Tag Archives: Damon Matthews

Canadian Science Policy Centre (CSPC) provides July 31, 2025 update on upcoming virtual panels and submissions for CSPC’s Special Editorial Series

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Here are some of the high points from the Canadian Science Policy Centre’s (CSPC) July 31, 2025 update (received via email),

Register Now for Upcoming Virtual Panels

[Nature-based Solutions in Canada – policies, frameworks and multi-sector cooperation to reach Canada’s 2030 climate and biodiversity goals]

Organized by Future Earth, this panel will explore how Nature-based Solutions (NbS) can be effectively designed, measured, and aligned with community and Indigenous priorities in Canada. NbS uses natural ecosystems to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss while benefiting communities. They are key to meeting Canada’s 30×30 conservation goals and reducing carbon emissions. However, clear frameworks to monitor their impact are still lacking.
 
To read more about the panel, click here.

Register (for free) Here

[Navigating Geopolitical Shifts: Canada’s Innovation Strategy for the Life Sciences Sector]

The Canadian life sciences sector is undergoing rapid and profound transformation, shaped by shifting geopolitical dynamics, evolving international partnerships, emerging health threats, and the accelerating pace of scientific and digital innovation. These forces are redefining how health technologies are developed, regulated, and distributed across borders—creating both complex challenges and promising opportunities for industry leaders, researchers, and policymakers.

This panel is the next in CSPC’s ongoing series exploring Canada’s Innovation Strategy in key sectors. We will have more sessions coming this fall so stay tuned for the details in the coming weeks.

To read more about the panel, click here.

Register (for free) Here

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I have more details (e.g., date and time) for both panels. First, from the “Nature-based Solutions in Canada – policies, frameworks and multi-sector cooperation to reach Canada’s 2030 climate and biodiversity goals” event page, Note: I have edited the speaker list, please see the event page to access the speakers’ biography pages,

Date: Aug 19 [2025]

Time: 11:30 am – 1:00 pm EDT

Event Category: Virtual Session

Website: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kQQEnUr1QmCQDDMgBNLPxQ

Venue

Zoom

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are actions to protect, manage and restore ecosystems for the benefit of people and nature. NbS are a promising avenue to meet Canada’s commitments to protect at least 30% of land and oceans by 2030 (30×30) under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and to address up to 35% of Canada’s 2030 carbon reduction commitment. But few frameworks exist to adequately monitor NbS implementation. To achieve sustained impact NbS must be co-created by multiple interest holders and align with social well-being, including priorities of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. This panel will dive into the topic with the questions below. Join us for a wide-ranging and fascinating discussion on the future of Nature-based Solutions in Canada.

The panelists will address the following questions:

  1. What exactly do we mean by Nature-based solutions (NbS) and how to incentivize multiple sectors (academia, government, financial, civil) to move forward on solutions that are equitable for all?
  2. What is Canada doing to achieve its 30×30 targets, and why is that important in the lead-up to the next UN Climate Conference in November [2025] (COP30)?
  3. What are some examples in practice of sustainable finance investments for biodiversity or climate action?
  4. What are the economic pathways that can support equitable, Indigenous-led, and scalable NBS across Canada?

Register Here

Moderated by: Damon Matthews

Professor, Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University
Interim Executive Director, Future Earth Canada Hub and Sustainability in the Digital Age

Émilie Le Beuze

Senior Advisor, Engagement for Sustainable Finance & Biodiversity, Finance Montréal

Jason Taylor

Co-Founder and CEO, Climate Finance Advisors

Stephanie Poirier

Senior Policy Analyst, Climate Change and Sustainability, Standards Council of Canada

Zahra Jandaghian

Research Officer – Nature-based Solutions Lead, National Research Council of Canada

Kirsten Zickfeld

Distinguished SFU Professor of Climate Science, Simon Fraser University

Michael Twigg

Director, Nature Economies, Smart Prosperity Institute

A strong financier/financial services presence in the first panel, eh? The second panel has a speaker list dominated by the professional class that bounces from government to for-profit enterprises to non-profit enterprises while they rove from one business sector to another.. From the “Navigating Geopolitical Shifts: Canada’s Innovation Strategy for the Life Sciences Sector” event page, Note: I have edited the speaker list, please see the event page to access the speakers’ biography pages,

Date: Sep 11 [2025]

Time: 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm EDT

Event Categories: Innovation Virtual Series, Virtual Session

Website: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BeuZjs4XTuqE54CL6aeiMg

Venue

Zoom

This panel aims to explore how Canada’s life sciences sector can navigate the evolving geopolitical and economic landscape to foster sustained innovation and competitiveness. Panelists will discuss the key challenges that are currently limiting innovation. The conversation will delve into how both government and industry can respond strategically, with a focus on improving policy alignment, fostering cross-sector collaboration, and enhancing private sector R&D investment. The panel will also identify emerging global and domestic opportunities that Canada is uniquely positioned to leverage in this period of transformation.

