Holly Heglin holds a Master’s degree in pure mathematics and has done Ph.D.-level research in the field of algebraic combinatorics. Her research focus was on affine algebras and the associated geometric interpretations. As such, she utilized python libraries built for algebraic combinatorics discovery to execute hypotheses. Holly’s mathematics and coding skills allowed her to establish herself in analytics for business, starting her career in consulting and now occupying the role of AVP, Enterprise Data Science, Machine Learning, and Innovation at TD Bank. Holly leads a team of data and machine learning scientists and technical product owners to deliver advanced analytics solutions across the bank.

She has also held various analytics strategy and product-focused roles across TD and has brought a multi-faceted view of the current challenges in banking. Examples of solutions implemented during her tenure include multi-variate forecasting for liquidity, hedging predictions, churn models, optimization of product recommendations, and various lending-related pricing and acquisition models. Holly is interested in driving analytics at scale and merging strong business acumen with reliable data and analytics approaches.

Dr. Karthik Kuber has several years of academic research as well as applied data science experience in the technology and banking sectors. His current interests are in exploring and applying various Machine Learning techniques in the context of large-scale engineering systems, with a special emphasis on building interpretable models. Dr. Kuber received his PhD from Syracuse University in Computer Science, focusing on Machine Learning and Evolutionary Computation, is a certified instructor with NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute, and has co-organised three editions of the International Workshop on Evolutionary Rule-based Machine Learning. Dr. Kuber is currently a Senior Data Scientist at RBC. He also volunteers actively with DataKind on projects applying Data Science for social causes. Outside of work, you will probably find him on a cricket field or in a dojo.

Read an interview with Karthik

Dr. Annie Lee holds a PhD from the University of Waterloo at the Centre of Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence with over 12 years of experience in data mining and machine learning. Dr. Lee’s passion in finding patterns in society and in nature in the big data era has lead to dozens of publications in computational advertising, sentiment analysis, and sequence analysis, including a highly-read review paper on big data. Most notably, Dr. Lee developed interpretable unsupervised algorithms, which uncovered patterns utilizing clustering and partitioning of raw data and a priori knowledge.

Currently, Dr. Lee is the Lead Research Scientist for the Data Science team at Vertical Scope, where she drives the efforts for the in-house academic research, algorithmic implementations, and evaluations. During her tenure, Dr. Lee propelled projects on identifying product names, sentiments analysis towards product features, and topic modelling in order to generate key business insights for reporting brand and site health.

Dr. Lee is currently serving as the funding chair for Broadening Participation in Data Mining and was a co-chair of Women in Machine Learning, co-hosted with the 2010 Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems in Vancouver. Dr. Lee was an NSERC and OGS scholar.

Hashmat is the Assistant Vice President & Managing Enterprise Architect at The Co-operators Group. For over 10 years he has effectively led initiatives that have involved rapid advancement in data, analytics, digital, and business leadership. As a technology enthusiast and lean startup evangelist, he is renowned for building a “never rest, kill complexity and care more” culture that manages existing technical debt and prepares the organization for future disruptions by leveraging emerging business models and digital ecosystems.

Hashmat is a published data science, IT, and agile delivery practitioner and academician with over 5 years teaching and curriculum development experience at colleges and universities in Canada. He has also organized conferences and workshops, and been interviewed on print, radio, social media and TV as an analytics expert.

Cecilia Ying has 16 years of professional experience in capital markets, most recently with Scotiabank as Director in Global Risk Management with responsibility for counterparty credit risk monitoring. Cecilia has a scope of research that spans areas of AI explainablity and its application in the financial industry. One of her current research projects is examining the impact of AI on cognitively intensive tasks performed by skilled workers, such as lawyers who are using an AI tool to reference preceding cases, or doctors leveraging medical AI tools for preliminary diagnostics. Her other research explores ML algorithms for predicting defaults in private firms using alternative unstructured data extracted from websites and social media.

Cecilia is currently pursuing her PhD at Queen’s University, Smith School of Business in Management Analytics, and holds a Masters degree in Management Analytics from Queen’s University and a Joint Honours Bachelors degree in Mathematics and Applied Economics from the University of Waterloo.

Harish is a data officer and an expert in artificial intelligence (AI)-powered data analytics with 15+ years of experience working in aerospace, telecommunication, automotive, security, geospatial and biomedical industries. He is the President and Chief Scientific Consultant of Zero One Infinity Consulting (ZOIC) Services Ltd., an Ontario-based Research and Development (R&D) company. Previously, he was a chief engineer at Samsung Electronics, India and an assistant professor/lead at the Visual Signal Analysis and Processing (VSAP) research center at Khalifa University, UAE.

Harish has also worked as a researcher, managing the R&D of Ministry of Defense (MoD) UK and European Union (EU)-funded projects at Lancaster and Manchester universities, UK. Harish is a strong engineering professional with a Ph.D. in Computer Science and an M.Sc. in Autonomous Systems from Loughborough and Exeter universities, UK, respectively. He has proven capacity to coordinate and spearhead the establishment of international research units and extensive management experience recognized through the successful completion of several public and private funded R&D projects in more than five different countries across the world.

