Make your meetings inspirational with Nobel insights and visionary thinkers
Credit: Eva Blue / Tourisme Montréal
As we anticipate the CESSE CEO Meeting in Montréal in January, we’re looking forward to gaining unique insights from leading industry figures.
The exchange of strategic planning takeaways and surprising stories of resilience from trailblazing leaders is inspirational and transformational—and as associations strive to build a thriving future, fostering inspiration and innovation at events is more important than ever.
In Canada, meeting organizers can easily tap into the country’s extensive intellectual capital, accessing visionary industry leaders and renowned academics to inspire delegates.
Canada's leading thinkers, especially in sectors like artificial intelligence (AI), bring deep expertise that shapes the world.
Recent recognition, such as Geoffrey Hinton's 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics and Yoshua Bengio's inclusion in Time Magazine's 2024 TIME100/AI List, exemplifies the country's excellence in AI.
Canada's longstanding investments in AI infrastructure have fostered a rich ecosystem that excels in innovation.
In 2023 alone, Canadian AI startups attracted $1.6 billion in venture capital, demonstrating this vibrant economic activity.
Credit: Johnny Guatto / University of Toronto
A Visionary Approach: The Pan-Canadian AI Strategy
Canada's proactive approach to artificial intelligence through its Pan-Canadian AI Strategy sets a global standard for AI development and deployment.
Since 2017, Canada has invested more than $4 billion to accelerate AI innovation, ensuring these advancements drive economic growth and societal wellbeing.
This strategy builds advanced computing infrastructures, enhances AI literacy and fosters an inclusive approach to technology development.
The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) and national AI institutes—Vector Institute in Toronto, Mila in Montréal and Amii in Edmonton—play pivotal roles in translating Canada's AI ambitions into global leadership.
CIFAR: Orchestrating Canada's AI Research Network
The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), based in Toronto, fosters international networks of AI research, driving significant advances in AI technologies. Appointed by the Canadian government to lead the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy, CIFAR strengthens regional and national AI ecosystems, catalyzing growth across Canada.
The Canada CIFAR AI (CCAI) Chairs Program helps retain and recruit top researchers and train students, ensuring the next generation continues to advance AI.
Vector: Merging Theoretical AI with Real-World Applications
The Vector Institute in Toronto bridges theoretical AI research with practical applications.
Co-founded by Geoffrey Hinton, the "Godfather of AI", Vector advances breakthroughs in AI that drive better economic, health, and societal outcomes.
From using quantum computing to address climate change and developing new machine learning models for 3D applications, to harnessing AI to improve food price forecasting and more, Vector researchers are unlocking new ways to apply AI to drive better economic, health, and societal outcomes.
An example of this groundbreaking research is an AI-based speech analysis tool that can detect early signs of Alzheimer’s disease, developed by Vector in collaboration with health care researchers. This tool analyzes speech patterns and identifies subtle changes that may indicate cognitive decline, offering a non-invasive, early detection method.
This innovation has the potential to transform Alzheimer’s diagnosis and treatment, providing crucial benefits to patients and health care systems alike. This tool underscores Canada’s role in visionary health care solutions that can have a global impact.
Mila: Fostering Ethical AI and Global Partnerships
Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, based in Montréal and founded by Professor Yoshua Bengio, is renowned as the world's largest academic research centre focused on deep learning and a major source of AI innovation.
Collaborating with leading academic institutions like l’Université de Montréal, McGill University, and others, Mila excels in modelling language, machine translation, object recognition and generative models—with a commitment to ethical AI and an Open Science policy.
One recent Mila project bound to inspire is The First Languages AI Reality (FLAIR) Initiative, which represents a groundbreaking approach to cultural preservation through technology, deploying AI to safeguard and revitalize Indigenous languages at risk of being lost.
This initiative uniquely integrates language technology with data sovereignty principles to create tailored speech recognition models, facilitating cultural engagement and transmission on a global scale, and enabling Indigenous communities worldwide to navigate and contribute to digital spaces in their native languages.
Credit: Mila
Amii: From Research to Industry Transformation
The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) in Edmonton transforms AI innovations into practical applications.
Amii's specialization in reinforcement learning and optimization techniques drives major advances in energy, agriculture and health care, translating cutting-edge AI research into scalable solutions that address real-world challenges.
Amii has also developed and published the "Principled AI at Amii" framework, setting a benchmark for the ethical development and deployment of AI technologies.
The initiative includes new educational workshops, such as AI Ethics – Governance and AI Ethics – Deployment, developed in partnership with the Digital Governance Council. These courses aim to equip professionals with the tools to implement ethical AI solutions, fostering responsible AI practices that are critical in today’s technology landscape.
Credit: Ampersand Grey
Choose your own ecosystem of inspiration
Canada’s intellectual capital, along with its vibrant urban centres, welcoming nature, global perspectives and cooperative approach, offers a wealth of knowledge—and choice.
With supercharged agendas, enduring connections and innovative ideas, Canada offers everything a meeting planner needs to create a transformative event that inspires attendees.
Get in touch
To learn more about hosting your next event in one of Canada’s centres of excellence, visit businesseventscanada.ca or contact Virginie De Visscher, Executive Director, Business Events, Destination Canada at [email protected] or +1 204-802-0920.