Tag Archives: Ingenium

Happy International Women’s Day on March 8, 2019—with a shout-out to women in science

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I did a very quick search for today’s (March 8, 2019) women in science stories and found three to highlight here. First, a somewhat downbeat Canadian story.

Can Canadians name a woman scientist or engineer?

According to Emily Chung’s March 8, 2019 article on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) online news site, the answer is: no,

You’ve probably heard of Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein and Mark Zuckerberg.

But can you name a woman scientist or engineer? Half of Canadians can’t, suggests a new poll.

The online survey of 1,511 Canadians was commissioned by the non-profit group Girls Who Code and conducted by the market research firm Maru/Blue from March 1-3 and released for International Women’s Day today [March 8, 2019].

It was intended to collect data about how people felt about science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers and education in Canada, said Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of the group, which aims to close the gender gap in technology by teaching girls coding skills.

…


The poll found:

When asked how many women scientists/engineers they could name, 52 per cent of respondents said “none.”

When asked to picture a computer scientist, 82 per cent of respondents immediately imagined a man rather than a woman.

77 per cent of respondents think increased media representation of women in STEM careers or leadership roles would help close the gender gap in STEM.

…


Sandra Corbeil, who’s involved a Women in STEM initiative at Ingenium, the organization that oversees Canada’s national museums of science and innovation, agrees that women scientists are under-recognized.

… Ingenium organized an event where volunteers from the public collaborated to add more women scientists to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia for the International Day of Women and Girls in Science this past February [2019].

The 21 participants added four articles, including Dr. Anna Marion Hilliard, who developed a simple pap test for early detection of cervical cancer and Marla Sokolowski, who discovered an important gene that affects both metabolism and behaviour in fruit flies. The volunteer editors also updated and translated several other entries.

…

Similar events have been held around the world to boost the representation of women on Wikipedia, where as of March 4, 2019, only 17.7 per cent of biographies were of women — even 2018’s winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Donna Strickland, didn’t have a Wikipedia entry until the prize was announced.

…

Corbeil acknowledged that in science, the individual contributions of scientists, whether they are men or women, tend to not be well known by the public.[emphasis mine]

“We don’t treat them like superstars … to me, it’s something that we probably should change because their contributions matter.”

…

Chung points to a criticism of the Girls Who Code poll, they didn’t ask Canadians whether they could name male scientists or engineers. While Reshma Saujani acknowledged the criticism, she also brushed it off (from Chung’s article),

…

Saujani acknowledges that the poll didn’t ask how many male scientists or engineers they could name, but thinks the answer would “probably” be different. [emphasis mine]

…

Chung seems to be hinting (with the double quotes around the word probably) but I’m going to be blunt, that isn’t good science but, then, Saujani is not a scientist (from the reshmasujani.com’s About page),

…

Reshma began her career as an attorney and activist. In 2010, she surged onto the political scene as the first Indian American woman to run for U.S. Congress. During the race, Reshma visited local schools and saw the gender gap in computing classes firsthand, which led her to start Girls Who Code. She has also served as Deputy Public Advocate for New York City and ran a spirited campaign for Public Advocate in 2013.

…

I’m inclined to believe that Saujani is right but I’d want to test the hypothesis. I have looked at what I believe to be the entire report here. I’m happy to see the questions but I do have a few questions about the methodology (happily, also included in the report),

… online survey was commissioned by Girls Who Code of 1,511 randomly selected Canadian adults who are Maru Voice panelists.

If it’s an online survey, how can the pollsters be sure the respondents are Canadian or sure about any other of the demographic details? What is a Maru Voice panelist? Is there some form of self-selection inherent in being a Maru Voice panelist? (If I remember my social science research guidelines properly, self-selected groups are not the same as the general population.)

All I’m saying, this report is interesting but seems problematic so treat it with a little caution.

Celebrating women in science in UK (United Kingdom)

This story comes from the UK’s N8 Research Partnership (I’m pretty sure that N8 is meant to be pronounced as ‘innate’). On March 7, 2019 they put up a webpage celebrating women in science,

…

All #N8women deliver our vision of making the N8 Research Partnership an exceptionally effective cluster of research innovation and training excellence; we celebrate all of your contributions and thank you for everything that you do. Read more about the women below or find out about them on our social channels by searching #N8Women.

Professor Dame Sue Black

Professor Dame Sue Black from Lancaster University pioneered research techniques to identify an individual by their hand alone, a technique that has been used successfully in Court to identify perpetrators in relation to child abuse cases. Images have been taken from more than 5000 participants to form an open-source dataset which has allowed a breakthrough in the study of anatomical variation.

Professor Diana Williams

Professor Diana Williams from The University of Liverpool has led research with Farming Online into a digital application that predict when and where disease is likely to occur. This is hoped to help combat the £300m per year UK agriculture loses per year through the liver fluke parasite which affects livestock across the globe.

Professor Louise Heathwaite

Professor Louise Heathwaite from Lancaster University has gained not only international recognition for her research into environmental pollution and water quality, but she also received the royal seal of approval after being awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2018.

Professor Sue Black

Professor Sue Black from Durham University has helped support 100 women retrain into tech roles thanks to the development of online programme, TechUP. Supported by the Institute of Coding, the programme lasts six months and concludes with a job interview, internship or apprenticeship.

Dr Anna Olsson-Brown

Dr Anna Olsson-Brown from the University of Liverpool has been instrumental in research into next-generation drugs that can treat patients with more advanced, malignant cancers and help them deal with the toxicity that can accompany novel therapies.

Professor Katherine Denby

Professor Katherine Denby, Director of N8 Agrifood, based at the University of York has been at the forefront of developing novel ways to enhance and enable breeding of crops resistance to environmental stress and disease.

