March News: Alberta Budget Announcement & Tickets Now on Sale for AI Week

Hi there,

We’ve seen some fantastic developments at Amii over the past month, including the announcement of $73 million for tech and innovation in Alberta’s 2022.23 Budget. With this renewed support, we are excited to further our work advancing the science of AI, nurturing the growth of one of the world’s best talent pipelines, and guiding businesses as they grow their in-house AI capabilities.

If you’ve been thinking about how your or your business can be part of the energy, here are a couple of great ways to connect with Alberta’s AI community:

• Tickets are now on sale for AI Week 2022! With four ticket types available based on experience level and interest – including a free option – we invite you to celebrate Alberta’s rich history of AI innovation with us. Get your ticket now!
• Learn how AI is affecting businesses just like yours in our new monthly industry-focused newsletter! Each month, we’ll include answers to your burning AI questions, case studies showing the real-life application of AI, and industry-focused events. Sign up now – the first edition will hit inboxes later this month.

We have loads of other great things in the works – and we can’t wait to share them with you in the coming months. For now, read below and discover the latest trends in machine learning, opportunities to develop new skills, and what’s happening in Alberta’s AI ecosystem.

See you soon,

March Highlights

Industry & Community Updates:

• Amii applauds Government of Alberta support for AI through a recently announced investment of $74 million in the Technology and Innovation Strategy. Read Amii CEO Cam Linke's thoughts on the impact of this renewed support.
• Applications are now open for the CIFAR Deep Learning + Reinforcement Learning Summer School! DLRL Summer School brings together graduate students, post-docs and professionals to cover the foundational research, new developments, and real-world applications of deep learning and reinforcement learning.
• Watch the February 2022 edition of Amii's AI Meetup now! The event was hosted by Amii's Mara Cairo (Product Owner - Apprentice Programming & Placement) and featured an AI Ecosystems Project participant: Mehadi Sayed, President & CEO at Clinisys.
• Amii’s Stephanie Enders (VP - Product) spoke with Alberta Impact with Bryce Lambert on the power of AI in the workplace and how companies can adopt, integrate and succeed with machine learning.
• Amii CEO Cam Linke spoke with Taproot Edmonton about how AI Week Talent Bursaries aim to draw talent to Edmonton.
• Congrats to our friends at MDA, who have been awarded a $269 million contract to continue work on the Canadarm3.
• ICYMI: the worldwide demand for AI skills is growing – learn how some companies are bridging the gap in the AI Skills Gap white paper, presented by Amii and Microsoft.
• We’re proud to sponsor the Young AI Role Model of the Year Award at this year’s Women in AI Awards North America.

Research Updates:

• Explore the roadblocks that come with developing AI to work alongside health care providers in our article Overcoming challenges in healthcare AI: successfully deploying machine-learned models in medicine, featuring Russ Greiner (Fellow, Canada CIFAR AI Chair at Amii).
• The BLINC Lab was profiled recently by Edmonton Global! Patrick Pilarski (Fellow, Canada CIFAR AI Chair at Amii) talks about the lab’s goal to create more natural, intuitive artificial limbs for people with amputations.
• In a recent AI Seminar, Richard S. Sutton (Chief Scientific Advisor, Fellow & Canada CIFAR AI Chair at Amii) presents on sensorimotor experience – the sensations and actions of an agent’s ordinary interaction with the world.
• Bingshu Hu’s (Amii Postdoctoral Fellow) AI Seminar focuses on the exploration/exploitation dilemma faced in multi-armed bandit problems.

Training Updates:

• Take the first step in your AI learning journey with ML Foundations 1! This live online class will give you a crash course on the basics, building foundational knowledge using real-world examples. Register for our April 7 class.
• ML Foundations 2 continues to build off of the foundational knowledge taught in ML Foundations 1, taking a closer look at technical concepts. Register for our April 14 class!

Alberta AI Ecosystems Project: Case Studies

The Ecosystems Project is an Alberta Artificial Intelligence Ecosystem Initiative supported by Amii and funded in part by Prairies Canada.

The initiative brought together nine organizations from non-profit, business and academia to establish viable uses for artificial intelligence and machine learning in health and data analytics. Get to know program participants in this month’s case studies:

• The Department of Radiation Oncology at Edmonton’s Cross Cancer Institute is investigating how AI can analyze resource allocation to improve patient care.
• By combining advanced biosensors with AI, Edmonton-based biotech company Bio-Stream Diagnostics has been working on developing faster, cheaper and more accurate COVID rapid tests.
• The average Canadian spends 11 hours in front of a screen, affecting our eyes and sleep patterns. With the help of AI, Umay is developing a device to combat digital eye strain.
• The Canadian Sport Institute (CSI) Calgary is using AI to help Canada's Olympic and Paralympic athletes strive for gold.

Get Your AI Week Ticket!

From May 24-27, immerse yourself in the deep science of AI & ML, connect with industry leaders, explore career opportunities and learn more about how AI is driving the future success of our bright economic future.

Learn more and get your ticket now

Upcoming Events

March 18: AI Seminar – Amir Hossein Hosseini Akbarnejad
AI Seminar is a weekly meeting where researchers interested in AI can share their current research. This week's seminar features Amir Akbarnejad (PhD student, University of Alberta) on GPEX, a framework for interpreting artificial neural networks.

RSVP

March 22: Amii's Virtual AI Meetup

Hosted by Amii's David Chan, this month’s meetup is all about how AI is being used to reduce our environmental impact! The event features Blindman Brewing co-founder Kirk Zembal and Amii & RLAI Lab graduate student Rohan Nuttall.

Get your free ticket

March 25-26: YYC Data Con

Organized by the YYC Data Society for the data community, this event will feature presentations on data science, analytics and data culture, as well as smaller breakout sessions for networking. Amii's James Bell (ML Scientist) will be speaking about the AI pilot at the Drayton Valley Water Treatment Plant.

RSVP

March 25: AI Seminar – BioWare
AI Seminar is a weekly meeting where researchers interested in AI can share their current research. This week's seminar features a presentation from the Edmonton video game developer success story, BioWare.

RSVP

April 1: AI Seminar – Horace Chan & Greg Coulombe
AI Seminar is a weekly meeting where researchers interested in AI can share their current research. This week's seminar features a presentation from Horace Chan and Greg Coulombe of Intuit.

RSVP

April 6-8: EDA 2022 Leaders' Summit & Conference
Economic Developers Alberta (EDA) 2022 Leaders' Summit and Conference is Alberta's premiere economic development event. Amii COO Kirk Rockwell joins a panel on Technology & Digital Transformation.

RSVP

Career Opportunities

• Lead Machine Learning Scientist - Industry -- apply by March 21

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