The panelists will address the following questions:

  1. Considering the geopolitical shift, tariffs and a new dimension into the Canadian economy, what are the top three challenges currently hindering innovation in your sector?
  2. How should the government and industry respond to these challenges to enable long-term innovation and competitiveness?
  3. How can Canada enhance private sector R&D investment and capitalize on emerging opportunities in this sector?
  4. What new opportunities or advantages should Canada exploit in this sector despite (or because of) the changing global landscape?

Register Here

Moderated by: Dr. Jason Field

President & CEO Life Sciences Ontario

Karimah Es Sabar

Canadian Life Sciences Leader/Corporate Director/Strategic Advisor

Wendy Zatylny

President & CEO, BIOTEC [s.b. BIOTECanada; BIOTEC is a company in Thailand]

Stephanie Michaud

President & CEO, BioCanRx

Alexandre Le Bouthillier

Founding Partner & CEO, Linearis

Bethany Moir

VP Partnerships, AdMare [also known as, adMare BioInnovations]

Wendy Hurlburt

President & CEO, BC Life Sciences [also known as, Life Sciences British Columbia or Life Sciences BC]

Anne Stevens

VP of Business Development, AbCellera

Now for the call for editorial submissions. From the Canadian Science Policy Centre’s (CSPC) July 31, 2025 update, *ETA August 11, 2025: The deadline for submissions has been extended to September 5, 2025,*

Only Three Weeks Left Until 
Deadline for Editorial Submissions 

Only three weeks left to submit your editorials for CSPC’s Special Editorial Series. Canada’s defence spending is set to rise significantly—reaching NATO’s 2% target by 2025–2026 and projected to hit 5% by 2035. This historic shift presents a unique opportunity to strategically align defence investments with research, innovation, and economic development goals.
 
CSPC invites editorials on how this investment can strengthen Canada’s innovation ecosystem, research capacity, and economic growth. Contributions from researchers, policymakers, and industry experts are welcome. The deadline for submissions is Friday, August 22 [2025]. *ETA August 11, 2025: Thedeadline for submissions has been extended to September 5, 2025*

For more information on editorial guidelines and to submit an editorial, click the button below!

Submit an Editorial

From the “2025 Special Editorial Series” webpage, Note: Submissions are accepted in either English or French,

Defence spending as a catalyst for R&D, innovation, and economic growth in Canada

The Canadian government has committed to increasing defence spending, reaching NATO’s 2% GDP target ahead of schedule by 2025–2026, with spending projected to rise to 5% by 2035. Given the research-intensive nature of the defence sector and its heavy reliance on new technologies and scientific innovation, this marks a historic shift in Canada’s defence framework and opens up new opportunities for strategic investments in research and development (R&D). Many technologies in everyday public use today were originally developed through defence-related funding, highlighting the sector’s broader impact on technological advancement.

The CSPC invites editorials on how this increase could be strategically aligned with investments in R&D, drawing from international examples where defence spending has driven innovation. How can this shift bolster Canada’s innovation ecosystem, strengthen our research capacity, and contribute to long-term economic growth? What policies and practices from other countries could Canada adopt to make the most of this historic opportunity for innovation and economic development?

We welcome analyses from researchers, policymakers, and industry experts on how to leverage defence funding to advance science, innovation, and national prosperity.

Editorial Guidelines

Editorial Format & Requirements

  1. Word Count: Editorials should be 600–1000 words (some may range up to 1200 if needed).
  2. Original Work: Submissions must be the original work of the author(s) and should not have been published in any other media outlet.
  3. If any AI tools are used during preparation, please see below for more details.
  4. Submission Platform: Editorials must be submitted through the designated online form.
  5. Figures: You may include up to 3 high-quality figures to support your editorial. Submit figures as separate files (in addition to embedding them in the text) to ensure high-resolution publishing.
  6. Please provide artist credit where applicable.
  7. CSPC will not be accepting articles, which are promotional in nature (E.g., promoting a product, innovation, or service) or which include profanity of any form.