Most recently, she was involved in the development of a genetic control system that enables plants to strengthen their defence response against deadly pathogens.

Doctor Louise Ellis

Dr Louise Ellis, Director of Sustainability at the University of Leeds has been leading their campaign – Single Out: 2023PlasticFree – crucially commits the University and Union to phase out single-use plastic across the board, not just in catering and office spaces.

Professor Philippa Browning

Professor Philippa Browning from the University of Manchester wanted to be an astronaut when she was a child but found that there was a lack of female role models in her field. She is leading work on the interactions between plasmas and magnetic fields and is a mentor for young solar physicists.

Doctor Anh Phan

Dr Anh Phan is a Lecturer of Chemical Engineering in the School of Engineering at Newcastle University. She has been leading research into cold plasma pyrolysis, a process that could be used to turn plastic waste into green energy. This is a novel process that could revolutionise our problem with plastic and realise the true value of plastic waste.

So, Canadians take note of these women and the ones featured in the next item.

Canada Science and Technology Museum’s (an Ingenium museum) International Women’s Day video

It was posted on YouTube in 2017 but given the somewhat downbeat Canadian story I started with I thought this appropriate,

It’s never too late to learn about women in science and engineering. The women featured in the video are: Ursula Franklin, Maude Abbott, Janice Zinck, and Indira Samarasekera

Cryptology exhibit and special breakfast celebrating Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques’ Dec. 3, 2018 launch in Ontario (Canada)

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I wish I was near either Ottawa or Kingston in December as there are a couple of very interesting events, assuming you have an interest in cryptology and/or space travel.

Cipher/Decipher

This show has been on tour in Ontario and, until Dec. 2, 2018, it will be at the Canada Science and Technology Museum before moving to Kingston (from the Canada Science and Technology Museum’s exhibitions page),

Cipher | Decipher

Pssst…want to know a secret?

One way to safely share secret information is through encryption — which means converting your message into something only the intended recipient can understand. For as long as we’ve had secret information, individuals and organizations have encrypted and analyzed encrypted communications. One way people encrypt their secrets is through ciphers that replace the original message with other letters, numbers, words, or symbols. From schoolyard gossip to military plans, ciphers keep secrets out of the wrong hands.

Cipher | Decipher is an interactive, new exhibition exploring the past and present of communications cryptology — what it is, how it works, and how it affects our lives. See an authentic Enigma cipher machine, or try your hand at logic puzzles and games to see if you have what it takes to work in the field of cryptology!

Developed by the Canada Science and Technology Museum, in partnership with the Communications Security Establishment, this 750 sq. ft. travelling exhibition is already on the move!

Mark your calendar to see Cipher | Decipher at the following locations:

  • Library and Archives Canada: October 5 to October 31, 2018
  • Canada Science and Technology Museum: November 6 to December 2, 2018
  • Military Communications and Electronics Museum, Kingston: December 7, 2018 to March 31, 2019

Blast-off!

This information came in a November 27, 2018 special announcement (received via email) from Ingenium (formerly Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation and not to be confused with the Canada Science and Technology Museum),

Join the Canada Aviation and Space Museum for a special breakfast at the museum, as we witness the historic launch of Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques!

Start your day with a breakfast and a big cup of “rocket fuel” (a.k.a. coffee) as we watch the launch of this important space mission.

You’ll hear from Jesse Rogerson, the museum’s Science Advisor, and Iain Christie,

Executive Vice President of the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada about the intricacies of space travel. Canadian astronauts Bob Thirsk and Jenni Sidey-Gibbons will also join the conversation via livestream!

Take a selfie with our cut-out image of David Saint-Jacques, while the kids work on fun space-themed crafts. David Saint-Jacques themed merchandise will be 10% off during the event. Each purchase of a breakfast ticket/group of tickets will receive one FREE family pass, to visit the museum in 2019.

December 3, 2018
6 a.m. – 8:30 a.m.
Tickets: $16 (+ taxes)
Parking fees are additional.

Buy Tickets!

3… 2… 1… liftoff!

Enjoy!

Surprise! Surprise! 50th anniversary for TRIUMF (Canada’s National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics) and HR MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver, Canada

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I guess they wanted to keep it a secret? In any event, TRIUMF’s 2018 year of celebrating their 50th anniversary is almost over. Their celebratory website, TRIUMF50 lists two events (scroll down to see them) for October 2018 and nothing after that. One event is in Ottawa (which is titled ‘#DiscoverTHIS: TRIUMF, Science, and Society’ on the TRIUMF50 website) and the other in Vancouver (Canada). Then, there’s the the other 50th sciencish anniversary in Vancouver, this being celebrated by the HR MacMillan Space Centre.

TRIUMF’s two events

Weirdly, I found out about TRIUMF’s 50th anniversary after reading an October 1, 2018 Ingenium (formerly Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation) news release (received via email) and digging further. First, the announcement about the Ottawa event,

#DISCOVERTHIS: […] THE MOTHER OF INVENTION […] CANADA SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MUSEUM
October 3, 2018
Time: 7:30 p.m. – 9 p.m. (Doors open at 7 p.m.)
FEE: FREE (REGISTRATION REQUIRED)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH ONLY
On October 3, join a team of experts from TRIUMF […], Canada’s particle accelerator centre, for an illuminating discussion. The event will take place at the museum, and will also include a screening of a short documentary that explores the possibility for TRIUMF to take up the reins as the world’s largest producer of actinium-225 (Ac-225), a radioisotope with promising potential as an anti-cancer therapy.

