Date: 1:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.,  March 23rd, 2019 (Saturday)

Organizer：AlbertaAI 

Co-Organizers： NCG, UA-CGSC, iGeek,ECISE, ETA, ACOAC  

• TusStar Alberta Incubator
• Edmonton IT Club

• Tsinghua Alumni Association of Edmonton (TAAE)

Sponsors:

• Visionary Sponsor: SAS
• Builders Sponsor: Microsoft
• Supports Sponsor: VIKING Financial Solutions Inc.
• Event Sponsors:
  • Dr. Jay Sun
  • Jean Zhang,  TD Bank
  • Fei Hua Zhou, Life Insurance Broker
  • Bogani Cafe

Language: English

Cost:

This event is exclusively Free for AlbertaAI Members, VIP guests, and speakers.

Reservation

seats spots are limited. Register/renew free membership and RSVP through the link at:

https://bit.ly/2XZyAxl

Location： 

CCIS 1-430, Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science (CCIS), University of Alberta, 11335 Saskatchewan Dr NW, Edmonton, AB T6G 2M9 (Google Maps: https://bit.ly/2W1RWjQ) ）

Abstract:：

In September 2017, a group of passionate volunteers found the Alberta Artificial Intelligence Association (AlbertataAI). AlbertaAI is a non-profit organization with a vision to cultivate the Alberta AI ecosystem and connect the AI community in Alberta with the world. We have rapidly expanded and currently have over 300 members, including university professors, CS graduate students, IT professionals, and AI enthusiast from various industries. We have organized many high-profile AI talks and training, e.g., AI for Kids, Deep Learning Beginner/Advanced Camps, AI Entrepreneurship Camp, Data Science Kaggle Camp, and Meetups. We are supported by the Alberta local community like UAlberta, TEC Edmonton, SAS, Microsoft, City of Edmonton, and student & community organizations. We have also contributed to local AI ecosystems by supporting events and activities, e.g., TusStar Alberta Incubator establishment, UAlberta International AI Summer Program, Edmonton Global AI Hub, AI4Youth Conference, Calgary AI Meetup, and Calgary Google Developer Group. In addition, we collaborate with international partners and have established a joint innovation centre with Shanghai Chiju to promote AI education and projects.

On March 23rd 2019, we will hold the first annual Alberta AI conference. We have invited guest speakers, including university professors, students, incubators, and local AI company executives, who will share their AI-related stories and promote the idea of “Cultivate Alberta AI Ecosystem”. The conference will have 100-200 attendees and with AI experts and executive guests from local organizations. We will have speeches and demos to promote the great AI things happening in Alberta. The speakers include City of Edmonton/Red Deer Councillor, executives from TEC Edmonton, AltaML, UAlberta Multimedia Research Centre, Health City, and AI for Kids student. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Get the latest conference information at:

https://www.albertaai.org/albertaai-annual-conference/

 Conference Tentative Agenda:

• Checking In & Networking 1:00 PM – 1:30 PM
• Section 1: Opening 1:30 PM – 2:00 PM
  • Greetings from Andrew Knack, City of Edmonton, Councillor (5mins)
  • Greetings from Lawrence Lee, City of Red Deer, Councillor (5mins)
  • Greetings from Yueshan Tong, Consul of sector for Commercial and Science & Techlonogy in  Chinese  Consulate General in Calgary (5mins)
  • Dr. Lihang Ying, President of AlbertaAI (15 mins)
    • Find yourself in Alberta AI ecosystem through AlbertaAI
• Section 2: Innovation 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
  • VIP Speaker (20 mins)
    • Building an innovation ecosystem
  • Geoff Kliza, Director, Innovation Affiliates, Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (30 mins)
    • Machine Learning 101
  • Panel discussion (Q&A) (10mins)
• Section 3: Coffee Break and Demo 3:00 PM – 3:30 PM
  • AI for Kids Project Demo
  • Microsoft
  •  MRC Lab
  • UAlberta Robomaster Club
• Section 4: AI Education and Startup  3:30 PM – 4:30 PM
  • Dr. Irene Cheng, Director, Multimedia Research Centre (MRC), University of Alberta (20mins)
    • Cultivate AI professionals – overview UAlberta Multimedia Master Program
  •  Lan Tan, Director, Entrepreneur Development, TEC Edmonton (15mins)
    • How TEC Edmonton cultivate and help AI startups in Alberta
  • Mack Male, CEO, Taproot (Local Tech Media) (15 mins)
    • AI sector evolving and trends in Edmonton
  • Panel discussion (Q&A) (10 mins)
• Section 5: AI Industrial and Companies 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM
  •  Cory Janssen, CEO, AltaML (15 mins)
    • Showcase of successful AI consulting projects of AltaML  
  • Reg Joseph, CEO, Health City (20 mins)
    • Creating an AI platform to improve the marketability of the health innovation  
  • Mike Hoff, COO, Calgary Google Developer Group  (15 mins)
    • Overview of Google Developer Group in Alberta and world-wide
  • Panel discussion (Q&A) (10 mins)
• Closing and Networking 5:30 PM – 5:50  PM

