Media Release: Amii greets community leader Cam Linke as new CEO

EDMONTON, AB (April 15, 2020) – The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) has welcomed Cam Linke to the role of Chief Executive Officer. Over the coming year, Linke will focus the organization on inspiring world-changing machine intelligence, for good and for all, through research, advisement, and education. As Alberta navigates the current and long-term economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the current state of our traditional economic drivers, Amii is committed to leveraging our resources, expertise, and community to advance Alberta’s economic recovery. Learn more about Amii’s 2020-2021 direction on our website: amii.ca/2020-letter-from-cam-linke/‎

“Now more than ever, our partners in industry need expertise and resources to build their in-house artificial intelligence capacity and drive economic success forward,” says Linke. “Leveraging our longstanding and continued excellence in leading-edge research, Amii is uniquely positioned to support companies across sectors to gain a competitive advantage by creating resilient systems and by improving efficiency and effectiveness across the board. It’s time for Alberta to lead the world in the business of AI.”

First appointed in November 2019, Linke has worked over the past months with Amii teams to refine service offerings that advance leading-edge research in artificial intelligence and machine learning and translate scientific advancement into industry adoption. Now, the organization has launched a host of advisory and educational services that empower companies to move along the spectrum of machine learning adoption. 

“We are thrilled at the direction Amii is already taking under Cam’s leadership,” says Bruce Johnson, Chair of Amii’s Board of Directors. “It’s no surprise given his track record for growing high-impact organizations and inspiring wholesale community transformation. I can think of no person better positioned to solidify Alberta’s place on the world stage.”

The praise is echoed by AI pioneer and Amii Chief Scientific Advisor Dr. Richard Sutton. “Cam is one of Edmonton’s bright, young minds, and a leader who is passionate about growing a vibrant AI and tech community. He brings an unparalleled energy and a keen way of thinking that’s already reshaping how we engage businesses and continue to advance AI research.”

About Cam Linke 

Cam Linke is a longtime leader in Edmonton’s technology and startup community. Over the past 10 years, he has worked as a CEO, investor, community builder, product manager, software entrepreneur, academic, and developer. Past roles include Co-founder of Startup Edmonton, Founder of Flightpath Ventures, CEO of Touch Metric, Product Manager at Nexopia.com, and Founder of DemoCamp Edmonton. Linke is a sought-after speaker and mentor and has been recognized as Avenue Magazine Top 40 Under 40.

He is also an artificial intelligence researcher, currently studying under Dr. Richard Sutton and Dr. Adam White. His research, which focuses on AI adapting behaviours to improve their own self-learning, has been published at top conferences. Publications include: 

• Linke C., Ady N. M., White M., Degris T., White A. (2019). Adapting Behaviour via Intrinsic Reward: A Survey and Empirical Study. ArXiv:1906.07865
• Jacobsen A., Schlegel M., Linke C., Degris T., White, A., White M. (2019). Meta-descent for online, continual prediction. AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
• Linke C., Ady N. M., Degris T., White M., White A. (2019). Investigating Curiosity for Multi-Prediction Learning. Multidisciplinary Conference on Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making (RLDM).
• Yasui N., Lim S., Linke C., White A., White M. (2019). An Empirical and Conceptual Categorization of Value-based Exploration Methods. Exploration in Reinforcement Learning Workshop at the 36th International Conference on Machine Learning.

About Amii

One of Canada’s three centres of AI excellence as part of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy, Amii (the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute) is an Alberta-based non-profit institute that supports world-leading research in artificial intelligence and machine learning and translates scientific advancement into industry adoption. Amii grows AI capabilities through advancing leading-edge research, delivering exceptional educational offerings and providing business advice – all with the goal of building in-house AI capabilities. For more information, visit amii.ca.

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Media Resources: Amii Fact Sheet | Cam Linke Headshot

Available for Interviews: Cam Linke, CEO, Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute

Contact: Spencer Murray, Communications & Public Relations

t: 587.415.6100 ext. 109 | c: 780.991.7136

spencer.murray@amii.ca