They have a more engaging and informative description on their event registration page,

#discoverTHIS: The Mother of Invention

by TRIUMF

Free

Actions and Detail Panel

Event Information

Description

Doors open 7:00pm

Programming begins in the Auditorium 7:30pm

Q+A to follow

If the adage is true that necessity is the mother of invention, then curiosity-driven research is the grandmother of the whole shebang. The internet, the cellphone, the PET scanner – or even further back – radio, penicillin, electricity: all these inventions and their impacts on our lives were made possible because of innovative people looking at scientific discoveries and asking, “What problem can I solve with this?”

How exactly does a scientist’s eureka moment turn into the internet, the satellite, the next generation of cancer therapy? Join a team of experts from TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator centre, for an illuminating discussion that sheds light on the journey from our research to you.

The event will include a screening of “The Rarest Drug on Earth,” a short documentary that explores the possibility for TRIUMF to take up the reins as the world’s largest producer of actinium-225 (Ac-225), a radioisotope with promising potential as an anti-cancer therapy.

Hosted by science journalist Tim Lougheed, and featuring:

  • Kathryn Hayashi: President & CEO, TRIUMF Innovations
  • Morgan Dehnel: Founder and Chief Science & Innovation Officer, D-Pace
  • Beatrice Franke: TRIUMF Research Scientist – Physical Sciences
  • Andrew Robertson: PhD Student – Life Sciences

#discoverTHIS: La mère de l’invention

On dit que la nécessité est mère de l’invention. Si ce dicton est vrai, alors la curiosité qui alimente la recherche serait, elle, grand-mère de tout le processus. L’internet, le téléphone cellulaire, la tomographie par émission de positrons ou, si on remonte encore plus loin, la radio, la pénicilline et l’électricité, toutes ces inventions, qui ont changé nos vies, auraient été impossibles sans ces personnes innovatrices qui se sont intéressées aux découvertes scientifiques et qui se sont demandé quels problèmes elles pouvaient résoudre grâce à celles-ci. Mais comment l’éclair de génie d’un chercheur donne-t-il naissance à l’internet, au satellite ou à la nouvelle génération de traitement contre le cancer?

Joignez-vous à un groupe d’experts de TRIUMF, le Centre canadien d’accélération des particules, pour une discussion éclairante qui fera la lumière sur les étapes du processus, des chercheurs jusqu’à vous.

L’événement comprendra la projection du court documentaire The Rarest Drug on Earth, qui explore la possibilité que TRIUMF devienne le plus grand producteur mondial d’actinium-225 (AC-225), un radio-isotope prometteur dans le traitement contre le cancer.

La discussion, animée par le journaliste scientifique Tim Lougheed, mettra en vedette :

  • Kathryn Hayashi : présidente et directrice générale, TRIUMF Innovations
  • Morgan Dehnel : fondateur et agent en chef de la science et de l’innovation, D-Pace
  • Beatrice Franke : chercheuse scientifique chez TRIUMF – sciences physiques
  • Andrew Robertson : doctorant – sciences de la vie

Date and Time

Wed, 3 October 2018

7:30 PM – 9:00 PM EDT

Add to Calendar

Location

Canada Science and Technology Museum

1867 Saint Laurent Boulevard

Ottawa, ON K1G 5A3

View Map

Register here.

As for the Vancouver event, it’s titled ‘Catching Ghosts: Using Neutrinos to Unveil the Universe‘ and will be held at Science World at Telus World of Science (everyone calls it Science World) on October 23, 2018,

Catching Ghosts: Using Neutrinos to Unveil the Universe

On a clear night, away from the bright lights of Vancouver, you can see the incredible expanse of the universe before you. To study these far-away celestial bodies, scientists use a “radiation toolkit” to observe our universe and understand how the galaxies we see today came to be. Some types of radiation, such as infrared radiation, can sense stars in their infancy, not yet hot enough to shine visible light. Others, like x-rays and gamma rays, can reveal matter being sucked into a black hole.

When it comes to studying the nuclear processes in the heart of stars, scientists must turn to neutrinos: subatomic particles that are currently flying unbeknownst through your body by the billions, right this second. These elusive little particles are an excellent probe into the core of the sun and distant supernovae, but they are notoriously difficult to detect. Difficult, but not impossible.

On Tuesday, October 23, join Dr. Stanley Yen, TRIUMF Research Scientist, for his talk, Detecting the Ghost Particles of the Universe.

Date: October 23, 2018
Doors open at 6:30pm
Lecture begins at 7:00pm

Register

This lecture is presented in partnership by TRIUMF and Science World as part of the TRIUMF 50th Anniversary Unveiling the Universe Lecture Series.

Some may have noticed that I’m still referring to TRIUMF as Canada’s National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics. I know it has changed but I prefer it to the latest one, TRIUMF (Canada’s particle accelerator centre).

HR MacMillan Space Centre’s 50th anniversary

The centre has two upcoming celebratory events, here’s more from the ‘Life in the Universe’ event page,

Life in the Universe
An evening of music and astronomy

Join the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre in celebrating their 50th anniversary with a very special evening of music under the cosmic visuals of the Planetarium Star Theatre. Composer Thomas Beckman will be premiering an original work “Life in the Universe” inspired by the unique character of the planets in our solar system and the wonders of our Universe. The suite will be performed by Thomas Beckman and the Borealis String Quartet.

Thomas Beckman, CMC  [Canadian Music Centre] associate composer, has written for a wide range of ensembles that include the Borealis String Quartet, the Vancouver Symphony orchestra, the Prince George Symphony orchestra, the Postmodern Camerata and the Vancouver Youth Choir. For the past several years he has served as Festival Composer for the Artists for Conservation organization, as the in-house-composer for the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network and as a freelance film composer for several award-winning independent documentaries. With an MMus in western classical performance from the University of British Columbia, Thomas also serves as principal violist of the Vancouver Pops Symphony and the Prince George Symphony orchestra, and performs solo with his looping project for a number of events held by the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, Semperviva Yoga studios, and the Vancouver Maritime Museum. Thomas’ latest project has been to create the Jean Coulthard Music Video series in collaboration with the Canadian Music Centre as a means to empower local composers in BC.

