language decipherment. Patricia is a recipient of the NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship the RBC Graduate Fellowship the Beatrice “Trixie” Worsley Graduate Scholarship in Computer Science and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. She has eight years of research and software development experience including at the McGill Language Development Lab the University of Toronto’s Computational Linguistics Lab the University of Toronto’s Department of Linguistics and the Public Health Agency of Canada. 

Marie-Paule holds a Master’s in International Affairs, with a focus on international finance and economic policy, from Columbia University-SIPA, and a Bachelor of Laws from Université de Montréal. Marie-Paule took over the leadership of the Forum after working on the adoption of research, science and innovation policies within the Quebec government. Previously, she was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company and a commercial litigation lawyer at Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg. Between 2016 and 2018, Marie-Paule took part in Québec’s first efforts to structure its rising AI ecosystem.

Ellen Xu is the youngest deep learning student researcher at the UCSD Kawasaki Disease Research Center/Rady Children’s Hospital. She has pioneered the development of the first AI image recognition algorithm for Kawasaki disease early diagnosis, starting when she was 14. Her research has been recognized by the Scripps “Young Scientist” Award, International Science & Engineering Fair Grand Award 3rd place, and induction into the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society.

Ashley has been at the forefront of building tools and policy interventions to support the responsible use and adoption of innovative technologies, both with her work at the Government of Canada, and as the Executive Director of AI Global, a multi-stakeholder non-profit dedicated to mitigating harm and unintended consequences of AI systems. As a recognized leader in the social tech community she has developed a strong reputation for developing workable governance for data, artificial intelligence, and open source tools. Her work and ability to bring experts together to solve important challenges has led to meaningful change in government and beyond. Her work helps to inform government, industry, and academic research. She is currently a member of the following initiatives:

• Chair, Responsible AI Certification Working Group, World Economic Forum
• OECD’s Network of Experts, AI Policy Observatory
• Canada’s AI Strategy Council Public Awareness Working Group
• The Canadian Data Governance Collaboration Steering Committee
• Responsible AI Advisor to the United States Government Accountability Office
• Responsible AI standards – ISO JTC1/SC42, IEEE, CIO Strategy Council
• The Open Community for Ethics in Autonomous and Intelligent Systems (OCEANIS)
• Advisor to InnSoTech project for Alberta “HelpSeekers” Initiative
• Member of Advisory Board for NSERC research project at University of Toronto, “CREATE Responsible AI”
• Industry Advisor for independent study, “Current Health Regulations and their impact on AI,” University of Texas, Faculty of Law

Raed Abdullah has worked in the energy field for over 30 years, and almost all of it for Hydro Ottawa, in various capacities. Hydro Ottawa is Canada’s National Capital’s electricity distributor for over 340,000 customers. He’s been fortunate to have led, participated or witnessed the utility advance with many innovative projects over his career, the most recent the EV Everywhere project led by BluWave-ai and funded by the IESO Grid Innovation Fund. Raed is a professional engineer in Ontario, an IEEE Senior Member, and a humble member of his family of a professional wife and two teenage boys. As a continuous learner, he’s here to learn from you through the Q&A and other interactions too.

Devashish Paul founded BluWave-ai after an extensive career in the semiconductor industry focused on supercomputing, artificial intelligence, and networking. He is a life-long cyclist and nature enthusiast using human powered energy for personal transportation to explore the world. Devashish founded the company combining his interest in clean energy technologies with advanced computing and networking technologies.

During his 20+ years in the tech world, Devashish has led successful innovations in a diversity of markets at Canadian start-ups, Toronto Stock Exchange-listed, and Silicon Valley public companies, most recently at Integrated Device Technologies as Director of Strategic Marketing. He has grown businesses in Europe, Asia, and North American from the startup level to $110M annual revenue. In industry leadership roles, he ran the High Performance Computing Group in the Open Compute Project (started by Facebook) to create open industry computing platforms for low latency workloads. Devashish also served as an advisory board member for the CERN OpenLab.

Devashish earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Royal Military College followed by a Masters in Electrical Engineering (Digital Signal Processing) and an MBA in Marketing, both from the University of Ottawa. He is a veteran of the Royal Canadian Air Force.  