AI Usage Policy for CSPC Editorials

CSPC editorials must reflect the original thought and voice of the author(s). However, we recognize the evolving role of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in content creation, research, and productivity.

Authors may use AI tools (e.g., for idea generation, drafting assistance, editing, summarization, or image generation) to support their writing process. All final editorial content must be written, reviewed, verified, and approved by the author(s) to ensure accuracy, clarity, and integrity.

If AI tools are used in any part of the editorial process, authors must include an acknowledgment indicating the use of AI.

CSPC does not permit editorials to be entirely generated by AI without human authorship, accountability, and oversight. Our goal is to promote transparency while supporting responsible and ethical use of technology in science policy dialogue. We are looking forward to presenting and highlighting your thoughts and perspectives on various topics for readership by a Canada-wide audience.

…

Where to Submit

We thank you for your submission. Please add editorial@sciencepolicy.ca to your contacts so that we can make sure any follow-up messages reach you.

If you have any questions about writing an editorial for CSPC, please do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Committee at editorial@sciencepolicy.ca.

EDITORIAL SUBMISSION FORM (ENG)

EDITORIAL SUBMISSION FORM (FR)

With the extraordinary emphasis on economic benefits, it sometimes seems like it’s the Canadian Science Moneymaking Policy Centre rather than the Canadian Science Policy Centre.

*ETA August 11, 2025: The deadline for submissions has been extended to September 5, 2025.*

AI fairytale and April 25, 2018 AI event at Canada Science and Technology Museum*** in Ottawa

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These days it’s all about artificial intelligence (AI) or robots and often, it’s both. They’re everywhere and they will take everyone’s jobs, or not, depending on how you view them. Today, I’ve got two artificial intelligence items, the first of which may provoke writers’ anxieties.

Fairytales

The Princess and the Fox is a new fairytale by the Brothers Grimm or rather, their artificially intelligent surrogate according to an April 18, 2018 article on the British Broadcasting Corporation’s online news website,

It was recently reported that the meditation app Calm had published a “new” fairytale by the Brothers Grimm.

However, The Princess and the Fox was written not by the brothers, who died over 150 years ago, but by humans using an artificial intelligence (AI) tool.

It’s the first fairy tale written by an AI, claims Calm, and is the result of a collaboration with Botnik Studios – a community of writers, artists and developers. Calm says the technique could be referred to as “literary cloning”.

Botnik employees used a predictive-text program to generate words and phrases that might be found in the original Grimm fairytales. Human writers then pieced together sentences to form “the rough shape of a story”, according to Jamie Brew, chief executive of Botnik.

The full version is available to paying customers of Calm, but here’s a short extract:

“Once upon a time, there was a golden horse with a golden saddle and a beautiful purple flower in its hair. The horse would carry the flower to the village where the princess danced for joy at the thought of looking so beautiful and good.

…

Advertising for a meditation app?

Of course, it’s advertising and it’s ‘smart’ advertising (wordplay intended). Here’s a preview/trailer,

Blair Marnell’s April 18, 2018 article for SyFy Wire provides a bit more detail,

…

“You might call it a form of literary cloning,” said Calm co-founder Michael Acton Smith. Calm commissioned Botnik to use its predictive text program, Voicebox, to create a new Brothers Grimm story. But first, Voicebox was given the entire collected works of the Brothers Grimm to analyze, before it suggested phrases and sentences based upon those stories. Of course, human writers gave the program an assist when it came to laying out the plot. …

“The Brothers Grimm definitely have a reputation for darkness and many of their best-known tales are undoubtedly scary,” Peter Freedman told SYFY WIRE. Freedman is a spokesperson for Calm who was a part of the team behind the creation of this story. “In the process of machine-human collaboration that generated The Princess and The Fox, we did gently steer the story towards something with a more soothing, calm plot and vibe, that would make it work both as a new Grimm fairy tale and simultaneously as a Sleep Story on Calm.” [emphasis mine]

….

If Marnell’s article is to be believed, Peter Freedman doesn’t hold much hope for writers in the long-term future although we don’t need to start ‘battening down the hatches’ yet.

You can find Calm here.

You can find Botnik  here and Botnik Studios here.