Conference Speakers

• Andrew Knack, City of Edmonton, Councillor
• Lawrence Lee, City of Red Deer, Councillor
• Dr. Lihang Ying, President of AlbertaAI
• Geoff kliza, Project Manager, Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute
• Dr. Irene Cheng, Director, Multimedia Research Centre (MRC), University  of Alberta
• Yueshan Tong, Consulate, Consulate-General of the P.R.China in Calgary
• Lan Tan, Director, Entrepreneur Development, TEC Edmonton
• Winston Leung, Senior Partner, Fusion 6 Consulting
• Mack Male, CEO, Taproot (Local Tech Media)
• Cory Janssen, CEO, AltaML
• Reg Joseph, CEO, Health City
• Mike Hoff, COO, Calgary Google Developer Group

Confirmed VIP Guests

• Prof. Bin Zheng, President of UAlberta Chinese Professor Association

• Prof. Li Cheng, Associate Professor of UAlberta Electronic Computer Engineering

• Dr. Yuxi Li, CEO, attain.ai

• C.H. William Cheung, J.D., Senate of UAlberta

• Jonathan Dai, President, Howlund International Corp.

• Bob Hiew, VP Business Development, DAMA Edmonton

• Kwok Seto, Account Executive, SAS

• Dexter Pizzey, Microsoft
• Shawn Kanungo, Founder, Silver Voice

• Amy Bronson, Deloitte

• Ramya, Kunnath Puliyakodil, Deloitte

• Sharon Bratt, Professor of MacEwan University Computer Science

• Prof. William Wei, Associate Dean of MacEwan University School of Business

• Mark Zhou, President of Edmonton Tianjin Association

• Rollie Dykstra, VP Investments, Alberta Innovates

• Warren Johnson, Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (AMII)

• Terry Leung, Senior Manager, PWC

• Dr. Haijun Yan, CTO, Fan Yang Team Realtors

• Dr. Jay Sun, President of East China Immigrants Society of Edmonton

• Lin Zhong, BizWorld Enterprise Solutions

• Jim Xu, President, Edmonton IT Club

• Prof. Tony Qiu, Director, Centre for Smart Transportation, University of Alberta

• Bin Lau, Strategic Advisor, Office of Mayor Don Iveson

Please note that photos/videos will be taken during this event for future promotions. Your attendance is considered consent to be photographed/filmed.

         New Industry and Research Trends

         in AI Frontier and NIPS Conferences

Workshop Information:

When: 14:30 p.m. — 16:30 p.m. December 16th (Sunday)

Location: CSC 3-33, U of A

Price: FREE

Abstract: 2018 AI Frontier and NIPS conferences have just finished. Many new industry and research trends were demonstrated. Dr.Yuxi Li will give a review on the conferences and highlight some inspiring thoughts during this workshop.

Google Form Application:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc66Kc-mPr2IozDR6dobfIAG8jva-ccfiiqFfQB2HzLiJxBdA/viewform?usp=pp_url

Speaker:  Dr. Yuxi Li

• Founder, attain.ai
• Author, Deep Reinforcement Learning: https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.06339, (150 pages)
• Former associate professor in China
• Former senior data scientist in Boston area in USA
• Talks about AlphaGo and deep reinforcement learning, including one in MIT and one for AI seminar at the University of Alberta
• PhD/Postdoc, at AMII, RLAI, Computing Science, University of Alberta

Presented By: Prof. Witold Pedrycz

Abstract:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been enjoying a great deal of interest in the recent years owing to its successful applications reported in various areas including robotics, computer vision, and a plethora of systems engaging natural language processing. Data Science becomes instrumental in data analysis discovering essential dependencies and building prediction and classification models.

We advocate that bringing the concepts, methodologies, and formal frameworks of Granular Computing into the area of AI and Data Science can open new and promising avenues of further research and applications. Granular Computing is defined as a coherent and unified platform of acquiring, processing and communication of information granules delivering a highly needed abstraction mechanism.

The talk is self-contained: the principles and formalisms of information granules along with their underlying design principles are discussed in detail. It is shown that the notion of information granularity assumes an important position by bridging the gap between symbolic and sub-symbolic way of processing realized in AI.

The roles of information granules in various faculties of AI such as knowledge representation, concept formation and their hierarchical organization, problem solving mechanisms are elaborated in detail.   It is also emphasized that information granules play a visible role in revealing and characterizing interpretable relationships (dependencies) in data.

When: Tuesday, November 20^th, 5:30pm (doors open)

Location: ETLC 1-003 room at University of Alberta, 116 St NW Edmonton, AB T6G 2V4

Registration: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/179706

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.

 

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.

 

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.