The Borealis Quartet was founded in Vancouver, British Columbia in the fall of 2000 and rapidly establishing a stellar reputation. The Borealis has toured extensively in North America, Europe and Asia and performed to enthusiastic sold-out audiences in major cities, including New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Rome, Mainz, Shanghai, Taipei, Beijing, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and, of course, in their home town of Vancouver. http://www.borealisstringquartet.com/ 

TICKETS: $35 early bird tickets until October 5th, $40 after.
Tickets available online through Eventbrite until 12:00pm on October 19th.

Tickets available for 7:30pm and 9:00pm shows.

Beer and wine will be available for purchase.

This is a 19+ event. All attendees will be required to provide photo ID upon entry.

Get tickets here.

Their second event is more family-oriented (from the 50th Anniversary Celebration Weekend event page),

We’re turning 50 – help us celebrate! Bring the entire family out and enjoy our programming and special activities on Saturday and Sunday. Discover more about our past 50 years of science and space education as we pull some gems from our archives and explore how producing shows in the planetarium has changed over the decades. Share your memories of the Space Centre on our memory wall and create a card for Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques as he prepares for his mission to the International Space Station in December. We’ll be testing your knowledge with trivia questions before each show in the Planetarium Star Theatre and we’ll have a birthday treat for all to eat.

$5 for general admission and children under 5 are free.

We will be open from 10:00am – 5:00pm on Saturday and Sunday for the celebration with activities running from 10:30am – 4:30pm.

Event Details

October 20, 2018 – 10:00am to October 21, 2018 – 5:00pm

1968 seems to have been quite the sciencish year in Vancouver.

One last anniversary and this is a national one, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) is celebrating its sesquicentennial (150th) in 2018 just one year after the country’s sesquicentennial in 2017. First mentioned here in a July 2, 2018 posting about celebratory events in Toronto, There don’t seem to be any more events planned for this year but RASC’s 150th Anniversary webpage lists resources such as podcasts and more for you delectation.

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

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

Fairytales

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

Advertising for a meditation app?

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

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

…

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

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

….

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

You can find Calm here.

You can find Botnik  here and Botnik Studios here.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seating is limited

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

Speakers

David Usher (Moderator)

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

Joelle Pineau (Facebook)

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

Pablo Samuel Castro (Google)

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

Philippe Beaudoin (Element AI)

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

Doina Precup (Deepmind)

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

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

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

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

Science Alive! is everywhere; #AskACurator is Sept. 13, 2017; and more

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Researching a piece sometimes leads you to unexpected corners on the internet. This started with an announcement about #AskACurator on Twitter and Instagram in the August 30, 2017 issue (received via email) of What’s Up @ The Museums (from Ingenium or what was known as the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation).

Science Alive!

In trying to pad out the one announcement that might be of interest to people who don’t live near one of Canada’s science and technology museums, i.e., anyone who lives outside of Ottawa, Ontario, I checked out their fairly new (the first video in the series was posted in February 2016) science podcast series, Science Alive!

Despite reservations (I have very little interest in space exploration and even less in the Canadarm), I found the first video in the series quite engaging,

Of course, I had more questions but that’s the point o what is intended to be both an information and promotional video designed to attract visitors.

But, this is not the only Science Alive. Simon Fraser University (SFU) has a student-run, not-for-profit organization known as Science AL!VE, which runs summer camps and weekend clubs in British Columbia. (This SFU organization is part of Actua, “Canada’s largest STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] outreach organization. They have annual reports stretching back to 2010/11.)

There’s also a Science Alive with Living Things in Michigan, US and a science alive! in New Zealand, which “is a not-for-profit trust promoting science and technology worldwide.”

I had to stop there but there are more ‘science alive’ programmes out there.

#AskACurator

Here’s the announcement that started my Science Alive! adventure, from the August 30, 2017 issue (received via email) of What’s Up @ The Museums,

#AskACurator
September 13, 2017
September is more than back to school time – it’s Ask a Curator Time! Our Museums are excited to once again be among more than 1200 museums from 52 countries participating in #AskACurator Day on Wednesday September 13, 2017! Have a question for our curators?

Send your questions to @SciTechMuseum, @avspacemuseum or @AgMuseum!

#AskACurator is being organized by someone called Mar Dixon. Her website‘s About Me page (from the homepage, click on About Me)  lists current and past projects only. I can certainly appreciate why she might have done that. (IMO) Describing your education, past employers, achievements, etc., i.e., standard biographical information can get boring but the projects you’re working on or have worked on and are passionate about? Well, for some us it’s all about the work.

Here’s more about the Sept. 13, 2017 #AskACurator day on Twitter and Instagram,

This is the list of all museums who signed up so far. It is in alphabetical order by country. I’m updating this page every few days. If your museum isn’t on listed, use the sign up form.  If you are listed and can NOT take part in 2017 please contact me at mar@mardixon.com or @MarDixon on Twitter.

Please note:  @AskACurator is also on Instagram AND Twitter so feel free to use the tag on there!

How to take Part: Participants  Want to know how to Take Part? There’s an article for that! (Please note the date has changed!)

