Speakers

Hear from senior developers, innovators and talented managers who are doing amazing things with artificial intelligence. More speakers will be announced; please check back for updates.

Benji Sucher

COO Layer 6 AI/TD Bank

Benji is VP and COO (Layer 6 AI), TD Bank Group following the acquisition of Layer 6 by TD in January 2018. He is also a GP in Radical Ventures, an early-stage AI‐focused VC fund. Prior to Layer 6, Benji was a VP of M&A and Integration at Constellation Software (TSX:CSU). At Constellation, he was responsible for acquiring, integrating and growing software companies around the world. Benji also worked in Private Equity and holds a CPA designation, which he obtained from PwC.

Gary Marcus

Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at NYU

Gary Marcus, scientist, bestselling author, and entrepreneur was CEO and Founder of the machine learning startup Geometric Intelligence, recently acquired by Uber.

As a Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at NYU, he has published extensively in fields ranging from human and animal behavior to neuroscience, genetics, and artificial intelligence, often in leading journals such as Science and Nature.

As a writer, he contributes frequently to the The New Yorker and TheNew York Times, and is the author of four books, including The Algebraic Mind, Kluge:The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind, and The New York Times Bestseller, Guitar Zero.

Tonya Custis

Director of AI Research at Thomson Reuters

Dr. Tonya Custis is Research Director at Thomson Reuters where she leads a team of research scientists performing applied research in Artificial Intelligence technologies. Her research expertise includes information retrieval, natural language processing and machine learning. She is currently leading projects that helped contribute to the industry leading AI solutions that Thomson Reuters offers to its customers around the world.

Dr. Inmar Givoni

Autonomy Engineering Manager, Uber

Dr. Inmar Givoni leads a team that brings cutting-edge deep-learning models for self-driving vehicles from research to production at Uber Advanced Technology Group in Toronto. She received her PhD (Computer Science) in 2011 from the University of Toronto, specializing in machine learning, and was a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge. She has worked at Microsoft Research, Altera (now Intel), Kobo, and Kindred at roles ranging from research scientist to VP of Big Data, applying machine learning techniques to various problem domains and taking concepts from research to production systems.

Dr. Inmar is an inventor of several patents and has authored numerous academic publications in the areas of machine learning, computer vision, and computational biology.

Karthik Ramakrishnan

VP of Industry Solutions, Element AI

As a VP of Industry Solutions at Element AI, Karthik Ramakrishnan engages clients to develop an AI-first strategy and vision to utilize Element AI’s research and development capability to achieve clients’ AI ambitions.

Karthik is a serial entrepreneur with broad international experience. He also serves as advisor for multiple start-ups. Before joining Element AI, Karthik was a Senior Manager at Deloitte. In the early years of his career, he also served as Director of Product Innovation at Xtreme Lab and GM of Product Development at Hatch Labs in New York.

Karthik holds a Master's Degree from Waterloo University in Applied Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering and an MBA from Ivey Business School, Canada.

Jessica Mastronardi, Lead Outreach Business Manager, Microsoft AI+Research Labs

Jessica Mastronardi is the Lead Outreach Business Manager for Microsoft Research’s New England, New York and Montreal labs. Specifically, in this capacity she leads the company’s outreach efforts in Canada, facilitating engagement with academic stakeholders, collaborators and government about Microsoft’s research efforts.

Jessica’s background is in communication and government relations. Prior to working at Microsoft Research, she worked with fintech and AI startups in Montreal, and worked as a consultant at NATIONAL Public Relations to Uber, where she successfully integrated and regulated Uber in the City of Ottawa. Jessica graduated from the University of Ottawa with a B.A. in Communications and Political Science.

Elissa Strome

Executive Director, Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, CIFAR

Following a post-doc at Lund University in Sweden, Elissa decided to pursue a career in research strategy, policy, and leadership. As Executive Director of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy, Elissa works with the three AI Institutes in Edmonton (Amii), Montreal (Mila), and Toronto (Vector Institute), as well as researchers across the country to advance Canada’s leadership in AI research and Innovation. From 2015-2018, she served as Executive Director of SOSCIP, helping to establish the consortium as Ontario’s leading platform for collaborative R&D in data science and advanced computing.

