Tag Archives: Edmonton

Alberta adds a newish quantum nanotechnology research hub to the Canada’s quantum computing research scene

One of the winners in Canada’s 2017 federal budget announcement of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy was Edmonton, Alberta. It’s a fact which sometimes goes unnoticed while Canadians marvel at the wonderfulness found in Toronto and Montréal where it seems new initiatives and monies are being announced on a weekly basis (I exaggerate) for their AI (artificial intelligence) efforts.

Alberta’s quantum nanotechnology hub (graduate programme)

Intriguingly, it seems that Edmonton has higher aims than (an almost unnoticed) leadership in AI. Physicists at the University of Alberta have announced hopes to be just as successful as their AI brethren in a Nov. 27, 2017 article by Juris Graney for the Edmonton Journal,

Physicists at the University of Alberta [U of A] are hoping to emulate the success of their artificial intelligence studying counterparts in establishing the city and the province as the nucleus of quantum nanotechnology research in Canada and North America.

Google’s artificial intelligence research division DeepMind announced in July [2017] it had chosen Edmonton as its first international AI research lab, based on a long-running partnership with the U of A’s 10-person AI lab.

Retaining the brightest minds in the AI and machine-learning fields while enticing a global tech leader to Alberta was heralded as a coup for the province and the university.

It is something U of A physics professor John Davis believes the university’s new graduate program, Quanta, can help achieve in the world of quantum nanotechnology.

…

The field of quantum mechanics had long been a realm of theoretical science based on the theory that atomic and subatomic material like photons or electrons behave both as particles and waves.

“When you get right down to it, everything has both behaviours (particle and wave) and we can pick and choose certain scenarios which one of those properties we want to use,” he said.

But, Davis said, physicists and scientists are “now at the point where we understand quantum physics and are developing quantum technology to take to the marketplace.”

“Quantum computing used to be realm of science fiction, but now we’ve figured it out, it’s now a matter of engineering,” he said.

…

Quantum computing labs are being bought by large tech companies such as Google, IBM and Microsoft because they realize they are only a few years away from having this power, he said.

Those making the groundbreaking developments may want to commercialize their finds and take the technology to market and that is where Quanta comes in.

…

East vs. West—Again?

Ivan Semeniuk in his article, Quantum Supremacy, ignores any quantum research effort not located in either Waterloo, Ontario or metro Vancouver, British Columbia to describe a struggle between the East and the West (a standard Canadian trope). From Semeniuk’s Oct. 17, 2017 quantum article [link follows the excerpts] for the Globe and Mail’s October 2017 issue of the Report on Business (ROB),

Lazaridis [Mike], of course, has experienced lost advantage first-hand. As co-founder and former co-CEO of Research in Motion (RIM, now called Blackberry), he made the smartphone an indispensable feature of the modern world, only to watch rivals such as Apple and Samsung wrest away Blackberry’s dominance. Now, at 56, he is engaged in a high-stakes race that will determine who will lead the next technology revolution. In the rolling heartland of southwestern Ontario, he is laying the foundation for what he envisions as a new Silicon Valley—a commercial hub based on the promise of quantum technology.

Semeniuk skips over the story of how Blackberry lost its advantage. I came onto that story late in the game when Blackberry was already in serious trouble due to a failure to recognize that the field they helped to create was moving in a new direction. If memory serves, they were trying to keep their technology wholly proprietary which meant that developers couldn’t easily create apps to extend the phone’s features. Blackberry also fought a legal battle in the US with a patent troll draining company resources and energy in proved to be a futile effort.

Since then Lazaridis has invested heavily in quantum research. He gave the University of Waterloo a serious chunk of money as they named their Quantum Nano Centre (QNC) after him and his wife, Ophelia (you can read all about it in my Sept. 25, 2012 posting about the then new centre). The best details for Lazaridis’ investments in Canada’s quantum technology are to be found on the Quantum Valley Investments, About QVI, History webpage,

History has repeatedly demonstrated the power of research in physics to transform society. As a student of history and a believer in the power of physics, Mike Lazaridis set out in 2000 to make real his bold vision to establish the Region of Waterloo as a world leading centre for physics research. That is, a place where the best researchers in the world would come to do cutting-edge research and to collaborate with each other and in so doing, achieve transformative discoveries that would lead to the commercialization of breakthrough technologies.

Establishing a World Class Centre in Quantum Research:

The first step in this regard was the establishment of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Perimeter was established in 2000 as an independent theoretical physics research institute. Mike started Perimeter with an initial pledge of $100 million (which at the time was approximately one third of his net worth). Since that time, Mike and his family have donated a total of more than $170 million to the Perimeter Institute. In addition to this unprecedented monetary support, Mike also devotes his time and influence to help lead and support the organization in everything from the raising of funds with government and private donors to helping to attract the top researchers from around the globe to it. Mike’s efforts helped Perimeter achieve and grow its position as one of a handful of leading centres globally for theoretical research in fundamental physics.

Perimeter is located in a Governor-General award winning designed building in Waterloo. Success in recruiting and resulting space requirements led to an expansion of the Perimeter facility. A uniquely designed addition, which has been described as space-ship-like, was opened in 2011 as the Stephen Hawking Centre in recognition of one of the most famous physicists alive today who holds the position of Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at Perimeter and is a strong friend and supporter of the organization.

Recognizing the need for collaboration between theorists and experimentalists, in 2002, Mike applied his passion and his financial resources toward the establishment of The Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo. IQC was established as an experimental research institute focusing on quantum information. Mike established IQC with an initial donation of $33.3 million. Since that time, Mike and his family have donated a total of more than $120 million to the University of Waterloo for IQC and other related science initiatives. As in the case of the Perimeter Institute, Mike devotes considerable time and influence to help lead and support IQC in fundraising and recruiting efforts. Mike’s efforts have helped IQC become one of the top experimental physics research institutes in the world.

Mike and Doug Fregin have been close friends since grade 5. They are also co-founders of BlackBerry (formerly Research In Motion Limited). Doug shares Mike’s passion for physics and supported Mike’s efforts at the Perimeter Institute with an initial gift of $10 million. Since that time Doug has donated a total of $30 million to Perimeter Institute. Separately, Doug helped establish the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Waterloo with total gifts for $29 million. As suggested by its name, WIN is devoted to research in the area of nanotechnology. It has established as an area of primary focus the intersection of nanotechnology and quantum physics.

With a donation of $50 million from Mike which was matched by both the Government of Canada and the province of Ontario as well as a donation of $10 million from Doug, the University of Waterloo built the Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre, a state of the art laboratory located on the main campus of the University of Waterloo that rivals the best facilities in the world. QNC was opened in September 2012 and houses researchers from both IQC and WIN.

Leading the Establishment of Commercialization Culture for Quantum Technologies in Canada:

For many years, theorists have been able to demonstrate the transformative powers of quantum mechanics on paper. That said, converting these theories to experimentally demonstrable discoveries has, putting it mildly, been a challenge. Many naysayers have suggested that achieving these discoveries was not possible and even the believers suggested that it could likely take decades to achieve these discoveries. Recently, a buzz has been developing globally as experimentalists have been able to achieve demonstrable success with respect to Quantum Information based discoveries. Local experimentalists are very much playing a leading role in this regard. It is believed by many that breakthrough discoveries that will lead to commercialization opportunities may be achieved in the next few years and certainly within the next decade.

Recognizing the unique challenges for the commercialization of quantum technologies (including risk associated with uncertainty of success, complexity of the underlying science and high capital / equipment costs) Mike and Doug have chosen to once again lead by example. The Quantum Valley Investment Fund will provide commercialization funding, expertise and support for researchers that develop breakthroughs in Quantum Information Science that can reasonably lead to new commercializable technologies and applications. Their goal in establishing this Fund is to lead in the development of a commercialization infrastructure and culture for Quantum discoveries in Canada and thereby enable such discoveries to remain here.

Semeniuk goes on to set the stage for Waterloo/Lazaridis vs. Vancouver (from Semeniuk’s 2017 ROB article),

… as happened with Blackberry, the world is once again catching up. While Canada’s funding of quantum technology ranks among the top five in the world, the European Union, China, and the US are all accelerating their investments in the field. Tech giants such as Google [also known as Alphabet], Microsoft and IBM are ramping up programs to develop companies and other technologies based on quantum principles. Meanwhile, even as Lazaridis works to establish Waterloo as the country’s quantum hub, a Vancouver-area company has emerged to challenge that claim. The two camps—one methodically focused on the long game, the other keen to stake an early commercial lead—have sparked an East-West rivalry that many observers of the Canadian quantum scene are at a loss to explain.

Is it possible that some of the rivalry might be due to an influential individual who has invested heavily in a ‘quantum valley’ and has a history of trying to ‘own’ a technology?

Getting back to D-Wave Systems, the Vancouver company, I have written about them a number of times (particularly in 2015; for the full list: input D-Wave into the blog search engine). This June 26, 2015 posting includes a reference to an article in The Economist magazine about D-Wave’s commercial opportunities while the bulk of the posting is focused on a technical breakthrough.