How to take Part: Museums  You might want to tell your followers the time your curator will be available.  Some museums write it on their events page, others leave it open to see what questions they receive.  However, to get your name out there – it helps to jump in to general questions and not just wait to be asked a specific question.  Some people will use the hashtag to ask questions such as how to know what to collect, what skills are needed, what are the unknowns of being a curator etc.  We also have a few #Askacurator people who have questions like ‘do you have a teddy bear in your collection’ or ‘what’s the funniest thing you heard in your museum’ etc.

Last updated August 29 2017
Museums taking part: 1421

Countries: 54

For anyone who’s never dealt with a curator, you might find this video where curator David Pantalony discusses a giant globe and what they did and didn’t include on the globe from Ingenium’s Science Alive! series informative,

Beakerhead Sept. 13 – 17, 2017 in Calgary

Here’s more about this year’s iteration of the event (from the Beakerhead attend page),

Mark your calendars for September 13 – 17, 2017 when Beakerhead takes over Calgary with a smash up of art, science and engineering both indoors and out! From citywide, pop-up engineered art galleries and flame-spitting, larger-than-life public art encounters to the entertaining science of … everything, there’s something for everyone!

With over 60 events and programs to choose from, Beakerhead has something for everyone – whether you define yourself as “creative” or “technical” in nature. In 2016 over 130,000 people took part, including a few actual astronauts!

In 2017, Beakerhead celebrates the ups and downs of experimentation and invention!
A special Canada 150 version of Beakerhead will see Calgary’s downtown core become a canvas for a larger-than-life interactive experience where participants will navigate to and from Beakerhead encounters å la Snakes and Ladders while we celebrate the ups and downs that mark the wild and bumpy ride of invention and creativity.

Events, experiments and programs that make up the five day spectacle include:

  • Snakes and Ladders: An interactive experience that encourages exploration of the city (and human ingenuity) through delightfully engineered public art installations.
  • Workshops and talks: explore the science of scent, play with your food, immerse yourself in the laboratory of life!
  • Four to Six: A street party on Stephen Avenue where science gets social.
  • Ticketed events: Command to be entertained by world famous (and soon-to-be-famous) inventors, scientists, performers (and maybe even an animal or two!)
  • Ingenuity challenges: In that past, Beakerhead has pit catapult teams against each other – this year expect a new high-reaching competition!
  • Community programs: Beakerhead becomes a stage for over 100 collaborating organizations, both large and small, to show off their discoveries and creativity through events and programs of their own. Learn how you can take part, too!
  • School tours, talks, and challenges: Beakerhead engages 25,000 students each year.
  • …

The Beakerhead events page is overwhelming and I suggest the unitiated scrol down to the Highlights section where you can find out more about the organization, find a programme announcement which allows you to orient yourself (somewhat), and more.

European Science Open Forum (ESOF) 2018

This science shindig comes along every two years. The last one was in Manchester, UK in 2016 and now it’s time to gear up for Toulouse, France in 2018 (from the ESOF July 2017 newsletter received via email),

ESOF 2018 in Toulouse.
Save the date! One year to go.

The next EuroScience Open Forum, ESOF 2018 will be held in Toulouse, France, 9-14 July 2018 in just one year from now!
Save the dates and plan your visit to the European City of Science 2018, with the ESOF 2018 motto: « Sharing Science: towards new horizons! »

With more than 300 sessions proposed in the first call for scientific sessions on 10 themes and 4 cross-cutting domains covering all sciences, the programme promises to be attractive and a major crossroad of debates on the future of science and how to share it.

Keep an eye on ongoing and future calls: www.esof.eu

Key dates:
Call for Scientific sessions: February -June 2017
Call for Science in the City Festival initiatives: June – September 2017
Call for Careers & Science to Business sessions: July – October 2017
Call for posters and interactive presentations: October 2017 – January 2018

Consider that
– ESOF is the largest interdisciplinary science event in Europe.
– ESOF is a cross-road for exchange between scientists, students, policy makers, innovators, industry managers and science media.
– 2018 is a key year for the preparation of the next framework programme [major seven-year European Union science funding programme; the current such programme is Horizon 2020, which stated in 2013] for research and innovation of the European Union and key discussions will occur at ESOF 2018.

And that
– Toulouse, the Capital of Occitania, in Southern France and the Capital of aeronautics and space research will surprise you with the many facets of its culture and scientific domains.
– And is both a historical and modern lively City, home of 120 000 students!

We are eager to share this event with you and are sure you will make it a wonderful success!

Dr Anne Cambon-Thomsen
ESOF 2018 Champion

You can find out more about ESOF on the website’s About page,

ESOF (EuroScience Open Forum) is the largest interdisciplinary science meeting in Europe. It is dedicated to scientific research and innovation and offers a unique framework for interaction and debate for scientists, innovators, policy makers, business people and the general public.

Created in 2004 by EuroScience, this biennial European forum brings together over 4 000 researchers, educators, business actors, policy makers and journalists from all over the world to discuss breakthroughs in science. More than 40% of the participants are students and young researchers.

The 8th edition of ESOF will take place in Toulouse, France, from 9 till 14 July 2018.

ESOF figures

4000+ delegates from 80+ countries
400+ journalists and science communicators
150+ conferences, workshops and scientific sessions
200+ events open to the general public, attended by more than 35 000 participants

What to expect at ESOF?

Taking part in ESOF is a unique opportunity to:

  • further knowledge on the challenges and breakthroughs in research, innovation and their relation to society;
  • create links, exchange and debate with leaders of the scientific community worldwide in an interdisciplinary context;
  • communicate the latest news on scientific research and innovation to an international audience;
  • develop a network in view of building a research career.

Find out more about ESOF and EuroScience: www.euroscience.org

I can’t find an overarching theme for the event or any promotional videos but there is this: Robots and humans : How do they cooperate ? 5Th preparatory meeting ESOF 2018 video (running time: 1 hour and 41 mins.) The title is if nothing else an intriguing hint of what ESOF 2018 may hold.