Devashish is a 31-time Ironman triathlon finisher, has coached masters athletes to 100+ finishes, was a coach for 14 years with the Kanata Nordic Ski Club, and has raced for Canada in 10 world championships. He is also a world traveler who loves connecting with people in diverse cultures both for personal interests and driving BluWave-ai’s goal to become the premier global renewable energy AI company.

Anshika Khandelwal is an Associate Technical Architect at Quantiphi, an award-winning AI-first digital engineering company. She is a Subject Matter Expert for ML and DL solutions with a major focus on Forecasting and Operations Research projects across the organization. With a formal background in Statistics and expertise in the retail sector, she has shaped enterprise Supply Chain solutions for several Fortune 500 clients. She has led the initiative on the research and development of statistical and deep learning methods in forecasting and operations and has successfully productionalized them on cloud infrastructures. Along with huge improvements in cost and time, these solutions have helped firms understand the changing consumer behavior and move towards a more sustainable future.

Parag has over 15 years of consulting and corporate experience in the energy, utilities and infrastructure sector in alternative energy business development, strategy and mergers and acquisitions. In his current role at PowerON which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ontario Power Generation, Parag leads the development, acquisition and deployment of transit and fleet electrification infrastructure and energy management systems across Canada. In his previous role at Aecon Group, Parag led the mergers and acquisitions group as well as the development of corporate strategy. Previously, Parag has led strategic business development for Enbridge Gas in non-traditional markets and fuels (Hydrogen, Geothermal).

Guillaume is a serial corporate entrepreneur who brings 25 years of leadership experience from technology-driven industries, including aerospace, healthcare, defense and modeling and simulation. He was President and CEO of Presagis, Founder and CEO of CAE Healthcare, held various senior leadership roles at CAE Inc., is a highly sought-after consultant in strategic planning and innovation, and successfully published Winning at Intrapreneurship. Guillaume has also been very active mentoring founders of technology start-ups at FounderFuel, Techstars, Concordia District 3, and CTS Health and is Chairman of the Board of CTS Health and CMLabs.

With over 15 years in the electricity sector, Patrick is an experienced people and thought leader in the areas of innovation, long term strategy, and partnerships. He is currently the Senior Manager of Partnerships in Innovation, Research, and Development at the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) where he oversees the Grid Innovation Fund and its $55M portfolio of active projects which funds innovative and clean technologies with significant potential to enable ratepayer cost savings and improved reliability. Prior Patrick held various positions at Hydro One, including leading its 10 year distribution strategy and advising on grid modernization through SCADA technologies to improve system reliability. Patrick currently represents Canada as a National Expert in the areas of Transmission-Distribution Power Systems and Flexibility Markets at the International Smart Grid Action Network (ISGAN) as a part of the Internal Energy Agency (IEA). He sits on the boards of both Mohawk College’s Energy, Power, Innovation Centre (EPIC) and the DesignLights Consortium (DLC).

Dr. Victor Lee is the VP of Machine Learning and AI at TigerGraph. He brings a strong academic background, decades of industry experience, and a commitment to quality and service. Victor was a circuit designer and technology transfer manager at Rambus, before returning to school for his computer science PhD, focusing on graph data mining. He received his BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley, MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and PhD in Computer Science from Kent State University. Before TigerGraph he was a visiting professor at John Carroll University.

George Korkejian is the Director of Ventures at Next AI – Montréal, the leading accelerator and founder development program for artificial intelligence-based ventures. George oversees the recruitment, the selection and the guidance ventures receive throughout the 6-month intensive program, leading startups to develop their technical, business and entrepreneurial skills. George has been actively involved within the startup ecosystem and has previously held roles such as Product Manager Consultant for different Montreal startups, as well as active investment roles within Montreal-based venture capital funds including BCF Ventures and Amorchem. He is also a Mentor for the Founder Institute and Fintech Cadence cohorts. George holds an M.Sc. in health economics and market access from the University of Montréal.