Semeniuk offers an overview of the D-Wave Systems story,

D-Wave was born in 1999, the same year Lazaridis began to fund quantum science in Waterloo. From the start, D-Wave had a more immediate goal: to develop a new computer technology to bring to market. “We didn’t have money or facilities,” says Geordie Rose, a physics PhD who co0founded the company and served in various executive roles. …

The group soon concluded that the kind of machine most scientists were pursing based on so-called gate-model architecture was decades away from being realized—if ever. …

Instead, D-Wave pursued another idea, based on a principle dubbed “quantum annealing.” This approach seemed more likely to produce a working system, even if the application that would run on it were more limited. “The only thing we cared about was building the machine,” says Rose. “Nobody else was trying to solve the same problem.”

D-Wave debuted its first prototype at an event in California in February 2007 running it through a few basic problems such as solving a Sudoku puzzle and finding the optimal seating plan for a wedding reception. … “They just assumed we were hucksters,” says Hilton [Jeremy Hilton, D.Wave senior vice-president of systems]. Federico Spedalieri, a computer scientist at the University of Southern California’s [USC} Information Sciences Institute who has worked with D-Wave’s system, says the limited information the company provided about the machine’s operation provoked outright hostility. “I think that played against them a lot in the following years,” he says.

It seems Lazaridis is not the only one who likes to hold company information tightly.

Back to Semeniuk and D-Wave,

Today [October 2017], the Los Alamos National Laboratory owns a D-Wave machine, which costs about $15million. Others pay to access D-Wave systems remotely. This year , for example, Volkswagen fed data from thousands of Beijing taxis into a machine located in Burnaby [one of the municipalities that make up metro Vancouver] to study ways to optimize traffic flow.

But the application for which D-Wave has the hights hope is artificial intelligence. Any AI program hings on the on the “training” through which a computer acquires automated competence, and the 2000Q [a D-Wave computer] appears well suited to this task. …

Yet, for all the buzz D-Wave has generated, with several research teams outside Canada investigating its quantum annealing approach, the company has elicited little interest from the Waterloo hub. As a result, what might seem like a natural development—the Institute for Quantum Computing acquiring access to a D-Wave machine to explore and potentially improve its value—has not occurred. …

I am particularly interested in this comment as it concerns public funding (from Semeniuk’s article),

Vern Brownell, a former Goldman Sachs executive who became CEO of D-Wave in 2009, calls the lack of collaboration with Waterloo’s research community “ridiculous,” adding that his company’s efforts to establish closer ties have proven futile, “I’ll be blunt: I don’t think our relationship is good enough,” he says. Brownell also point out that, while hundreds of millions in public funds have flowed into Waterloo’s ecosystem, little funding is available for Canadian scientists wishing to make the most of D-Wave’s hardware—despite the fact that it remains unclear which core quantum technology will prove the most profitable.

There’s a lot more to Semeniuk’s article but this is the last excerpt,

The world isn’t waiting for Canada’s quantum rivals to forge a united front. Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Intel are racing to develop a gate-model quantum computer—the sector’s ultimate goal. (Google’s researchers have said they will unveil a significant development early next year.) With the U.K., Australia and Japan pouring money into quantum, Canada, an early leader, is under pressure to keep up. The federal government is currently developing a strategy for supporting the country’s evolving quantum sector and, ultimately, getting a return on its approximately $1-billion investment over the past decade [emphasis mine].

I wonder where the “approximately $1-billion … ” figure came from. I ask because some years ago MP Peter Julian asked the government for information about how much Canadian federal money had been invested in nanotechnology. The government replied with sheets of paper (a pile approximately 2 inches high) that had funding disbursements from various ministries. Each ministry had its own method with different categories for listing disbursements and the titles for the research projects were not necessarily informative for anyone outside a narrow specialty. (Peter Julian’s assistant had kindly sent me a copy of the response they had received.) The bottom line is that it would have been close to impossible to determine the amount of federal funding devoted to nanotechnology using that data. So, where did the $1-billion figure come from?

In any event, it will be interesting to see how the Council of Canadian Academies assesses the ‘quantum’ situation in its more academically inclined, “The State of Science and Technology and Industrial Research and Development in Canada,” when it’s released later this year (2018).

Finally, you can find Semeniuk’s October 2017 article here but be aware it’s behind a paywall.

Whither we goest?

Despite any doubts one might have about Lazaridis’ approach to research and technology, his tremendous investment and support cannot be denied. Without him, Canada’s quantum research efforts would be substantially less significant. As for the ‘cowboys’ in Vancouver, it takes a certain temperament to found a start-up company and it seems the D-Wave folks have more in common with Lazaridis than they might like to admit. As for the Quanta graduate programme, it’s early days yet and no one should ever count out Alberta.

Meanwhile, one can continue to hope that a more thoughtful approach to regional collaboration will be adopted so Canada can continue to blaze trails in the field of quantum research.

Artificial intelligence (AI) company (in Montréal, Canada) attracts $135M in funding from Microsoft, Intel, Nvidia and others

Leave a reply

It seems there’s a push on to establish Canada as a centre for artificial intelligence research and, if the federal and provincial governments have their way, for commercialization of said research. As always, there seems to be a bit of competition between Toronto (Ontario) and Montréal (Québec) as to which will be the dominant hub for the Canadian effort if one is to take Braga’s word for the situation.

In any event, Toronto seemed to have a mild advantage over Montréal initially with the 2017 Canadian federal government budget announcement that the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), based in Toronto, would launch a Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy and with an announcement from the University of Toronto shortly after (from my March 31, 2017 posting),

On the heels of the March 22, 2017 federal budget announcement of $125M for a Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, the University of Toronto (U of T) has announced the inception of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence in a March 28, 2017 news release by Jennifer Robinson (Note: Links have been removed),

A team of globally renowned researchers at the University of Toronto is driving the planning of a new institute staking Toronto’s and Canada’s claim as the global leader in AI.

Geoffrey Hinton, a University Professor Emeritus in computer science at U of T and vice-president engineering fellow at Google, will serve as the chief scientific adviser of the newly created Vector Institute based in downtown Toronto.

“The University of Toronto has long been considered a global leader in artificial intelligence research,” said U of T President Meric Gertler. “It’s wonderful to see that expertise act as an anchor to bring together researchers, government and private sector actors through the Vector Institute, enabling them to aim even higher in leading advancements in this fast-growing, critical field.”

As part of the Government of Canada’s Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, Vector will share $125 million in federal funding with fellow institutes in Montreal and Edmonton. All three will conduct research and secure talent to cement Canada’s position as a world leader in AI.

However, Montréal and the province of Québec are no slouches when it comes to supporting to technology. From a June 14, 2017 article by Matthew Braga for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) news online (Note: Links have been removed),

One of the most promising new hubs for artificial intelligence research in Canada is going international, thanks to a $135 million investment with contributions from some of the biggest names in tech.

The company, Montreal-based Element AI, was founded last October [2016] to help companies that might not have much experience in artificial intelligence start using the technology to change the way they do business.

It’s equal parts general research lab and startup incubator, with employees working to develop new and improved techniques in artificial intelligence that might not be fully realized for years, while also commercializing products and services that can be sold to clients today.

It was co-founded by Yoshua Bengio — one of the pioneers of a type of AI research called machine learning — along with entrepreneurs Jean-François Gagné and Nicolas Chapados, and the Canadian venture capital fund Real Ventures.

In an interview, Bengio and Gagné said the money from the company’s funding round will be used to hire 250 new employees by next January. A hundred will be based in Montreal, but an additional 100 employees will be hired for a new office in Toronto, and the remaining 50 for an Element AI office in Asia — its first international outpost.

They will join more than 100 employees who work for Element AI today, having left jobs at Amazon, Uber and Google, among others, to work at the company’s headquarters in Montreal.

The expansion is a big vote of confidence in Element AI’s strategy from some of the world’s biggest technology companies. Microsoft, Intel and Nvidia all contributed to the round, and each is a key player in AI research and development.

The company has some not unexpected plans and partners (from the Braga, article, Note: A link has been removed),

The Series A round was led by Data Collective, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm, and included participation by Fidelity Investments Canada, National Bank of Canada, and Real Ventures.

What will it help the company do? Scale, its founders say.

“We’re looking at domain experts, artificial intelligence experts,” Gagné said. “We already have quite a few, but we’re looking at people that are at the top of their game in their domains.

“And at this point, it’s no longer just pure artificial intelligence, but people who understand, extremely well, robotics, industrial manufacturing, cybersecurity, and financial services in general, which are all the areas we’re going after.”

…

Gagné says that Element AI has already delivered 10 projects to clients in those areas, and have many more in development. In one case, Element AI has been helping a Japanese semiconductor company better analyze the data collected by the assembly robots on its factory floor, in a bid to reduce manufacturing errors and improve the quality of the company’s products.

…

There’s more to investment in Québec’s AI sector than Element AI (from the Braga article; Note: Links have been removed),

Element AI isn’t the only organization in Canada that investors are interested in.

In September, the Canadian government announced $213 million in funding for a handful of Montreal universities, while both Google and Microsoft announced expansions of their Montreal AI research groups in recent months alongside investments in local initiatives. The province of Quebec has pledged $100 million for AI initiatives by 2022.

…

Braga goes on to note some other initiatives but at that point the article’s focus is exclusively Toronto.

For more insight into the AI situation in Québec, there’s Dan Delmar’s May 23, 2017 article for the Montreal Express (Note: Links have been removed),

Advocating for massive government spending with little restraint admittedly deviates from the tenor of these columns, but the AI business is unlike any other before it. [emphasis misn] Having leaders acting as fervent advocates for the industry is crucial; resisting the coming technological tide is, as the Borg would say, futile.

