News
Amii's Adam Danyleyko moderates a Canadian AI panel discussion at Fu's Repair Shop as part of Upper Bound 2024. Photo credit: Ampersand Grey.
Growing and launching a startup has always been difficult. Over the past few years, we’ve seen the rise of AI intensify that difficulty.
As more startups across Canada integrate this new technology into their business and product offerings, they’re bumping up against increasingly complex problems, with limited time and resources to find solutions.
“I have the privilege to lead the Startups team at Amii. Since 2021, we’ve helped more than 150 startups explore, build, and deploy ML & AI technologies,” says Adam Danyleyko, Product Owner - Startups at Amii.
“And after spending countless hours speaking with those in the community at Upper Bound, Inventures, and Collision over the past month, I’m more confident than ever that startups need our support.”
AI-driven startups face entirely unique challenges: the rapid pace of ML advancement, growing pains from scaling, market demand for effective AI features or capabilities, the pursuit of funding, and on and on and on. For growing startups, it can be difficult to know where to start.
"I’m more confident than ever that startups need our support."
Adam Danyleyko, Product Owner - Startups at Amii.
Insights lifted directly from the community motivated Adam’s team to build Level Up: a program and network to support and empower startups with ML at their core.
Their journey began with a simple yet profound observation: while AI and ML hold transformative potential, the path to harnessing this potential is fraught with obstacles.
Through conversations with Founders, CTOs and ML Leads, they identified common threads:
Level Up bridges these support gaps.
The main tenets of Level Up are:
Innovation thrives in an ecosystem of collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Level Up fosters meaningful connections between program peers and industry experts, creating a fertile ground for ideas to flourish.
To remain leaders in their respective domains and drive innovation within their industries, startups must keep up with the latest research and industry trends. Level Up offers expertise from academic and industry luminaries, providing startups with invaluable insights into emerging technologies and best practices.
Technological prowess isn’t the only factor to success. Strategic partnerships and talent acquisition are equally important. Through Level Up, startups can enhance their credibility and build their dream technical team through formal partnerships and access to Amii's network of top ML talent.
In practice, this looks like:
With three cohorts completed, 38 companies have flourished through the program's tailored support. In their own words:
"The Level Up program stands out in the startup landscape, offering exceptional, hands-on support and mentorship that's directly fuelled our growth."
Nick Mastromattei, Co-Founder of Picsume
"We have deployed two new AI models based on the research and recommendations from the Amii team, resulting in accuracy improvements of 7 to 12% over our existing models."
Tali Remennik, CEO & Co-Founder of Granularity
"This personalized approach has been instrumental in overcoming obstacles and driving our team's success forward."
Ruchita Orzario, Lead Data Scientist at EZ Ops
The program has delivered transformative support to dozens of startups, helping to accelerate ML capabilities, forge essential connections, and overcome industry challenges.
As interest and investment in the AI startup space reach new heights, the pressure to integrate AI well and fast is also rising.
With this technology, AI Startups aren't just navigating uncharted territory — they're navigating uncharted territory while the landscape changes in real time.
Through Level Up, Amii equips startups with the tools, expertise, and network needed to thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
Learn more about our Level Up program and sign up to receive a notice when applications re-open!
If you still have questions about how Level Up can help your startup accelerate its ML efforts, talk to our team: book a meeting or shoot an email to startups@amii.ca.
Sep 5th 2024
News
Martha White — an Amii Fellow and Canada CIFAR AI Chair — has been admitted to the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists by the Royal Society of Canada for her research accomplishments in artificial intelligence.
Aug 29th 2024
News
Amii partners with SpectraCann to enhance THC drug detection by harnessing AI and quantum optics. The project is supported by the PrairiesCan commitment to accelerate AI adoption among SMEs in the Prairie region.
Aug 28th 2024
News
Read our monthly update on Alberta’s growing machine intelligence ecosystem and exciting opportunities to get involved.
Looking to build AI capacity? Need a speaker at your event?