I also checked out the Science in the City Festival (formerly City of Science) and found information for this previously mentioned call,

Parallel to the EuroScience Open Forum, the Science in the City Festival will invest the city and its surroundings.

As a free event, Science in the City Festival is aimed at people of all ages who are curious about science and innovation.

If you wish to be part of the Science in the City programme, please send your proposals for our call for initiatives by filling this online form.

Deadline: 30th September 2017

Call for initiatives for the Science in the City Festival(PDF)

The online form lists a set of ESOF 2018 themes or stems or topics,

If it helps, Toulouse is known as ‘la Ville Rose’ or Pink City.

That’s it for this roundup of ‘sciencish’ bits.

Ingenium or (as we used to call it) the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation (CSTMC)

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The Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation (CSTMC) has always been an unwieldy name in light of the fact that one of the three museums in the cluster is called the Canada Science and Technology Museum. (The other two are the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum.) So, the July 6, 2017 CSTMC announcement (received via email) is a relief from the unwieldy corporate name,

A new national brand launched on June 26, 2017, to celebrate ingenuity
in Canada. Known as INGENIUM – CANADA’S MUSEUMS OF SCIENCE AND
INNOVATION, this corporate brand encompasses three national
institutions—the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, the Canada
Aviation and Space Museum, and the Canada Science and Technology Museum.

From the Canadarm to canola and insulin, Canadians have made significant
contributions in the worlds of science and technology. INGENIUM –
CANADA’S MUSEUMS OF SCIENCE AND INNOVATION will continue the important
mission of preserving Canada’s scientific and technological heritage
and sharing its stories with Canadians. Under the Ingenium brand, the
three museums will be places where the past meets the future, with
spaces where visitors can learn and explore, play and discover. Ingenium
will provide an immersive, sensory encounter with human ingenuity and
tell the stories of those who dared to think differently and test the
limits of what we know and what we can do.

Currently under construction, Ingenium’s Collections Conservation
Centre [4], including a Research Institute and Media Lab, will protect
priceless Canadian heritage artifacts for the benefit of Canadians for
generations to come. Ingenium’s unique collection, and digital and
social media platforms will connect Canadians to the world stage in
unexpected ways by sharing their passions, memories, and everyday
experience, no matter where they live

You can find the Ingenium website here. Oddly, the organization’s June 27, 2017 news release is found on the About page,

With Canada just days away [July 1, 2017] from celebrating the 150th anniversary of Confederation, a new national brand is launching to celebrate ingenuity in Canada. Known as Ingenium – Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation, this corporate brand, inspired from the Latin root for “ingenuity,” [this word will come up again in my commentary at the end of the post] encompasses three national institutions—the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, and the Canada Science and Technology Museum.

From the Canadarm to canola and insulin, Canadians have made significant contributions in the worlds of science and technology. Ingenium – Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation will continue the important mission of preserving Canada’s scientific and technological heritage and sharing its stories with Canadians.

Under the Ingenium brand, the three museums will be places where the past meets the future, with spaces where visitors can learn and explore, play and discover. Ingenium will provide an immersive, sensory encounter with human ingenuity and tell the stories of those who dared to think differently and test the limits of what we know and what we can do.

Currently under construction, Ingenium’s Collections Conservation Centre, including a Research Institute and Media Lab, will protect priceless Canadian heritage artifacts for the benefit of Canadians for generations to come‎. Ingenium’s unique collection, and digital and social media platforms will connect Canadians to the world stage in unexpected ways by sharing their passions, memories, and everyday experience, no matter where they live.

November 17, 2017, will mark the next milestone for Ingenium when the Canada Science and Technology Museum reopens its doors. This modern, world-class museum mixes the best of its previous incarnation with new technologies and exhibition techniques to tell Canada’s science and technology story in an immersive, educational, and fun way. It will feature more than 7,400 m2 (80,000 sq. ft.) of completely redesigned exhibition space (the equivalent of nearly five NHL rinks), including a specially designed hall to house international travelling exhibitions.

QUOTES

“Ingenium will bring a consistent voice and identity to our corporation. It will allow us to reach beyond our four walls and engage with Canadians from coast to coast to coast, and with international audiences. Ingenium is where the past meets the future and inspires the next generation of young innovators.”
– Fernand Proulx, Interim President and CEO of Ingenium

ABOUT INGENIUM – CANADA’S MUSEUMS OF SCIENCE AND INNOVATION

DIGITAL AND TRAVELLING PRODUCTS

Ingenium offers unique digital and social media platforms that put ingenuity in the spotlight for unforgettable and immediate experiences to inspire children, families, and scientists alike.

Highlights

Mobile games: Ace Academy; Ace Academy: Black Flight; Ace Academy: Skies of Fury; Bee Odyssey; Space Frontiers: Dawn of Mars

Digital platforms: Open Heritage; Open Data; Open Archives; online collection; Reboot: A Future Museum documentary; Ingenium Channel

Travelling exhibitions: International Bicycle travelling exhibition (set for July 2017 launch in Israel); Space to Spoon; Canola: A Story of Canadian Innovation; Food for Health; Game Changers; Climate Change is Here

CANADA AGRICULTURE AND FOOD MUSEUM 

About the Museum: The Canada Agriculture and Food Museum is located at Ottawa’s Central Experimental Farm, which traces its roots to 1886 and is the world’s only working farm in the heart of a capital city. The Museum offers programs and exhibitions on Canada’s agricultural heritage, food literacy, and on the benefits and relationship of agricultural science and technology to Canadians’ everyday lives. It provides visitors with a unique opportunity to see diverse breeds of farm animals important to Canadian agriculture past and present, and to learn about the food they eat. In addition to breeds common to Canadian agriculture, such as Holstein dairy cows and Angus beef cows, the Museum also has Canadienne dairy cows, Tamworth pigs, and Clydesdale horses. Many other breeds of dairy and beef cattle, pigs, sheep, horses, poultry, goats, and rabbits round out the collection.