The roughly 250 AI researchers who call Montreal home are not simply part of a niche industry. Quebec’s francophone character and Montreal’s multilingual citizenry are certainly factors favouring the development of language technology, but there’s ample opportunity for more ambitious endeavours with broader applications.

AI isn’t simply a technological breakthrough; it is the technological revolution. [emphasis mine] In the coming decades, modern computing will transform all industries, eliminating human inefficiencies and maximizing opportunities for innovation and growth — regardless of the ethical dilemmas that will inevitably arise.

“By 2020, we’ll have computers that are powerful enough to simulate the human brain,” said (in 2009) futurist Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity Is Near, a seminal 2006 book that has inspired a generation of AI technologists. Kurzweil’s projections are not science fiction but perhaps conservative, as some forms of AI already effectively replace many human cognitive functions. “By 2045, we’ll have expanded the intelligence of our human-machine civilization a billion-fold. That will be the singularity.”

The singularity concept, borrowed from physicists describing event horizons bordering matter-swallowing black holes in the cosmos, is the point of no return where human and machine intelligence will have completed their convergence. That’s when the machines “take over,” so to speak, and accelerate the development of civilization beyond traditional human understanding and capability.

…

The claims I’ve highlighted in Delmar’s article have been made before for other technologies, “xxx is like no other business before’ and “it is a technological revolution.” Also if you keep scrolling down to the bottom of the article, you’ll find Delmar is a ‘public relations consultant’ which, if you look at his LinkedIn profile, you’ll find means he’s a managing partner in a PR firm known as Provocateur.

Bertrand Marotte’s May 20, 2017 article for the Montreal Gazette offers less hyperbole along with additional detail about the Montréal scene (Note: Links have been removed),

It might seem like an ambitious goal, but key players in Montreal’s rapidly growing artificial-intelligence sector are intent on transforming the city into a Silicon Valley of AI.

Certainly, the flurry of activity these days indicates that AI in the city is on a roll. Impressive amounts of cash have been flowing into academia, public-private partnerships, research labs and startups active in AI in the Montreal area.

…

…, researchers at Microsoft Corp. have successfully developed a computing system able to decipher conversational speech as accurately as humans do. The technology makes the same, or fewer, errors than professional transcribers and could be a huge boon to major users of transcription services like law firms and the courts.

Setting the goal of attaining the critical mass of a Silicon Valley is “a nice point of reference,” said tech entrepreneur Jean-François Gagné, co-founder and chief executive officer of Element AI, an artificial intelligence startup factory launched last year.

…

The idea is to create a “fluid, dynamic ecosystem” in Montreal where AI research, startup, investment and commercialization activities all mesh productively together, said Gagné, who founded Element with researcher Nicolas Chapados and Université de Montréal deep learning pioneer Yoshua Bengio.

“Artificial intelligence is seen now as a strategic asset to governments and to corporations. The fight for resources is global,” he said.

The rise of Montreal — and rival Toronto — as AI hubs owes a lot to provincial and federal government funding.

Ottawa promised $213 million last September to fund AI and big data research at four Montreal post-secondary institutions. Quebec has earmarked $100 million over the next five years for the development of an AI “super-cluster” in the Montreal region.

The provincial government also created a 12-member blue-chip committee to develop a strategic plan to make Quebec an AI hub, co-chaired by Claridge Investments Ltd. CEO Pierre Boivin and Université de Montréal rector Guy Breton.

But private-sector money has also been flowing in, particularly from some of the established tech giants competing in an intense AI race for innovative breakthroughs and the best brains in the business.

…

Montreal’s rich talent pool is a major reason Waterloo, Ont.-based language-recognition startup Maluuba decided to open a research lab in the city, said the company’s vice-president of product development, Mohamed Musbah.

“It’s been incredible so far. The work being done in this space is putting Montreal on a pedestal around the world,” he said.

Microsoft struck a deal this year to acquire Maluuba, which is working to crack one of the holy grails of deep learning: teaching machines to read like the human brain does. Among the company’s software developments are voice assistants for smartphones.

Maluuba has also partnered with an undisclosed auto manufacturer to develop speech recognition applications for vehicles. Voice recognition applied to cars can include such things as asking for a weather report or making remote requests for the vehicle to unlock itself.

Marotte’s Twitter profile describes him as a freelance writer, editor, and translator.

Vector Institute and Canada’s artificial intelligence sector

Leave a reply

On the heels of the March 22, 2017 federal budget announcement of $125M for a Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, the University of Toronto (U of T) has announced the inception of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence in a March 28, 2017 news release by Jennifer Robinson (Note: Links have been removed),

A team of globally renowned researchers at the University of Toronto is driving the planning of a new institute staking Toronto’s and Canada’s claim as the global leader in AI.

Geoffrey Hinton, a University Professor Emeritus in computer science at U of T and vice-president engineering fellow at Google, will serve as the chief scientific adviser of the newly created Vector Institute based in downtown Toronto.

“The University of Toronto has long been considered a global leader in artificial intelligence research,” said U of T President Meric Gertler. “It’s wonderful to see that expertise act as an anchor to bring together researchers, government and private sector actors through the Vector Institute, enabling them to aim even higher in leading advancements in this fast-growing, critical field.”

As part of the Government of Canada’s Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, Vector will share $125 million in federal funding with fellow institutes in Montreal and Edmonton. All three will conduct research and secure talent to cement Canada’s position as a world leader in AI.

In addition, Vector is expected to receive funding from the Province of Ontario and more than 30 top Canadian and global companies eager to tap this pool of talent to grow their businesses. The institute will also work closely with other Ontario universities with AI talent.

(See my March 24, 2017 posting; scroll down about 25% for the science part, including the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy of the budget.)

Not obvious in last week’s coverage of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy is that the much lauded Hinton has been living in the US and working for Google. These latest announcements (Pan-Canadian AI Strategy and Vector Institute) mean that he’s moving back.

A March 28, 2017 article by Kate Allen for TorontoStar.com provides more details about the Vector Institute, Hinton, and the Canadian ‘brain drain’ as it applies to artificial intelligence, (Note: A link has been removed)

Toronto will host a new institute devoted to artificial intelligence, a major gambit to bolster a field of research pioneered in Canada but consistently drained of talent by major U.S. technology companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

The Vector Institute, an independent non-profit affiliated with the University of Toronto, will hire about 25 new faculty and research scientists. It will be backed by more than $150 million in public and corporate funding in an unusual hybridization of pure research and business-minded commercial goals.

The province will spend $50 million over five years, while the federal government, which announced a $125-million Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy in last week’s budget, is providing at least $40 million, backers say. More than two dozen companies have committed millions more over 10 years, including $5 million each from sponsors including Google, Air Canada, Loblaws, and Canada’s five biggest banks [Bank of Montreal (BMO). Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce ({CIBC} President’s Choice Financial}, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Scotiabank (Tangerine), Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Canada Trust)].

The mode of artificial intelligence that the Vector Institute will focus on, deep learning, has seen remarkable results in recent years, particularly in image and speech recognition. Geoffrey Hinton, considered the “godfather” of deep learning for the breakthroughs he made while a professor at U of T, has worked for Google since 2013 in California and Toronto.

Hinton will move back to Canada to lead a research team based at the tech giant’s Toronto offices and act as chief scientific adviser of the new institute.

…

Researchers trained in Canadian artificial intelligence labs fill the ranks of major technology companies, working on tools like instant language translation, facial recognition, and recommendation services. Academic institutions and startups in Toronto, Waterloo, Montreal and Edmonton boast leaders in the field, but other researchers have left for U.S. universities and corporate labs.

The goals of the Vector Institute are to retain, repatriate and attract AI talent, to create more trained experts, and to feed that expertise into existing Canadian companies and startups.

…

Hospitals are expected to be a major partner, since health care is an intriguing application for AI. Last month, researchers from Stanford University announced they had trained a deep learning algorithm to identify potentially cancerous skin lesions with accuracy comparable to human dermatologists. The Toronto company Deep Genomics is using deep learning to read genomes and identify mutations that may lead to disease, among other things.

Intelligent algorithms can also be applied to tasks that might seem less virtuous, like reading private data to better target advertising. Zemel [Richard Zemel, the institute’s research director and a professor of computer science at U of T] says the centre is creating an ethics working group [emphasis mine] and maintaining ties with organizations that promote fairness and transparency in machine learning. As for privacy concerns, “that’s something we are well aware of. We don’t have a well-formed policy yet but we will fairly soon.”

The institute’s annual funding pales in comparison to the revenues of the American tech giants, which are measured in tens of billions. The risk the institute’s backers are taking is simply creating an even more robust machine learning PhD mill for the U.S.

“They obviously won’t all stay in Canada, but Toronto industry is very keen to get them,” Hinton said. “I think Trump might help there.” Two researchers on Hinton’s new Toronto-based team are Iranian, one of the countries targeted by U.S. President Donald Trump’s travel bans.

Ethics do seem to be a bit of an afterthought. Presumably the Vector Institute’s ‘ethics working group’ won’t include any regular folks. Is there any thought to what the rest of us think about these developments? As there will also be some collaboration with other proposed AI institutes including ones at the University of Montreal (Université de Montréal) and the University of Alberta (Kate McGillivray’s article coming up shortly mentions them), might the ethics group be centered in either Edmonton or Montreal? Interestingly, two Canadians (Timothy Caulfield at the University of Alberta and Eric Racine at Université de Montréa) testified at the US Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues Feb. 10 – 11, 2014 meeting, the Brain research, ethics, and nanotechnology. Still speculating here but I imagine Caulfield and/or Racine could be persuaded to extend their expertise in ethics and the human brain to AI and its neural networks.

