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Techstars Startup Week Edmonton: AI Mentor Session

Do you want to learn about Artificial Intelligence (AI) but don’t know where to start?

Are you taking some online AI courses but lack of real world hands-on project experiences?

Are you at the advanced level but having difficulty understanding a state-of-the-art algorithm or looking for peers who can learn from each other?

No matter what level of your AI knowledge, you can come to AlbertaAI Mentor Session to find peers and seek help and guidance from AlbertaAI senior members. We will break out attendees into the Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced levels. In each breakout room, our senior members will provide help and guidance and the attendees at the same level can discuss and exchange ideas with each other.

We are excited to announce that his month Alberta AI mentor session will be a part of Startup week Edmonton. You can register for the event here: https://techstarsstartupweekedmonton2020.sched.com/event/ecJC/ai-mentor-session-with-albertaai?iframe=no

Alberta AI Monthly Mentor Session

Alberta AI association has started a series of monthly sessions on every third Tuesday of the month to guide people, whether they have no background in Artificial Intelligence and want to learn about it or have taken few courses but want to know more and land a job in the field or consider themselves as an expert and want to meet other AI professionals, this monthly mentor session is for everyone. 


On 18th August, Alberta AI association held its first monthly mentor session hosted by Dr. Lihang Ying, the President of Alberta AI, in which around 50 people attended the event. The experts in the panel guided attendees and discussed the resources available to learn and improve their knowledge of AI.   

Here is the summary of the resources shared by the experts. 

Beginner

If you are beginner and would like to learn about AI, you may find these links useful.

SirajRaval AI Education 

Deep Learning

Convolutional Neural Networks for Visual Recognition 

Computer Vision Resource 

Course on Tableau 

Python for Data Science

IBM Data Science Professional Certificate

Amazon’s Machine Learning University 

Natural Language Processing with Deep Learning

Intermediate

judea pearl, madelyn glymour, nicholas p. jewellcausal inference in statistics: a primer 

judea pearl – home 

Reinforcement Learning Specialization 

Spinning Up in Deep RL

Dive into Deep Learning

THE BOOK OF WHY: THE NEW SCIENCE OF CAUSE AND EFFECT

Deep Learning 

Before we wrapped up, some of the attendees discussed their queries, related to the project they are working on, with the experts and after that Calvin L, who is an insurance advisor, discussed how they have deployed AI in their business.


We would like to thank all the experts on the panel for generously sharing their time and expertise and all the attendees for joining us.

If you missed the event, you can watch it on our Youtube channel here. Our next event will be on 15th of September, you can register for the session on eventbrite and don’t forget to follow Alberta AI at Eventbrite for our future events.

Artificial Intelligence Ecosystem Roundtable​

By Wenfei Zhang, Li Dong
June 11, 2018

A grand opening of TusStar 89th international incubation space at Edmonton and the launch of  TusStar – TEC Edmonton Accelerator Exchange Program were celebrated on Jun 11th Edmonton local time. Thomas Dang, NDP MLA, Don Iveson, Mayor of Edmonton, Dr. Matthias Ruth, Vice-President (Research) of the University of Alberta, Chris Lumb, CEO of TEC-Edmonton, Meng Mei, Honorary Chairman of Tus-holdings,  Jinsheng Zhang, Vice-President of Tus-holdings and Chairman of TusStar, Wei Han, director of Institute Collaboration of Tusholdings and Deputy General Manager of TusStar, and Bo Liu, General Manager of Venture Capital attended the ceremony.

 

The opening ceremony of TusStar Edmonton

AlbertaAI Team at the opening ceremony of TusStar Edmonton Branch

Dr. Zhijun(Tony) Qiu, Professor from the University of Alberta held a roundtable meeting with AlbertaAI, TusStar and TEC Edmonton to discuss artificial intelligence and tech incubators.  The representatives from TusStar, TEC Edmonton, Alberta Innovates, Government of Alberta, Canadian Federal Government, A-Partners, Edmonton AI, venture capital firms and startups attended the meeting. The discussions covered the topics to strengthen International technical cooperation, speed up 2-way project landing, promote the development of AlbertaAI industry.