Jeff is a serial entrepreneur and investor with over 20 years of proven technology and general management experience. He brings to the table an in-depth understanding of starting, funding, scaling, and exiting software companies. With successful M&A transactions to Bitfone, HP, Google, Apple, and Opera Software, Jeff has the background and track record to overcome the unique challenges in making new technologies successful in the start-up world.

Jeff holds 24 issued patents in the wireless and consumer electronics spaces and is the lead inventor on 30+ pending patents. He is a skilled presenter, communicator, and technology evangelist who speaks English, French and Mandarin Chinese. Jeff is an active angel investor and serves on the boards of a number of technology companies.

Before joining Wysdom as President, Jeff was co-founder and CTO at Storage Appliance Corporation (Clickfree) where he led the software, product and manufacturing teams to create a series of automatic computer backup devices that sold over a million units and generated $100+ million in revenues. Prior to Clickfree Jeff served as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer with Bitfone Corporation where he was responsible for all Engineering and Professional Services around the company’s Mobile Device Management product portfolio. While at Bitfone Jeff also led the ground up creation of a highly successful 100+ person development team in Beijing China. Bitfone was acquired by HP in 2006 for $160 million. Before joining Bitfone, Jeff served as Chief Technology Officer with Mobile Diagnostix Inc. He was responsible for all aspects of the architecture & implementation of the company’s flagship product SmartCare – a customer care & remote diagnostics tool for mobile service providers. Mobile Diagnostix was successfully acquired by Bitfone Corporation in 2004.

Christian is a French Canadian born entrepreneur and investor who is the co-founder and CEO for Intellect Dynamics. Christian leads and manages all of Intellect Dynamics commercial operations. Along with CTO and co-founder Stan Yazhemsky, Christian oversees a team that has had dozens of breakthroughs in the field of AI. Christian is focused on delivering Intellect Dynamics’ technology vision by developing profitable technology solutions and services with a focus on real time analytics, artificial intelligence, business process automation and decision support. With a background in neuroscience, Christian and his team are using borrowed-from-nature methods to create new and useful knowledge from otherwise unmanageable data collections.v

Nidhi is the Applied Research team lead at Borealis AI, Edmonton, Canada. Borealis AI is an RBC institute for research. Before joining in March 2018, Nidhi was a researcher at Bell Labs, Nokia, in France since January 2015, and most recently was leading a new team focussed on Maths and Algorithms for Machine Learning in Networks and Systems, in the Maths and Algorithms group of Bell Labs. From July 2010 to December 2014, Nidhi was a researcher at the Technicolor Paris Research Labs, after 5 years at France Telecom R&D in Jim Robert’s Performance analysis group. Prior to this, Nidhi was at CWI and Eurandom in the Netherlands, and a postdoctoral researcher at INRIA at Sophia Antipolis, France.

Iman has a diverse technical background in devices and system level architecture planning, design, fabrication and manufacturing for a wide range of remote sensing technologies. He is specialized in spectroscopy, microscopy, optical imaging systems and integrated optoelectronics and nanophotonics. With eight years of industrial experience including entrepreneurial start-up environments and research laboratories, he has brought various sensing technologies to various sectors such as medicine, oil and gas, environmental monitoring, water and agriculture. His interests are pairing remote sensing technologies with artificial intelligence for improved processes. Currently, Iman is a cofounder and CTO at Elucid Labs, commercializing AI-based assistive diagnostic systems in medicine and is part of Canadian CIO Strategy Council to set forth ethical AI standards and policies.

Melissa is a social entrepreneur, leader and big thinker. As Co-Founder and CEO of Canada Learning Code, Melissa has established a reputation as a fierce advocate for digital skills education. She is dedicated to ensuring that Canadians – especially underrepresented groups – have the critical skills, confidence, and opportunities that they need to become passionate builders — not just consumers — of technology and to thrive in our increasingly digital world.

Founded as Ladies Learning Code in 2011, the organization has evolved to Canada Learning Code and champions digital literacy for Canadians, working nation-wide and across all sectors to equip women and youth with technical skills. To date, the organization has taught over 80,000 Canadians code through their in-person programs, which are offered in over 30 cities across the country. The organization runs programming for adult women, youth and educators through programs Ladies -, Girls -, Kids -, Teens – and Teachers – Learning Code.

Her efforts to promote digital literacy in Canada have garnered attention from national media outlets like CTV, CBC, and the Globe & Mail. She’s spoken on the TEDx stage as well as at notable conferences such as Canada2020 and GoNorth. Melissa recently represented Canada as a delegate for the G7’s first-ever Innovation7 focused on the future of work. She has been recognized for her work, being awarded the Governor General Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case honouring Canadians who advance gender equality as well as RBC Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 for Social Change.

Melissa holds an HBA degree from the Richard Ivey Business School and is currently pursuing her Master’s in Education Policy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. She taught herself how to build websites from scratch using HTML when she was 11 years old and has been coding ever since.