Getting back to the topic at hand the ‘AI sceneCanada’, Allen’s article is worth reading in its entirety if you have the time.

Kate McGillivray’s March 29, 2017 article for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) news online provides more details about the Canadian AI situation and the new strategies,

With artificial intelligence set to transform our world, a new institute is putting Toronto to the front of the line to lead the charge.

The Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, made possible by funding from the federal government revealed in the 2017 budget, will move into new digs in the MaRS Discovery District by the end of the year.

…

Vector’s funding comes partially from a $125 million investment announced in last Wednesday’s federal budget to launch a pan-Canadian artificial intelligence strategy, with similar institutes being established in Montreal and Edmonton.

“[A.I.] cuts across pretty well every sector of the economy,” said Dr. Alan Bernstein, CEO and president of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the organization tasked with administering the federal program.

“Silicon Valley and England and other places really jumped on it, so we kind of lost the lead a little bit. I think the Canadian federal government has now realized that,” he said.

Stopping up the brain drain

Critical to the strategy’s success is building a homegrown base of A.I. experts and innovators — a problem in the last decade, despite pioneering work on so-called “Deep Learning” by Canadian scholars such as Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, a former University of Toronto professor who will now serve as Vector’s chief scientific advisor.

With few university faculty positions in Canada and with many innovative companies headquartered elsewhere, it has been tough to keep the few graduates specializing in A.I. in town.

“We were paying to educate people and shipping them south,” explained Ed Clark, chair of the Vector Institute and business advisor to Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.

…

The existence of that “fantastic science” will lean heavily on how much buy-in Vector and Canada’s other two A.I. centres get.

Toronto’s portion of the $125 million is a “great start,” said Bernstein, but taken alone, “it’s not enough money.”

“My estimate of the right amount of money to make a difference is a half a billion or so, and I think we will get there,” he said.

Jessica Murphy’s March 29, 2017 article for the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) news online offers some intriguing detail about the Canadian AI scene,

Canadian researchers have been behind some recent major breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. Now, the country is betting on becoming a big player in one of the hottest fields in technology, with help from the likes of Google and RBC [Royal Bank of Canada].

In an unassuming building on the University of Toronto’s downtown campus, Geoff Hinton laboured for years on the “lunatic fringe” of academia and artificial intelligence, pursuing research in an area of AI called neural networks.

Also known as “deep learning”, neural networks are computer programs that learn in similar way to human brains. The field showed early promise in the 1980s, but the tech sector turned its attention to other AI methods after that promise seemed slow to develop.

“The approaches that I thought were silly were in the ascendancy and the approach that I thought was the right approach was regarded as silly,” says the British-born [emphasis mine] professor, who splits his time between the university and Google, where he is a vice-president of engineering fellow.

…

Neural networks are used by the likes of Netflix to recommend what you should binge watch and smartphones with voice assistance tools. Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo AI used them to win against a human in the ancient game of Go in 2016.

…

Foteini Agrafioti, who heads up the new RBC Research in Machine Learning lab at the University of Toronto, said those recent innovations made AI attractive to researchers and the tech industry.

“Anything that’s powering Google’s engines right now is powered by deep learning,” she says.

Developments in the field helped jumpstart innovation and paved the way for the technology’s commercialisation. They also captured the attention of Google, IBM and Microsoft, and kicked off a hiring race in the field.

The renewed focus on neural networks has boosted the careers of early Canadian AI machine learning pioneers like Hinton, the University of Montreal’s Yoshua Bengio, and University of Alberta’s Richard Sutton.

Money from big tech is coming north, along with investments by domestic corporations like banking multinational RBC and auto parts giant Magna, and millions of dollars in government funding.

…

Former banking executive Ed Clark will head the institute, and says the goal is to make Toronto, which has the largest concentration of AI-related industries in Canada, one of the top five places in the world for AI innovation and business.

The founders also want it to serve as a magnet and retention tool for top talent aggressively head-hunted by US firms.

Clark says they want to “wake up” Canadian industry to the possibilities of AI, which is expected to have a massive impact on fields like healthcare, banking, manufacturing and transportation.

…

Google invested C$4.5m (US$3.4m/£2.7m) last November [2016] in the University of Montreal’s Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms.

Microsoft is funding a Montreal startup, Element AI. The Seattle-based company also announced it would acquire Montreal-based Maluuba and help fund AI research at the University of Montreal and McGill University.

Thomson Reuters and General Motors both recently moved AI labs to Toronto.

…

RBC is also investing in the future of AI in Canada, including opening a machine learning lab headed by Agrafioti, co-funding a program to bring global AI talent and entrepreneurs to Toronto, and collaborating with Sutton and the University of Alberta’s Machine Intelligence Institute.

…

Canadian tech also sees the travel uncertainty created by the Trump administration in the US as making Canada more attractive to foreign talent. (One of Clark’s the selling points is that Toronto as an “open and diverse” city).

…

This may reverse the ‘brain drain’ but it appears Canada’s role as a ‘branch plant economy’ for foreign (usually US) companies could become an important discussion once more. From the ‘Foreign ownership of companies of Canada’ Wikipedia entry (Note: Links have been removed),

Historically, foreign ownership was a political issue in Canada in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it was believed by some that U.S. investment had reached new heights (though its levels had actually remained stable for decades), and then in the 1980s, during debates over the Free Trade Agreement.

But the situation has changed, since in the interim period Canada itself became a major investor and owner of foreign corporations. Since the 1980s, Canada’s levels of investment and ownership in foreign companies have been larger than foreign investment and ownership in Canada. In some smaller countries, such as Montenegro, Canadian investment is sizable enough to make up a major portion of the economy. In Northern Ireland, for example, Canada is the largest foreign investor. By becoming foreign owners themselves, Canadians have become far less politically concerned about investment within Canada.

Of note is that Canada’s largest companies by value, and largest employers, tend to be foreign-owned in a way that is more typical of a developing nation than a G8 member. The best example is the automotive sector, one of Canada’s most important industries. It is dominated by American, German, and Japanese giants. Although this situation is not unique to Canada in the global context, it is unique among G-8 nations, and many other relatively small nations also have national automotive companies.

It’s interesting to note that sometimes Canadian companies are the big investors but that doesn’t change our basic position. And, as I’ve noted in other postings (including the March 24, 2017 posting), these government investments in science and technology won’t necessarily lead to a move away from our ‘branch plant economy’ towards an innovative Canada.

You can find out more about the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence here.

BTW, I noted that reference to Hinton as ‘British-born’ in the BBC article. He was educated in the UK and subsidized by UK taxpayers (from his Wikipedia entry; Note: Links have been removed),

Hinton was educated at King’s College, Cambridge graduating in 1970, with a Bachelor of Arts in experimental psychology.[1] He continued his study at the University of Edinburgh where he was awarded a PhD in artificial intelligence in 1977 for research supervised by H. Christopher Longuet-Higgins.[3][12]

It seems Canadians are not the only ones to experience ‘brain drains’.

Finally, I wrote at length about a recent initiative taking place between the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) and the University of Washington (Seattle, Washington), the Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative in a Feb. 28, 2017 posting noting that the initiative is being funded by Microsoft to the tune $1M and is part of a larger cooperative effort between the province of British Columbia and the state of Washington. Artificial intelligence is not the only area where US technology companies are hedging their bets (against Trump’s administration which seems determined to terrify people from crossing US borders) by investing in Canada.

For anyone interested in a little more information about AI in the US and China, there’s today’s (March 31, 2017)earlier posting: China, US, and the race for artificial intelligence research domination.

Biomining for rare earth elements with Alberta’s (Canada) Ingenuity Lab

Leave a reply

Alberta’s Ingenuity Lab and its biomining efforts are being featured in a Feb. 3, 2014 Nanowerk Spotlight article which was supplied by Ingenuity Lab (Note: A link has been removed),

Scientists at Ingenuity Lab in Edmonton, Alberta are taking cues from nature, as they focus on nanotechnology gains in the area of biomining. Using microorganisms and biomolecules, the group is making significant advances in the recovery of rare earth and precious metals from industrial processes and the environment thanks to superior molecular recognition techniques.

In recent decades, the utility of protein/peptide molecules and their inorganic material recognition and binding abilities has come to light. Combinatorial biology tools have enabled researchers to select peptides for various materials such as ceramics, metal oxides, alloys and pure metals. Even though the binding mechanism of peptides hasn’t yet been fully resolved, studies are ongoing and these peptides continue to be used in many nanotechnology applications.

The Spotlight article further describes the approach being undertaken,

… researchers at Alberta’s first nanotechnology accelerator laboratory (Ingenuity Lab) are looking to take advantage of inorganic binding peptides for mining valuable and rare earth elements/metals that exist in nature or synthetic materials.

…

Rare earth elements (REE) are sought after materials that facilitate the production of electrical car batteries, high power magnets, lasers, fiber optic technology, MRI contrast agents, fluorescent lightening and much more. Despite increasing demand, mining and processing yields are not enough to satisfy the growing need. This is mainly due to the great loss during mining (25-50%) and beneficiation (10-30%).