 

AI eco-system roundtable meeting

The attendees actively participated in the discussions. Dr. Lihang Ying, President of AlbertaAI provided a brief introduction of AlbertaAI. He said that AlbertaAI had been growing rapidly relying on the world-class AI research at the University of Alberta and the profound resources from various industries. AlbertaAI has held AI lecture series, AI training camps and a lot of industry-academic cooperation projects.

Dr. Lihang Ying, President of AlbertaAI is giving a speech

Ms. Wei Han, Director of Institute Collaboration of Tusholdings and Deputy General Manager of TusStar introduced the history of TusStar and their experiences of building AI innovation Center. She emphasized that entrepreneurs would be greatly beneficial from this collaborative platform to expand their businesses with and the strong AI tech support from the University of Alberta as well as the funding support from Accelerator Exchange Program.

Ms. Wei Han, Director of Institute Collaboration of Tusholdings and Deputy General Manager of TusStar is giving a speech

Chris Lumb, CEO of TEC Edmonton said that It’s no secret that in order to grow and scale, Alberta companies must go global. He emphasized that China is playing an increasingly prominent role in the world. TusStar Edmonton will make it easier for Canadian companies entering into China by breaking down cultural barriers which can hinder companies’ success.

Chris Lumb, CEO of TEC Edmonton is giving a speech

The most influential media in Canada, ​News from Global News, also reported this event.

 

About AlbertaAI
The Alberta Artificial Intelligence Association (AlbertaAI) is a non-profit, non-political organization founded by a group of passionate volunteers. Established in September 2017, in the City of Edmonton in the Province of Alberta, Canada, the Association strives to serve as a high-profile organization.

Relying on the world-class AI research at the University of Alberta and the profound resources from various industries, AlbertaAI has been growing rapidly.  AlbertaAI has held AI lecture series, AI training camps and a lot of industry-academic cooperation projects. Professor Zhijun Qiu, Expert of Iintelligent Transportation from the University of Alberta, Dr. Anup Basu, Professor of Computing Science and Dr. Yuxi Li, Expert of deep learning serve as consultants of AlbertAI. Dr Lihang Ying, President of AlbertaAI is Tsinghua University alumni, University of Alberta alumni, PHD of computer vision. Members of AlbertaAI includes world-wide AI experts, world-wide business executives and excellent PhD students. The purpose of Albert AI is to provide a platform for nurturing talents, expanding contacts, exchanging cooperation, and developing talents.

Organizational Structure

  • executive committees
  • advisory committees
  • advisory groups
  • individual members
  • corporate members
  • special interest groups
  • and regional clubs

We focus on:

  • Lecture Series
  • Training
  • Special interest groups
  • Cooperation and exchange
  • Innovation support
  • International conferences
  • Innovation incubation.

SAS Canada Becomes AlbertaAI Annual “Visionaries” Sponsor

On March 15, SAS Canada becomes Alberta Artificial Intelligence Association (AlbertaAI) annual “Visionaries” sponsor, which is from April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019. SAS, a leader in advanced analytics, AI and data management, has customers in 148 countries. In 1988, SAS open its physical operation in Toronto, Canada. SAS Canada now employs more than 300 people across the country at its Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto offices.

AlbertaAI is a non-profit, non-political organization founded in September 2017, in the City of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Since inception, it has successfully hosted a series of AI lectures, talk from leading startup incubators, and beginner AI workshop. Within half a year, AlbertaAI has attracted more than 500 members and 150 volunteers. The mission of AlbertaAI is to contribute to the Alberta AI ecosystem and connect Alberta AI community to the world.

AlbertaAI collaborated with SAS Canada on the talk of “AI and how SAS is delivering an AI platform” in January 2018, which was great success. In the talk, SAS’s market-leading analytics platform with AI capabilities was introduced. Data scientists, analysts, developers, IT domain experts and executives can all generate data-driven insights – from the same, consistent data, fostering greater collaboration and driving innovations into production faster with this platform. An unprecedented number of audiences attend this event.

We are excited to work with the leading company in the AI frontier. And we are confident that this sponsorship and collaboration will greatly help the development of AlbertaAI and the AI community. It will also potentially promote diversity in the economy and help create high skilled jobs. We thank SAS Canada for their generous sponsorship and We look forward to deepen our collaboration in the future.