Public programming includes special weekend theme events, school programs, summer day camps, interpretive tours, demonstrations, and joint undertakings with community groups and associations.

Museum Highlights: Canola! Seeds of Innovation; 150 farm animals in a demonstration farm; historical tractor collection; special events such as Baconpalooza, Global Tastes and the Ice Cream Festival.

CANADA AVIATION AND SPACE MUSEUM

About the Museum: Located on a former military air base just 5 kilometres from the Prime Minister’s residence at 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa, the Museum focuses on aviation in Canada within an international context, from its beginnings in 1909 to the present day. As Canada’s contribution to aviation expanded to include aerospace technology, the Museum’s collection and mandate grew to include space flight. The Collection itself consists of more than 130 aircraft and artifacts (propellers, engines) from both civil and military service. It gives particular, but not exclusive, reference to Canadian achievements. The most extensive aviation collection in Canada, it is also considered one of the finest aviation museums in the world.

Museum Highlights: Largest surviving piece of the famous Avro Arrow (its nose section); the original Canadarm used on the Endeavour space shuttle; Lancaster WWII bomber; Life in Orbit: The International Space Station exhibition.

CANADA SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MUSEUM 

Established and opened in 1967 as a Centennial project, the Canada Science and Technology Museum is responsible for preserving, promoting, and sharing knowledge about Canada’s scientific and technological heritage. The Museum is currently undergoing an $80.5-million renewal of its entire building. When it opens, it will feature over 7,400 m2 (80,000 sq. ft.) of redesigned exhibition space, including an 850 m2 (9,200 sq. ft.) temporary exhibition hall to accommodate travelling exhibitions from around the world. It is scheduled to open to the public on November 17, 2017, marking its 50th Anniversary during Canada 150 celebrations.

Museum Highlights: 11 new exhibitions with the capacity to showcase international travelling exhibitions from around the world. Long-time visitor favourites, the Crazy Kitchen and locomotives will also make a comeback in addition to the Game Changers travelling exhibition which is currently touring across Canada, Artifact Alley, a Children’s gallery, a demonstration stage, classrooms, the Exploratek maker studio, and three new apps.

THE NATIONAL COLLECTION

Ingenium is the steward of Canada’s largest and most comprehensive museum collection devoted to science and technology. It preserves and provides access to extensive holdings of artifacts and library and archival materials that document this priceless material heritage. Comprising over 100,000 objects and hundreds of thousands of books, historic photographs, and archival documents, the collection is particularly strong in the areas of transportation (air, space, land, marine), physical sciences, medicine, communications, agriculture, and natural resources.

Collection Highlights: The test model of Alouette 1, Canada’s first satellite; the world’s first IMAX projector and camera; the first successful electron microscope built in North America; the first automobile made in Canada; the oldest surviving aircraft to have flown in Canada; the “Sackbut,“ the world’s first electronic sound synthesizer

This rebranded name bears an uncanny resemblance to the title of new book about Canadian inventions,’ Ingenuity’ (see my May 30, 2017 posting for the Vancouver book launch; scroll down about 60% of the way) by Tom Jenkins and David C. Johnston (current Governor General).

As it turns out, Alex Benay, then president and Chief Executive Officer of the CSTMC (see my June 19, 2014 posting about Benay’s appt.) worked for Tom Jenkins at Open Text for several years.

(As of March 24, 2017 Benay was appointed to the position of Canada’s Chief Information Officer [see March 27, 2017 notice on Libararianship.ca]). Anyone who’s been involved with rebrands and renaming knows that the name is picked in months in advance so this rebrand has Benay’s (and, possibly, Jenkins’) pawprints all over it.

La Machine, Ottawa (Canada), and the Canada Aviation and Space Museum

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First, you have to see the video,

La Machine

The ‘dragon’ and the ‘spider’ have sprung forth from a French street theatre group known as La Machine and the  La Machine ‘experience’ is making its début in North America in Ottawa, Ontario (July 27 – 30, 2017) as part of Canada’s 150th celebration.

Here’s more about La Machine and the ‘experience’ from the city of Ottawa’s event page,

Making its debut in North America, La Machine will captivate the public with its travelling urban theatre in the streets of downtown Ottawa.

Wandering around in public spaces, the protagonists will invade the heart of the capital in a show entitled “The Spirit of the Dragon-Horse, With Stolen Wings”. They will live among us for 24 hours a day over the course of four days as they pursue their quest and fulfill their destiny.

LongMa

Part dragon and part horse, LongMa stands 12 metres high, 5 metres wide and weighs 45 tons. Although his body is made of wood and steel, we quickly fall under his spell and connect with him on an ethereal level. From the top of his hooves, he trots with elegance, gallops, rears himself up and lies down.

With his piercing gaze, LongMa scours the crowd and interacts with them thanks as his neck rises, lowers and oscillates from left to right. His ribcage swells under the pressure of his lungs. But be careful, the warm breath coming out of his nostrils could quickly be transformed into fire coming out of his mouth.

…

The Spider

Beautiful and repulsive, aggressive and gentle, the giant spider will give you chills. Her eight legs and body that synchronize as she crawls around town gracefully. Like a dancer, she wanders, steps over trees, streetlights and bus shelters… At rest, she is 5.7 metres high and 6 metres wide, but she can reach up to 13 metres when in motion.  Fully outstretched, she is about 20 metres long.