Since REEs exist as a mixture in mineral ores, their beneficiation and separation into individual metals requires unique processes. Depending on the chemical form of the metal, different compounds are necessary during beneficiation steps to convert minerals into metal nitrates, oxides, chlorides and fluorides, which would be further extracted individually. Furthermore, this process must be followed with solvent separation to obtain individual metals. These excessive steps not only increase the production cost and energy consumption but also decrease the yield and generate environmental pollution due to the use of various chemicals and organic solvents.

…

… Ingenuity Lab is working on generating smart biomaterials composed of inorganic binding peptides coated on the core of magnetic nanoparticles. These smart materials will expose two functions; first they will recognize and bind to a specific REE through the peptide region and they will migrate to magnetic field by the help of Iron Oxide core.

You can find more detail and illustrations in the Spotlight article.

There is biomining research being performed in at least one other lab (in China) as I noted in a Nov. 1, 2013 posting about some work to remove REEs from wastewater and where I noted that China had announced a cap on its exports of REEs.

Tim Harper’s Cientifica emerging technologies and business consultancy offers a white paper (free), Simply No Substitute? [2013?], which contextualizes and provides insight into the situation with REEs and other other critical materials. From Cientifica’s Simply No Substitute? webpage,

There is increasing concern that restricted supplies of certain metals and other critical minerals could hinder the deployment of future technologies. This new white paper by Cientifica and Material Value, Simply No Substitute? takes a critical look at the current technology and policy landscape in this vital area, and in particular, the attempts to develop substitutes for critical materials.

A huge amount of research and development is currently taking place in academic and industrial research laboratories, with the aim of developing novel, innovative material substitutes or simply to ‘engineer-out’ critical materials with new designs. As an example, our analysis shows the number of patents related to substitutes for rare earth elements has doubled in the last two years. However, the necessity and effectiveness of this research activity is still unclear and requires greater insight. Certainly, as this white paper details, there is no universal agreement between Governments and other stakeholders on what materials are at risk of future supply disruptions.

In an effort to ensure the interests of end-users are represented across this increasingly complex and rapidly developing issue, the publication proposes the creation of a new industry body. This will benefit not just end-users, but also primary and secondary producers of critical materials, for who it is currently only feasible to have sporadic and inconsistent interaction with the diverse range of industries that use their materials.

You can download the white paper from here.

Getting back to Ingenuity Lab, there is no research paper mentioned in the Spotlight article. Their website does offer this on the Mining page,

The extraction of oil and gas is key to the economic prosperity of Alberta and Canada. We have the third largest oil reserves in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Not only is our oil and gas sector expected to generate $2.1 trillion in economic activity across Canada over the next 25 years, Canadian employment is expected to grow from 75,000 jobs in 2010 to 905,000 in 2035. However, it’s not without its impacts to the environment. This, we know. There are great strides being made in technology and innovation in this sector, but what if we could do more?

Then, there’s this from the site’s Biomining subpage,

Using a process called biomining, the research team at Ingenuity Lab is engineering new nano particles that have the capability to detect, extract or even bind to rare earth and precious metals that exist in nature or found in man-made materials.

Leveraging off of the incredible advances in targeted medical therapies, active nanoparticle and membrane technologies offer the opportunity to recover valuable resources from mining operations while leading to the remediation of environmentally contaminated soil and water.

Biomining technology offers the opportunity to maximize the utility of our natural resources, establish a new path forward to restore the pristine land and water of our forefathers and redefine Canada’s legacy of societal environmental, and economic prosperity.

Finally, there’s this page (Ingenuity Attracts Attention with Biomining Advances) which seems to have originated the Spotlight article and is the source of the images in the Spotlight article. I am curious as to whose attention they’ve attracted although I can certainly understand why various groups and individuals might be,

… Ingenuity’s system will also be able to work in a continuous flow process. There will be a constant input of metal mixture, which could be mine acid drain, tailing ponds or polluted water sources, and smart biomaterial. Biomaterial will be recovered from the end point of the chamber together with the targeted metal. Since the interaction between the peptide and the metal of interest is not covalent bonding, metal will be removed from the material without the need for harsh chemicals. This means valuable materials, currently discarded as waste, will be accessible and the reuse of the smart biomaterial will be an option, lowering the purification cost even more.

These exciting discoveries are welcome news for the mining industry and the environment, but also for communities around the world and generations to come. Thanks to ingenuity, we will soon be able to maximize the utility of our precious resources as we restore damaged lands and water.

In any event I hope to hear more about this promising work with more details (such as: At what stage is this work?, Is it scalable?) and the other research being performed at Ingenuity Lab.

NanoThinking and its global NanoTechMap

Leave a reply

I first wrote about Nano Thinking n a Feb. 4,, 2 013 posting featuring their Nano Tech map of France. It seems the company has decided to celebrate the upcoming 2014 new year with an international NanoTechMap. From the Dec. 17, 2013 NanoThinking press release,

The French company NanoThinking announces the release of the NanoTechMap: it gives a comprehensive view of the industrial offer in the field of nanotechnology and provides more visibility to actors in this field for a very modest cost compare to standard exhibitions.

An online exhibition dedicated to nanotechnology

The industry of nanotechnology is growing fast but it is still much atomized which makes it difficult to access for other industrial sectors which are willing to integrate these technologies in order to develop new products and new uses.

The NanoTechMap proposes a comprehensive catalogue of the nanotechnology opportunities and brings more visibility to actors in this field.

An interactive map to locate nanotech companies

The NanoTechMap allows all industries to find technological solutions in their immediate neighborhood as well as at the other side of the globe. The advantages: to facilitate the identification of clients and suppliers and to stimulate meetings for future partnerships.

The use of the NanoTechMap is intuitive, playful and it also has a cultural dimension since it is possible to compare « nano » performance of cities, regions or countries.

Up-to-date technical and business information

The profile of each company gathers up-to-date technical and business information as well as products catalogues, technical datasheets and pictures of products.

In the near future, each company will have a dashboard to analyze its audience and to create targeted marketing campaigns towards qualified visitors.

An easy update of the visible information

Each company manages its profile on its own: in a few clicks, it is able to add information on its technology, its products and its business partners. It is also possible to upload products catalogues as well as datasheets. All this information is indexed by the search engine to give comprehensive results to visitors.

A large return for a moderate cost

For each company on the NanoTechMap, the cost of subscription is 300 euros per year. This cost is at least 10 times lower than the average cost of participation to a standard exhibition (subscription, transport, accommodation, posters…). Furthermore, the online exhibition is permanent.

A higher visibility compare to a corporate website

The visibility of each company on this shared web platform is far better to the one obtained with a standard corporate website.

The NanoTechMap is mostly intended for professionals: industrials, researchers, investors or institutions. But it is also worth of interest for lots of students who are attracted by the potential of growth of this innovative field.

About NanoThinking

NanoThinking, creator of the NanoTechMap, is a consulting company specialized in the field of nanotechnology based in Paris. It has been founded in 2013 by three PhDs in nanoscience.

For further information: www.nanothinking.com

42 rue de Varenne – 75007 – Paris – Phone: +33 (0)689 310 100

It appears there is one entry for Canada and, given the location of the green dot, I’m guessing it’s Canada’s National Institute for Nanotechnology located in Edmonton, Alberta.

S.Net (Society for the Study of Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies) 2013 meeting programme

Leave a reply

The fifth annual meeting of S.NET, the Society for the Study of Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies (the call for proposals was featured in my Mar. 6, 2013 posting), is being held Oct. 27 – 29, 2013 at Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts.

I found a draft copy of the meeting’s programme here, The 2013 Theme is: Innovation, Responsibility, and Sustainable Development, I see the plenary speaker for the meeting’s opening session on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013 from 6 pm to 7:30 pm is Dr. Andrew Maynard,Director of the University of Michigan Risk Science Center (formerly Chief Science Advisor for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies hosted by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,e etc). He will be speaking on the theme of Technology Innovation and the New Social Responsibility.

The next two days (Oct. 28 – 29, 2013) look to be packed and here’s sampling of what attendees can expect (Note: I’ve had to reformat this material dramatically),

Innovating for Personalised Medicine (8:30 – 10 am, Oct. 28. 2013)

Federica Lucivero, University of Tilburg;
Marianne Boenink, University of Twente                      Living up to the P of promises: Innovation for 4P medicine

Christopher Groves, Cardiff University                        Reifying uncertainty: personalised medicine and the somatic ethics of genomic risk

Effy Vayena, University of Zurich                                 The Swiss debate about personal genomics: reluctant engagement.