 

AI at Ingenium [Canada Science and Technology Museum] on April 25, 2018

Formerly known (I believe) [*Read the comments for the clarification] as the Canada Science and Technology Museum, Ingenium is hosting a ‘sold out but there will be a livestream’ Google event. From Ingenium’s ‘Curiosity on Stage Evening Edition with Google – The AI Revolution‘ event page,

Join Google, Inc. and the Canada Science and Technology Museum for an evening of thought-provoking discussions about artificial intelligence.

[April 25, 2018
7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. {ET}
Fees: Free]

Invited speakers from industry leaders Google, Facebook, Element AI and Deepmind will explore the intersection of artificial intelligence with robotics, arts, social impact and healthcare. The session will end with a panel discussion and question-and-answer period. Following the event, there will be a reception along with light refreshments and networking opportunities.

The event will be simultaneously translated into both official languages as well as available via livestream from the Museum’s YouTube channel.

Seating is limited

THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT. Please join us for the livestream from the Museum’s YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/cstmweb *** April 25, 2018: I received corrective information about the link for the livestream: https://youtu.be/jG84BIno5J4 from someone at Ingenium.***

Speakers

David Usher (Moderator)

David Usher is an artist, best-selling author, entrepreneur and keynote speaker. As a musician he has sold more than 1.4 million albums, won 4 Junos and has had #1 singles singing in English, French and Thai. When David is not making music, he is equally passionate about his other life, as a Geek. He is the founder of Reimagine AI, an artificial intelligence creative studio working at the intersection of art and artificial intelligence. David is also the founder and creative director of the non-profit, the Human Impact Lab at Concordia University [located in Montréal, Québec]. The Lab uses interactive storytelling to revisualize the story of climate change. David is the co-creator, with Dr. Damon Matthews, of the Climate Clock. Climate Clock has been presented all over the world including the United Nations COP 23 Climate Conference and is presently on a three-year tour with the Canada Museum of Science and Innovation’s Climate Change Exhibit.

Joelle Pineau (Facebook)

The AI Revolution:  From Ideas and Models to Building Smart Robots
Joelle Pineau is head of the Facebook AI Research Lab Montreal, and an Associate Professor and William Dawson Scholar at McGill University. Dr. Pineau’s research focuses on developing new models and algorithms for automatic planning and learning in partially-observable domains. She also applies these algorithms to complex problems in robotics, health-care, games and conversational agents. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research and the Journal of Machine Learning Research and is currently President of the International Machine Learning Society. She is a AAAI Fellow, a Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) and in 2016 was named a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists by the Royal Society of Canada.

Pablo Samuel Castro (Google)

Building an Intelligent Assistant for Music Creators
Pablo was born and raised in Quito, Ecuador, and moved to Montreal after high school to study at McGill. He stayed in Montreal for the next 10 years, finished his bachelors, worked at a flight simulator company, and then eventually obtained his masters and PhD at McGill, focusing on Reinforcement Learning. After his PhD Pablo did a 10-month postdoc in Paris before moving to Pittsburgh to join Google. He has worked at Google for almost 6 years, and is currently a research Software Engineer in Google Brain in Montreal, focusing on fundamental Reinforcement Learning research, as well as Machine Learning and Music. Aside from his interest in coding/AI/math, Pablo is an active musician (https://www.psctrio.com), loves running (5 marathons so far, including Boston!), and discussing politics and activism.

Philippe Beaudoin (Element AI)

Concrete AI-for-Good initiatives at Element AI
Philippe cofounded Element AI in 2016 and currently leads its applied lab and AI-for-Good initiatives. His team has helped tackle some of the biggest and most interesting business challenges using machine learning. Philippe holds a Ph.D in Computer Science and taught virtual bipeds to walk by themselves during his postdoc at UBC. He spent five years at Google as a Senior Developer and Technical Lead Manager, partly with the Chrome Machine Learning team. Philippe also founded ArcBees, specializing in cloud-based development. Prior to that he worked in the videogame and graphics hardware industries. When he has some free time, Philippe likes to invent new boardgames — the kind of games where he can still beat the AI!