Dr. Garth Gibson

President and CEO, Vector Institute

As the Vector Institute’s first President and CEO, Dr. Gibson is spearheading its mandate to drive excellence and leadership in Canada’s knowledge, creation, and use of AI to foster economic growth and improve the lives of Canadians. Prior to this role, he served in many leadership positions with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh where he was Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Co-Director of its Master of Computational Data Science program, and Associate Dean for Master’s Programs in the School of Computer Science.

Cam Linke Board Director and Interim CEO, Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii)

As a member of Amii’s Board of Directors, Cam Linke helps drive Alberta’s next wave of economic growth and works to develop Alberta’s reputation as a premier destination for AI.

Through his experience as an entrepreneur and community leader, Cam helps guide the growth and development of Alberta’s AI and innovation ecosystems. He is passionate about building Edmonton’s tech community and about transforming Alberta’s economy. In addition to his experience as a software entrepreneur and product manager, Cam helps connect entrepreneurs, investors, developers and creative minds as one of the co-founders of both Startup Edmonton and Flightpath Ventures.

Isabella Bertani

Partner, RSM Canada

Isabella has extensive experience working with private and public companies in numerous industry sectors. Currently her practice focuses on inbound foreign investment and Canadian domestic companies with global interests. A recognized leader in the area of foreign direct investment, Isabella frequently advises foreign corporations globally with regards to expansion into the Canadian market, with clients including numerous foreign subsidiaries of significant global entities.

A graduate of York University's Schulich School of Business with both a Bachelor and Master of Business Administration, Isabella is dedicated to a number of charitable, professional, and community organizations.

Sunny Handa

Partner, Blakes

As a senior corporate/commercial and regulatory lawyer, Sunny deals with information technology, communications, intellectual property, and electronic commerce matters, as well as a range of corporate/commercial matters relating to technology and communications businesses. He further has a substantial practice in mergers and acquisitions of technology companies. Sunny provides strategic, corporate/commercial and regulatory advice to leading companies in the IT, communications, life sciences and defence industries, both in Canada and globally.

For over two decades Sunny has been consistently named by various ranking agencies as one of Canada's leading Computer and IT, Technology Transactions, Telecommunications and Intellectual Property lawyers.

Prof. Aaron Courville

Montréal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA)

Dr. Courville is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research at the Université de Montréal. He is a founding member of Mila (the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms) and a fellow of the CIFAR program on Learning in Machines and Brains. His current research interests focus on the development of deep learning models and methods. He is particularly interested in deep generative model and multimodal machine learning with applications such as computer vision and natural language processing. His research is supported in part by Microsoft Research, Samsung and a Google Focussed Research Award.

Cyril Joseph

Immigration Counsellor, Consulate General of Canada in New York

Cyril manages all aspects of the delivery of Canada’s immigration program in New York to ensure the achievement of annual immigration levels established for the five-state region (encompassing New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, and Pennsylvania), as well as consistency with legislation and policy objectives that foster Canada’s bilateral/multilateral foreign policy interests and obligations.

On assignment at National Headquarters in Ottawa, Cyril has worked in Human Resources as an Assignment Officer where he participated in the development of human resources policies and global staff assignments. Cyril has served at Canadian missions around the globe, including Nairobi, Kenya; Buffalo, New York; Kingston, Jamaica; Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; Islamabad, Pakistan; and New York City.

Stephen Green

Senior Partner, Green and Spiegel

A certified specialist in Immigration Law with more than 30 years of experience in all areas of Canadian immigration, Stephen specializes in corporate employee transfers, federal skilled worker applications, investor applications, work permits, and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, as well as NAFTA confirmation exemptions, work permit approvals for strategic, expert, and key professional employees, and high level executives. He also leads the Investment and Entrepreneur Department at the firm, which assists experienced business people and high net worth individuals to invest in Canada to obtain Permanent Residence.

Lyndsay Wasser

Privacy, Data Protection and Cybersecurity, McMillan LP

A Certified Information Privacy Professional in Canada, Lyndsay regularly advises and assists clients on a broad range of privacy and cybersecurity issues. She has assisted clients in a number of industries with risk assessment, breach response strategy, complying with notification obligations, communication with regulators, and coordinating forensic investigations.