A Matter of Trust: Perceptions of Nanotechnology Risk and Responsibility (8:30 – 10 am, Oct. 28, 2013)

Cassandra Engeman & Barbara
Herr Harthorn UC Santa Barbara                               Mobilizing in the Context of Uncertainty: Social Movement               Organizations and Contentious Issues of Nanotechnology Safety, Governance, and Responsible Development

Michael Cacciatore, UC Santa
Barbara                                                                      Explaining Attitudes Toward Nanotechnology: The Interaction Between Risk Perceptions And Regulatory

Robert DeLeo, Bentley University                                  Trust On Public Support Issue Framing, Risk Perception, and Venue Shopping: Siting the Boston Univeristy Infectious Disease Laboratory

Visioning the Future (8:30 – 10 am, Oct. 28, 2013)

Nora Vaage, University of Bergen                                   Future Visions, Scenarios and Predictions: The Myths of What May Be

Norah Campbell, Trinity College
Dublin; Cormac Deane, Dun
Laoghaire Institute; Padraig
Murphy, Dublin City University                                       Nanotechnology in Advertising: Imagining the Invisible

Michael Burnam-Fink, Arizona
State U.                                                                          Eventuality: A Narrative (Nano) Foresight Engine

Next Generation Nanotech Innovation and Economic Development (13:45 – 15:15 Oct. 28, 2013)

Stacey Frederick, Duke U.                                                 Method and Platform for Identifying Stakeholders in the Nanotechnology Economy

Jan Youtie, Georgia Institute of
Technology; Philip Shapira,
Georgia Tech / U. Manchester;
Arho Suominen, VTT Technical
Research Centre; Yin Li, Georgia
Tech                                         Re-assessing the Promise of Nanotechnology: A Bibliometric Analysis of Next Generation Complex Engineered Nanomaterials

Benjamin Schrempf, European
Academy of Tech. Assessment     General purpose knowledge and innovation networks – an agent-based simulation approach

Richard Appelbaum, Matt Gebbie,
Xueying Han, Galen Stocking,
U.C. Santa Barbara                                                         A Global Nanotech Education: A Trend Analysis of Chinese S&T Students in the United States

Governance Amidst Uncertainty (13:45 – 15:15 Oct. 28, 2013)

Wendell Wallach, Yale U.                                                Towards a Comprehensive Approach for Governing Emerging Technologies

Victoria Sutton, Texas Tech U.                                          Regulation and Litigation of the Future – A Model for Considering the Unknown

Robin Pierce, Delft Univ.                                                 Governing Sustainable Transitions: When issues fly below the public radar

Film and Discussion – Scenarios of the Nano-enhanced City (16:00 – 17:00 Oct. 28, 2013)

Rider Foley, Michael Bernstein
Ira Bennett, Arnim Wiek, and
David Guston, Arizona State U.                                          Film: PHX 2050

Kathryn de Ridder-Vignone,
Arizona State Univ.                                                           *The Futurescape City Tours: Material Deliberation as Public Engagement

Renata Hejduk and Darren
Petrucci, Arizona State U.                                                   Nano and the City: A Hyper-collaborative Design Studio Environment Exploring Future Scenarios on the Impact of Nanotechnologies upon the City of Phoenix in the mid 21st Century.

*Policy and Nanotechnology Development in Brazil (8:30 – 10:00 am, Oct. 29, 2013)

Clecí Körbes and Noela
Invernizzi, Federal U. of Parana                                         Science Communication on Nanotechnology in Brazilian Media

Noela Invernizzi, Federal U. of
Parana                                                                              Nanotechnology Problem-oriented Research in Brazil

Paulo Roberto Martins, Brazilian
Research Network in Nano,
Society, and Environment                                                  Science for Production x Science for Impacts: Brazilian Development of Nanotechnology in Section XXI

The Future Agenda for Sustainable Development (16:00 – 17:30, Oct. 29, 2013)

Julia Silvia Guivant, Federal U. of
Santa Catarina                                                                  Certification of GMOs and non-GMOs: the implications of the search for sustainability and responsible technological innovation

*Gregor Wolbring, U. of Calgary                                           Analysis of the linkage between science and technology advancements and sustainable development goals: Introducing Eco-ableism as a conceptual framework

Louis-Etienne Pigeon, U. Laval                                            Nanotechnologies and the Land Ethic in the context of sustainable development: what progress? which objective?

Rodrigo Cortes-Lobos, Univ. de
Talca                                                                                  A decade of the US Public Research Agenda in Agrifood Nanotechnology: It is ready to Contribute toward a more Sustainable Development?

etc.

I have starred (*) a few items. The first being, *The Futurescape City Tours: Material Deliberation as Public Engagement in the Film and Discussion session on Oct. 28, 2013. This is a public engagement programme which seems to have been developed at Arizona State University and is currently being imported into other jurisdictions including Edmonton, Alberta as per the Nanotechnology and the Community project at the University of Alberta,

2) Futurescape Cities Tour (October – November 2013) – A series of engagements and walking tours that encourage public participants to explore innovation and nanotechnology in relation to the city. These tours promote communication between publics, scientists, and business leaders as a means of jointly considering innovation and development plans in relation to desirable visions of the future of the City. In collaboration with research teams in the US, these tours will coincide with similar events being planned in Phoenix AR, St. Paul MN, Portland OR, Durham NC, Springfield MA, and Washington DC.

The second starred session is *Policy and Nanotechnology Development in Brazil and that’s because the Brazilian congress just voted down a motion to regulate nanotechnology as per a Sept. 9, 2013 news item on SciDevNet (Note: Links have been removed).

The Brazilian Congress has rejected a bill that aimed to introduce labelling on all food, drugs and cosmetics containing nanostructures, arguing that it was alarmist and that there was no scientific basis for warning people about nanotechnology in products.

The move is the latest rebuff to such regulation, even as the country spearheads multimillion-dollar nanotechnology programmes and experts argue that better oversight of this new technology could benefit both industry and consumers.

A Senate report on the rejected bill said that the proposed labelling could have been interpreted as a “warning” even on products improved by nanotechnology, potentially causing losses to companies that have invested in improving their products through this technology.

Consequently, there could be a fall in research and development investment in the sector, which would undermine national investment into nanotechnology such as the National Nanotechnology Programme, a multimillion-dollar initiative launched in 2005, and its extension the Brazilian Nanotechnology Initiative launched last month (19 August) that is worth 440 million reals (approximately US$186 million) by the end of 2014.

The bill’s demise marks the second failure to regulate the fast-growing sector: in 2005, a more ambitious bill, with provisions for a national policy on nanotechnology, including labelling, risk assessment and other decisions, was evaluated by the industry, science, and finance committees from Congress’s Chamber of Deputies, which found the field to be at too early a stage for legislation.

*The third and last session I’ve starred is Gregor Wolbring’s (University of Calgary) Analysis of the linkage between science and technology advancements and sustainable development goals: Introducing Eco-ableism as a conceptual framework I have mentioned Gregor a number of times here in the context of human enhancement, most recently in a Jan. 30, 2013 posting. As his session integrates his concept of ableism and sustainability there is a description of ableism in my August 30, 2011 posting and of course, there’s always Gregor’s blog or you can check Gregor’s academic page for more information about ableism.

Edmonton, Alberta’s (Canada) citizen summit on nanotechnology technology and the community

Leave a reply

According to the Mar. 11, 2013 posting by Jack Stilgoe for the Guardian’s (a UK publication) political science blog there was a citizen’s summit on nanotechnology and the community in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada), Mar. 8-9, 2013. Stilgoe according to his Guardian profile is,

Jack Stilgoe teaches science policy at University College London and is an Affiliated Research Fellow at the Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge.

Here’s how Stilgoe sums up the current situation in Edmonton and the perils of its future,

While most of the rich world’s cities stagnate, Edmonton is a notable boomtown. But it faces an identity crisis. It is North America’s northernmost big city and the gateway to North Alberta’s oil sands, at the upstream end of the much-debated Keystone XL pipeline. The oil is the source of the city’s explosive growth. High oil prices have made the extraction of unconventional, dirty oil economically viable. This requires major capital investment and construction, dragging engineering and various service industries to the region. The city is acutely aware that it is sitting on a problem. Not only is it an ecological disaster zone, if we follow the arguments of the anti-Keystone activists, it is heavily dependent on oil, with its capricious price fluctuations, and desperate to diversify.

He also made this comment,which gladdened my heart (Note: A link has been removed),

In much the same way as the gulf states are doing, Edmonton is trying to become a knowledge economy and it is looking to its scientists.

In a Mar. 24, 2010 posting I noted this,

I find it interesting that there is so much activity on the nanotechnology front in Iran and other other oil-producing regions including Alberta (Canada) which hosts the National Institute for Nanotechnology and gets a great deal of funding from the Alberta provincial government. Texas, also known for its oil, hosts a leader in nanotechnology research, Rice University which is celebrating its 25th anniversary as the site where ‘bucky balls’ or buckminster fullerenes were first discovered. In Saudi Arabia, they opened KAUST (King Abdullah University for Science and Technology) in September 2009. While the ambitions range far beyond (the Saudis hope to establish a modern ‘House of Wisdom’) nanotechnology, its research is an important element in the overall scheme of things. I guess the reason that all these areas which are known for their oil production are so invested in nanotechnology is that they know time is running out and they need new ways to keep their economies afloat. [emphasis added Mar.11.13]

Getting back to the recent citizen’s summit, this was organized as part of a two-year citizen or public engagement project funded by SSHRC (Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council). This particular public/community/citizen project is focused on the economy rather than raising awareness or discussions of environmental and/or health impacts, which seems more often the case with public engagement projects in other countries and jurisdictions. I first mentioned this Alberta project in an Aug. 7, 2012 posting.

Here’s how Stilgoe describes the Mar. 8 – 9, 2013 event,

We spoke for one and a half days with 35 local businesspeople, architects, scientists, artists, civil servants, planners and others about the various tensions that would shape Edmonton’s future. [emphasis mine] There was plenty of scepticism [sic], familiar from European discussions, about the novelty of nanotechnology: … Rather than fixating on “growth” as a quantity, people began to talk about directions. …

The workshop inevitably struggled to nail down the wispy global promise of new technologies to this particular city, to find a place in Edmonton for nanotechnology and to find a place in nanotechnology for Edmonton. … Edmontonians talked about making theirs “an experimental city”. They had an idea for a first step along this road: a “pothole X-prize”. You heard it here first.