Doina Precup (Deepmind)

Challenges and opportunities for the AI revolution in health care
Doina Precup splits her time between McGill University, where she co-directs the Reasoning and Learning Lab in the School of Computer Science, and DeepMind Montreal, where she leads the newly formed research team since October 2017.  She got her BSc degree in computer science form the Technical University Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and her MSc and PhD degrees from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where she was a Fulbright fellow. Her research interests are in the areas of reinforcement learning, deep learning, time series analysis, and diverse applications of machine learning in health care, automated control and other fields. She became a senior member of AAAI in 2015, a Canada Research Chair in Machine Learning in 2016 and a Senior Fellow of CIFAR in 2017.

Interesting, oui? Not a single expert from Ottawa or Toronto. Well, Element AI has an office in Toronto. Still, I wonder why this singular focus on AI in Montréal. After all, one of the current darlings of AI, machine learning, was developed at the University of Toronto which houses the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR),  the institution in charge of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy and the Vector Institutes (more about that in my March 31,2017 posting).

Enough with my musing: For those of us on the West Coast, there’s an opportunity to attend via livestream from 4 pm to 7 pm on April 25, 2018 on xxxxxxxxx. *** April 25, 2018: I received corrective information about the link for the livestream: https://youtu.be/jG84BIno5J4 and clarification as the relationship between Ingenium and the Canada Science and Technology Museum from someone at Ingenium.***

For more about Element AI, go here; for more about DeepMind, go here for information about parent company in the UK and the most I dug up about their Montréal office was this job posting; and, finally , Reimagine.AI is here.

Learn to love spiders and their silk as they may help you beat global warming

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Most of the research I’ve seen on spider silk has focused on its strength not its thermal conductivity. From the March 5, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

Xinwei Wang had a hunch that spider webs were worth a much closer look. So he ordered eight spiders – Nephila clavipes, golden silk orbweavers – and put them to work eating crickets and spinning webs in the cages he set up in an Iowa State University greenhouse.

Wang, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Iowa State, studies thermal conductivity, the ability of materials to conduct heat. He’s been looking for organic materials that can effectively transfer heat. It’s something diamonds, copper and aluminum are very good at; most materials from living things aren’t very good at all. …

What Wang and his research team found was that spider silks – particularly the draglines that anchor webs in place – conduct heat better than most materials, including very good conductors such as silicon, aluminum and pure iron. Spider silk also conducts heat 1,000 times better than woven silkworm silk and 800 times better than other organic tissues.

The March 5, 2012 news release from Iowa State University provides this detail,

The paper [about the discovery,  “New Secrets of Spider Silk: Exceptionally High Thermal Conductivity and its Abnormal Change under Stretching” – has just been published online by the journal Advanced Materials] reports that using laboratory techniques developed by Wang – “this takes time and patience” – spider silk conducts heat at the rate of 416 watts per meter Kelvin. Copper measures 401. And skin tissues measure .6.

“This is very surprising because spider silk is organic material,” Wang said. “For organic material, this is the highest ever. There are only a few materials higher – silver and diamond.”

Even more surprising, he said, is when spider silk is stretched, thermal conductivity also goes up. Wang said stretching spider silk to its 20 percent limit also increases conductivity by 20 percent. Most materials lose thermal conductivity when they’re stretched.

That discovery “opens a door for soft materials to be another option for thermal conductivity tuning,” Wang wrote in the paper.

And that could lead to spider silk helping to create flexible, heat-dissipating parts for electronics, better clothes for hot weather, bandages that don’t trap heat and many other everyday applications.

Here’s a look at one of Wang’s Golden Silk Orbweavers,

Photo courtesy of the Xinwei Wang research group.

Given that global warming is increasingly described as a certainty, (Simon Fraser University [located in Vancouver, Canada] March 4, 2012 news release,

Warming of 2 degrees inevitable over Canada

Even if zero emissions of greenhouse gases were to be achieved, the world’s temperature would continue to rise by about a quarter of a degree over a decade. That’s a best-case scenario, according to a paper co-written by a Simon Fraser University researcher.

New climate change research – Climate response to zeroed emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols — published in Nature’s online journal, urges the public, governments and industries to wake up to a harsh new reality.

“Let’s be honest, it’s totally unrealistic to believe that we can stop all emissions now,” says Kirsten Zickfeld, an assistant professor of geography at SFU. “Even with aggressive greenhouse gas mitigation, it will be a challenge to keep the projected global rise in temperature under 2 degrees Celsius,” emphasizes Zickfeld.

The geographer wrote the paper with Damon Matthews, a University of Concordia associate professor at the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment.

This discovery about spider silk and its possible applications is very welcome.