Farmer by nature, technology enthusiastic by trade, Yves Daoust is a graduate in engineering from Polytechnique. He has devoted his career to solving challenges for industries undergoing drastic changes, such as telecommunications and information technology. Yves founded Winter Farm in 2018 with the ambition to solve worldwide challenges such as food security and climate change. Since then, he has been using technology for the benefit of market gardeners in order to enhance agricultural work and ensure the sustainable development of our food resources.

Ian is the Founder of IJW & Co. and serves as Managing Director and CEO of the firm. He has advised hundreds of corporations around the globe across numerous industries on matters of corporate divestitures, mergers and acquisitions, negotiation strategy and business valuation. Ian has developed a specialization in the technology sector and has been fortunate enough to work on transactions alongside some of North America’s top tech companies. Ian is also the co-founder and former board member of the M&A Club, a networking group comprising of 15 chapters with over 400 M&A professionals. He also sits on the board of various technology and consumer product-based companies. In 2013, Ian was awarded the prestigious Top 40 Under 40 by the M&A Advisor, winning in the dealmaker category.

Ian holds an undergraduate degree from the John Molson School of Business with a major in Finance, graduating with distinction, holds the Chartered Business Valuator (CBV) designation, and is a Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS).

Sacha Leprêtre is Presagis’ Chief Technology Officer leading the company’s Innovation and Technology effort to create a Next Generation 3D Digital Twins and simulations platform using Artificial Intelligence (AI). He has deep knowledge and expertise in AI, Deep Learning, Cloud Technology and 3D. Before joining Presagis, he was Director of Innovation Development & Technology at the Mila AI Institute, working on innovative projects with Prof. Yoshua Bengio one of the deep learning godfathers, along with Hinton, and LeCun. Sacha also worked for the software company Autodesk, in M&E, AEC and manufacturing industries leveraging AI and Cloud for products with millions of customers such as 3dsMax, Maya, Revit, Autocad, and Fusion. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sachalepretre/

Paul Hake is a Principal Data Scientist on the IBM Data Science and AI Elite Team and has 15 years’ experience in client facing technical roles. Paul is commercially focused and has deep expertise in communicating the business benefits and technical aspects of solutions to business, technical, and data science audiences. 

He is an expert across the AI and data engineering spectrum with a recent focus on client projects involving: 

Trustworthy AI, Machine Learning Operations ,and AI Governance 

Natural Language Processing (NLP) – e.g. Risk adjusted scoring, prior authorization 

Predictive Analytics/Machine Learning – e.g. ICU Demand forecasting (COVID) 

Risk Modeling – morbidity and mortality modeling 

Deep Learning – Epilepsy Seizure detection/prediction

Alain Silverwood is Technical Director with the Technology & Innovation group at Evoqua Water Technology in Montreal.  He has over 40 years of experience in water treatment, including filtration and separation. He actively participated to the development of several water treatment technologies, like: biofiltration for BOD, TSS and nitrification in cold water, biofiltration of iron and manganese, ballasted rapid settling, electro-dewatering of sludges, and the Vortisand® Cross-Flow Microsand Filter.  Now looking to develop technologies that will aim to the future of water treatment and the contaminants of emerging concerns while integrating to our installation’s better knowledge with AI.

Sarah Larose is a Director, Business Development, Foreign Attraction Investment at Investissement Québec. She is responsible for the elaboration and roll-out of customised strategies required to attract and retain foreign investment. These include structuring viable financial solutions by showcasing all the financial tools managed by Investment Quebec and its partners.

Prior to joining Investissement Québec, Sarah worked for three years at Element AI, an artificial intelligence startup, both as a Strategic Account Executive and later, as a Government Relation Manager. Her first role was to engage with Csuite and VP level executives at global companies to generate new business revenue, while also building rapport with senior level executives and advising on best practice business solutions. As a founding member of Element AI’s Government Relations and Public Policy team, she informed governments and regulators regarding the significant future implications of data and AI.

Previously, she also worked at Montreal International where she assisted and advised foreign companies looking to invest in the Greater Montreal region. She also was a Trade Commissioner at Global Affairs Canada where she assisted Canadian companies with export development, innovation, and with investment strategy and sourcing.