The description of the participants caught my eye and I also noticed that there was no mention of how many experts were present and how many, other than Stilgoe, were flown in expressly for the citizen summit.

As to whom participated, this may explain why the event attracted the participants it did (from the Citizen Summit event page),

Involving a diverse group of engaged citizens, the Citizens’ Summit will be convened over two days to explore the relationships between nanotechnology, innovation and the future of Edmonton and the Alberta Capital Region. The goal of this community-led panel is to critically address what factors contribute to the successful integration of science development within future visions of the city. The panel will bring together community leaders and scientific, industry, and municipal stakeholders. [emphasis mine]

Call for Participants

We are currently seeking community members with experience in contributing to the development, culture, identity, and economy of Edmonton and the Alberta Capital Region to participate in a dialogue on nanotechnology and the community.

Role of Participants

Over the course of the Citizens’ Summit, participants will be asked to take an active role in imagining the future of Edmonton and the Capital Region. Plenary sessions will allow the panel to provide collective input into the agenda, determine the focus of their engagement, and provide a forum for agreement on advice and recommendations. These sessions will be supported by a series of smaller working groups, which will challenge summit members to flesh out core issues that define relationships between the city-region and innovation, and to explore ways of strategically engaging or planning around these contexts.

Summit Members

The Citizens’ summit will involve the participation of 20-30 key community stakeholders. Participants may include members of the local business, investment, education and volunteer sectors, or those involved in local government, sustainability initiatives, planning, activism, or social and community development.

Expert Engagement

The Citizens’ Summit will include a number of experts, such as scientists, government officials, and civic leaders. Experts will be recruited from the project’s Steering Committee and from the wider community on the basis of their relevant knowledge and experience.

Facilitation

The Citizens’ Summit will be guided by two highly experienced facilitators.

Visual Representations

An artist will join some of the working groups to produce visual representations of emergent themes and conversations. These visual representations are intended to both capture and help mediate engagement.

The language is a little confusing. They’re very clear they want community leaders. So, I”m not sure how diverse the participation could be since this engagement is taking place over two days, one of them a work day, this means these are people who can afford to do this or are being paid to do this.

The business with visual representations reminded me of a public engagement exercise from years ago. I was in high school and invited along with many others in the community to come and discuss a new development they were considering for the City of Vancouver. They didn’t specify who could or couldn’t come so there was no filtering of any kind. There were artists present to represent what we developed in our breakout groups. I walked away from the session thinking it had been fun and then promptly forgot it. About 10 or 15 years later, Vancouver’s Granville Island was opened and I got to see what we described and discussed that long ago weekend.

Since that first experience I’ve noticed that public engagement has become a rote exercise where those of who are the ‘unwashed’ are allowed to attend public forums which have no real function while the real participation takes place amongst select groups who are invited to attend special sessions such as the one Jack Stilgoe attended.

Plus, there’s another problem. Community leaders who spend their time mostly with government officials, politicians, business leaders, etc., after a time, tend to have more in common with those folks than they do with ‘their communities’.

In any event, there is some outreach material for those of us who are not community leaders, from the Citizen Summit event page,

Research Outcomes

Audio Podcasts

We will produce a series of short audio recordings based on the comments of the Citizens’ Panel’s members. The primary purpose of the recordings is to convey the conversations that emerge during the Citizens’ Panel to a wider public audience, with the further intention of fostering a community dialogue about nanotechnology innovation and Alberta Capital Region.

Community Engagement Report

The events and discussions of the Citizens’ Summit will be documented as part of a publically available community engagement report. Importantly, this report will present the summit’s advice and direction on how to build local innovation strategies and partnerships.

Future Public Engagement

The key themes and ideas that emerge from the Citizens’ summit will guide subsequent engagements with the community.

Investigators

Prof. Rob Shields (Principal Investigator), Dr. Kevin Jones, Prof. Nils Petersen, Dr. Yun-Csang Ghimn

E-mail: k.e.jones@ualberta.ca; Tel: 9-4pm M-F (780) 492-9957

*For further information on this research project please visit our website: www.crsc.ualberta.ca/Projects/Nano-community

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your rights as a participant, or how this study is being conducted, you may contact the University of Alberta’s Research Ethics Office at 780-492-2615. This office has no affiliation with the study investigators.

There’s also this workbook which participants for the March 2013 citizen’s summit received. BTW, I’ve had better luck getting to the project website using this url: http://www.crsc.ualberta.ca/Research/Nano-community.aspx.

ETA Nov. 28, 2014: The ‘Citizen’s Summit’ was held as part of the public engagement aspect of the Nanotechnology and the community project.

Edmonton (Alberta, Canada) toots its nanotechnology horn

Leave a reply

I’m not sure what, if anything, occasioned the proclamation (from the May 31, 2012 news item on Nanowerk),

On the western edge of the University of Alberta’s main campus lies the National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT), one of the world’s most advanced research facilities and Canada’s quietest laboratory space.

…

“NINT is helping us all to better understand the emerging science of nanotechnology. As the only centre of its kind in Canada, it puts us in a leadership position. Being located at the University of Alberta creates great synergies,” says Mike Wo, EEDC [Edmonton Economic Development Corporation] executive director of economic growth and development.

I wish there was a little more information about why Canada’s NINT is considered one of the world’s most advanced research facilities. The NINT website’s most recent news release (as of this morning, May 31, 2012) is datedJuly 17, 2009.

I don’t receive or come across much information about NINT’s research efforts or facilities. The little information I have found (and it does not fully support the contention) comes from the University of Alberta or the University of Calgary. Is there more and where is it? If anyone knows, please do contact me either via the commenting facility for this blog or at nano@frogheart.ca.

Alberta’s Domino (point-of-care diagnostic) and Navacim (nano drug delivery) competing for $175,000 prize

Leave a reply

It’s interesting that two nanomedicine products are in contention for TEC Edmonton‘s NanoVenture Prize. It’s a new prize category for the business accelerator in this, their 10th anniversary year. From TEC Edmonton’s March 27, 2012 news release,

The NanoVenturePrize finalists are Aquila Diagnostics of Edmonton and Calgary’s Parvus Therapeutics.

Aquila Diagnostics uses the Domino nanotechnology platform developed at the University of Alberta to provide on-site, easy-to-use genetic testing that can quickly test for infectious diseases and pathogens in livestock. The mobile diagnostic platform is portable, low-cost, fast and easy to use.

Parvus Therapeutics’ breakthrough nanomedicines may hold the cure for difficult-to-treat autoimmune diseases like type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease. Parvus’ new Navacim medicines are nanoparticles coated with immune system proteins that can target specific autoimmune conditions.

The University of Alberta has issued its own April 24, 2012 news release by Bryan Alary about the Domino,

Dubbed the Domino, the technology—developed by a U of A research team—has the potential to revolutionize point-of-care medicine. The innovation has also earned Aquila Diagnostic Systems, the Edmonton-based nano startup that licensed the technology, a shot at $175,000 as a finalist for the TEC NanoVenturePrize award.

“We’re basically replacing millions of dollars of equipment that would be in a conventional, consolidated lab with something that costs pennies to produce and is field portable so you can take it where needed. That’s where this technology shines,” said Jason Acker, an associate professor of laboratory medicine and pathology at the U of A and chief technology officer with Aquila.

The Domino employs polymerase chain reaction technology used to amplify and detect targeted sequences of DNA, but in a miniaturized form that fits on a plastic chip the size of two postage stamps. The chip contains 20 gel posts—each the size of a pinhead—capable of identifying sequences of DNA with a single drop of blood.

Each post performs its own genetic test, meaning you can not only find out whether you have malaria, but also determine the type of malaria and whether your DNA makes you resistant to certain antimalarial drugs. It takes less than an hour to process one chip, making it possible to screen large populations in a short time.

“That’s the real value proposition—being able to do multiple tests at the same time,” Acker said, adding that the Domino has been used in several recently published studies, showing similar accuracy to centralized labs.

Linda Pilarski, an oncology professor at the University of Alberta (mentioned in my Jan. 4, 2012 posting about her diagnostics-on-a-chip work), and her team developed Domino according to the April 25, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

In 2008, her team received $5 million over five years from Alberta Innovates Health Solutions to perfect and commercialize the technology. As an oncologist, Pilarski is interested in its pharmacogenomic testing capabilities, such as determining whether breast cancer patients are genetically disposed to resist certain drugs.

“With most cancers you want to treat the patient with the most effective therapeutic as possible,” she said. “That’s what this does: it really enables personalized medicine. It will be able to test every patient at the right time, right in their doctor’s office. That’s currently not feasible because it’s too expensive.”

This product is intended for the market but not the one you might expect (from the April 25, 2012 news item on Nanowerk),

Along with its versatility, two key selling points are affordability and portability, with each portable box expected to cost about $5,000 and each chip a few dollars, says Aquila president David Alton. It’s also designed to be easy to use and rugged—important features for the livestock industry, the company’s first target market. [emphasis mine] The Domino will be put through trials within a year at one of the country’s largest feedlots in southern Alberta.