Will she extinguish LongMa’s flames with the water deployed from her abdomen?

Credit: Jordi Bover

About La Machine Company

La Machine is a street theatre company founded in 1999 and leaded by François Delarozière. Its conception is thanks to artists, technicians and theatre designers working together for the construction of unusual theatre objects. Today, La Machine develops many projects in the field of urban development as well as for street theatre. At the heart of La Machine’s artistic approach, movement is read as a language, as a source of emotion. Through each of these living architectures, the idea is to dream of tomorrow’s cities, and thanks to this, transform the way we look at our towns. To bring its creations to life, La Machine has set up two workshops, one in Nantes and one in Tournefeuille. They bring together many different trades and crafts from theatre and the arts, to industry and advanced technology. People and their skills are the very essence of the creative process.

Ottawa and La Machine

I think this Ottawa event is much more engaging than Toronto’s giant rubber duck (which has proved to be controversial( e.g. June ?, 2017 posting on blogTO and Alina Bykova’s June 30, 3017 article for thestar.com) on July 1, 2017. Getting back to Ottawa, Judy Trinh’s June 1, 2016 article for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) news online previews and provides some inside scoop about the 2017 event (Note: A link has been removed),

A giant mechanical dragon and spider from France will roam the streets of Ottawa next summer as part of celebrations for Canada’s 150th birthday.

It will be the first time the fire-breathing and water spraying creatures invade North America.

Securing the performance of the monsters from La Machine, a production company based in Nantes, France comes at a cost of $3 million — an amount that will be shared by both the public and private sector.

The Ottawa 2017 organizing committee has been working on booking the show for nearly a year and a half.

…

Negotiations didn’t just involve the City of Ottawa and the French production company. It also involved a Chinese businessman — Adam Yu, an entrepreneur based in Beijing who owns the rights to the dragon for La Machine.

Laflamme [executive director of Ottawa 2017, Guy Laflamme] said mayor Jim Watson set aside time during his economic mission to China to meet with Yu and make the case for loaning the dragon to Ottawa.

Organizers have just started “storyboarding” the show with La Machine’s artistic director, François Delarozière.

Although he’s reticent to describe what the show will look like, Laflamme does provide some hints: the operators will be dressed like they stepped out of the movie, The Matrix [movi e description], and the giant robots will make stops at Ottawa landmarks and interact with spectators.

Local musicians will also be hired to form a travelling orchestra for the soundtrack to the dragon’s and spider’s adventures.

If I read that rightly, planning seems to have started in 2014.

Canada Aviation and Space Museum

While La Machine is in Ottawa with their mechanicals, there will be a preview (from an Ingenium [formerly Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation] July 12, 2017 notice received via email), Note: Links have been removed,

EXCLUSIVE SNEAK PEEK
Presented as part of Ottawa 2017

Making its debut in North America, _La Machine_ will captivate the
public with its dramatic urban theatre experience – and you can get
exclusive access at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum!

From July 15 to 24 [2017; emphasis mine], the Museum will be hosting a variety of
larger-than-life activities leading up to the big performance.
Activities include special viewing areas, a mini exhibition about _La
Machine_, a film about Long Ma the Dragon-Horse, creative activities and
a special lecture with _La Machine_’s creator. All activities are FREE
with Museum admission. Find out more by visiting our website.   [3]

SPECIAL LECTURE
THE MAKING OF_ LA MACHINE_ WITH FRANÇOIS DELAROZIÈRE
Join François Delarozière, the visionary artistic director and
engineer behind the wonders of _La Machine_, for an afternoon of insight
and conversation exploring the street theatre company’s history and
the creative process behind its fantastical mechanical masterpieces.
(Bilingual presentation)

Saturday, July 15, 2017
2 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Canada Aviation and Space Museum
Mauril Bélanger Theatre

SPACE IS LIMITED, REGISTER HERE!  [4]

[5]

UN AVANT-GOÛT EXCLUSIF

Présenté dans le cadre d’Ottawa 2017

Pour la première fois en Amérique du Nord,_ La Machine_ s’apprête
à captiver le public avec son impressionnant théâtre urbain. De plus,
vous aurez droit à un accès exclusif au Musée de l’aviation et de
l’espace du Canada!

Du 15 au 24 juillet, le Musée tiendra une série d’activités hors du
commun dans l’attente de la grande représentation.  On y comptera des
projections spéciales; une mini-exposition sur _La Machine_; un film
racontant l’histoire de Long Ma, le cheval-dragon; des activités
créatives et une conférence spéciale en compagnie du créateur de _La
Machine_. Tous les activités sont comprises dans le prix d’entrée au
Musée.  Visitez notre site Web [6] pour obtenir plus de renseignements.

CONFÉRENCE SPÉCIALE
LA RÉALISATION DE _LA MACHINE_ AVEC FRANÇOIS DELAROZIÈRE
Venez échanger avec François Delarozière, directeur artistique de _La
Machine_ et concepteur visionnaire de ces merveilles mécaniques, et
découvrez l’histoire de cette compagnie de théâtre de rue et le
processus ayant mené à la création de ses fantastiques
chefs-d’œuvre mécaniques.  (Présentation bilingue)

Samedi 15 juillet 2017
De 14 h à 15 h
Musée de l’aviation et de l’espace du Canada
Théâtre Mauril Bélanger

INSCRIVEZ-VOUS ICI – LE NOMBRE DE PLACES EST LIMITÉ!  [7]

You can sign up for the talk with François Delarozière here. It is a bilingual presentation included with the entrance fee (as noted previously) to the museum entitling you to a seat assuming you sign up quickly.

For the curious, you can find more about La Machine at its website. The images on the banner are stunning.