Alton credits Aquila’s relationship with the U of A, not just for the research but for the business relationship with TEC Edmonton that has helped the company license and patent Domino. TEC Edmonton is a joint venture between the U of A and Edmonton Economic Development Corporation with resources and expertise to help startups in the early stages of operations.

“We see a huge potential market for the technology and we’re looking at applying the technology developed here at the U of A to markets first in Alberta and then globally, to address important health issues here and throughout the world.”

Given that the originator is an oncologist I really wasn’t expecting the first market to be livestock industry.

I have had a little less luck getting information about Parvus Therapeutics’ Navacim technology as they’ve not issued a news release about their competition for this prize but I did find some information on their website, from an April 8, 2010 news release about the Navacim technology being featured in a Popular Science article,

Parvus Therapeutics reports that an article entitled “Nanotech Vaccine Successfully Cures Type-1 Diabetes in Mice” has been published at the website of Popular Science. The article, authored by Alessandra Calderin, describes the Parvus Navacim technology and includes remarks from Parvus’ Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Pere Santamaria.

The article notes that,

“The technology behind the nanovaccine, following further research, may prove widely applicable to treat other autoimmune diseases, like arthritis and multiple sclerosis, as well.”

You may want to take a look at the news brief by Calderin. Here’s more about the technology, from the Introducing Navacims webpage on the Parvus Therapeutics website,

Our nanotechnology-based therapeutic platform and Navacims, the therapeutic candidates, are the result of two related discoveries: A new class of immune cell, and a new way to treat autoimmunity that these cells provide. Here we provide a very brief summary of how these discoveries came about and what they have led to since.

This summary is also intended as a roadmap to the contents of this technology section of our website, which we will role out over a period of weeks and adapt based on reader feedback and requests. The casual reader may find the background information helpful, while our professional colleagues will probably want to get straight down to the technical details and published papers. We have tried to design the content to cater to all tastes and it can be read in any order, although like all good stories, we highly recommend starting at the beginning.

As with the remainder of our site, we have injected a little colour and a little humour to keep your spirits up if the science appears a little daunting. In all, we have attempted to strike a balance between scientific detail and general accessibility and if you think we have that balance wrong, or you feel something is missing, please let us know — via the form on the Contacts page — and we will try to put it right. We love to hear from you.

The Story So Far

[1] In a series of experiments, only tangentially related to our current activities, we designed p-MHC-coated nanoparticles (NPs) as a way to load iron into effector T-cells and have them ferry the iron to the pancreas so we could visualize pancreatic islet cell inflammation in-vivo, in real-time — this amounts to the use of a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) contrast agent.

[2] It occurred to us that we might be able to use these p-MHC-NPs to delete the high avidity cytotoxic effector T cells driving disease in the NOD mouse model of type 1 diabetes (T1D).

[3] Too our surprise, therapy did not delete, but rather, very significantly expanded autoregulatory T cell pools.

[4] After careful analysis we were able to conclude that:

pMHC-NPs, now called Navacims, selectively expand a population of low avidity autoregulatory memory T cells that the disease itself generates — this population of cells was previously unknown to science. These cells target and kill antigen presenting cells (APCs), and consequently, interput the process whereby all the cytotoxic effector T cell lineages active in a disease are activated and expanded.

Navacims also directly deplete the high avidity cytotoxic effector T cells cognate to the pMHC carried by the nanoparticle. This removes one lineage of cells that cause damage in disease, but given the many antigens, and consequently the many T cell lineages, the overall therapeutic effect of removing one type is inconsequential compared to the indirect effect of the Navacim on APCs that removes all lineages.

The removal of APCs and the concomitant loss of multiple cytotoxic effector T-cell lineages that drive disease amounted to a cure for T1D in the NOD mouse model.

[5] We believe that Navacims have the potential to become the long sought after ideal treatment for autoimmunity; a therapeutic that restores immunological tolerance — the principal problem in autoimmunity — while depleting autoreactive cells that mediate the damaging effects of disease.

[6] Navacims appear to be safe and very well tolerated in animal experiments that have lasted many months, although we caution that we have yet to complete formal toxicological studies.

[7] Navacims are highly modular and a family of Navacims can be almost identical, differing only in the very short antigenic peptide that gives each one its specificity for a particular disease.

[8] Because they are so similar, we beleive that industry-standard manufacturing processes will need few if any modifications in order to produce a particular Navacim.

[9] We have protected our discoveries with patent applications in the United States, Europe, Canada, and beyond.

[10] Our work has been published in top-ranked peer-reviewed journals and showcased in the best of the popular science publications.

Good luck to both companies in their future endeavours.

ETA April 30,2012: According to the April 27, 2012 article in the Edmonton Journal, Parvus Therapeutics won the $175, 000 prize in TEC Edmonton’s new prize category.,

This year’s awards, the 10th consecutive, added a new category for nanotechnology firms. TEC partnered with Alberta Innovates — Technology Futures for the new award. Calgary’s Parvus Therapeutics, which makes medicine aimed at autoimmune diseases such as Type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis, beat out Edmonton’s Aquila Diagnostic Systems for first place. The category’s prizes totalled $175,000 in cash and services.

AAAS 2012, the Sunday, Feb. 19, 2012 experience: art/sci, HUBzero, and a news scoop from the exhibition floor

2 Replies

“New Concepts in Integrating Arts and Science Research for a Global Knowledge Society” at the AAAS 2012 annual meeting provided some thought provoking moments courtesy of Gunalan Nadarajan, Vice Provost at the Maryland Institute College of Art. It’s always good to be reminded that art schools are only about 300 years old and the notion of studying science as a separate discipline is only about 200 years old. We tend talk about the arts and the sciences as if they’ve always been separate pursuits when, as Nadarajan pointed out, they were part of a larger pursuit, which included philosophy and religion as well. That pursuit was knowledge.

Nadarajan mentioned a new network (a pilot project) in the US called the Network for Science Engineering Art and Design where they hope to bring scientists and artists together for collaborative work. These relationships are not always successful and Nadarajan noted that the problems tend to boil down to relationship issues (sometimes people don’t get along very well even with the best of intentions). He did say that he wanted to encourage people to get to know each other first in nonstressful environments such as sharing a meal or coffee. It sounded a little bit like dating but rather than a romantic encounter (or that might be a possibility too), the emphasis is on your work compatibility.

According to a blog posting by one of the organizers of the Network for Science Engineering Art and Design, Roger Malina, it is searching for a new name (search engine issues). You can get more information about the new network in Malina’s Feb. 19, 2012 posting.

“HUBzero: Building Collaboratories for Research on a Global Scale” was a session I anticipated with much interest and I’m glad to say it was very good with all the speakers being articulate and excited about their topics. I did not realize that there are a number of hubs in the US; I’m familiar only with the nanoHUB based at Purdue University in Indiana. (My most recent posting about this was the Dec. 5, 2011 posting about their NanoHUB-U initiative.)

nanoHUB and the others all run on an open source software designed for scientific collaboration. What I found most fascinating was the differences between the various hubs. Michael McLennan spoke about both the HUBzero software (which can be downloaded for free from the HUBzero website) and the nanoHUB, which services the nanotechnology community and has approximately 200,000 registered users at this time (they double their numbers every 12 – 18 months according to McLennan).

There are videos, papers, courses, social networking opportunities and more can be made available through the HUBzero software but uniquely configured to each group’s needs. Ellen M. Rathje (University of Texas, Austin) spoke at length about some of the challenges the earthquake engineers (NEES.org) addressed when developing their hub with regard to sharing data and some of the analytical difficulties associated with earthquake data.

Each group that uses the software to create a hub has its own culture and customs and the software has to be tweaked such that the advantages to adopting new work strategies outweigh the disadvantages of making changes. William K. Barnett whose portfolio includes encouraging the use of collaborative technologies for the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CSTI) had to adopt an approach for doctors who typically have very little time to adopt new technologies and who have requirements regarding confidentiality that are far different than that of nanoscientists or earthquake engineers.

I got my ‘scooplet’ when I visited the exhibition floor. The 2012 Canadian Science Policy Conference (2012 CSPC) will be held in Alberta as you can see in this Feb. 19, 2012 posting on the Government of Canada science site.

Apparently, there are two cities under consideration and, for anyone who’s been hoping for a meeting in Wetaskawin, I must grind your dreams into dust. As most Canadians would expect, the choice is between Edmonton and Calgary. I understand the scales are tipped towards Calgary (that’s the scooplet) but these things can change in a heartbeat (no, don’t get your hopes up about Wetaskawin). I understand we should be learning the decision soon (I wonder if Banff might emerge as a dark horse contender).

FrogHeart

Commentary about nanotech, science policy and communication, society, and the arts

Tag Archives: Edmonton

Alberta adds a newish quantum nanotechnology research hub to the Canada’s quantum computing research scene

Artificial intelligence (AI) company (in Montréal, Canada) attracts $135M in funding from Microsoft, Intel, Nvidia and others

Vector Institute and Canada’s artificial intelligence sector

Biomining for rare earth elements with Alberta’s (Canada) Ingenuity Lab

NanoThinking and its global NanoTechMap

S.Net (Society for the Study of Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies) 2013 meeting programme

Edmonton (Alberta, Canada) toots its nanotechnology horn

Alberta’s Domino (point-of-care diagnostic) and Navacim (nano drug delivery) competing for $175,000 prize

AAAS 2012, the Sunday, Feb. 19, 2012 experience: art/sci, HUBzero, and a news scoop from the exhibition floor