Women in AI Canada Celebrating One-Year Anniversary
Women in AI Canada first launched in October 2020
In 2020, a year unlike any other, Emmanuelle Coppinger who is the Founder Ambassador of Women in AI Canada (WaiCanada), brought together a team of passionate women professionals who decided to contribute towards bridging the gender gap in AI a step closer.
Frincy Clement, the present Ambassador for WaiCanada says, “It has been a phenomenal first year for WaiCanada, presenting Canadian women AI professionals on the global map. The success of our programs and events are a reflection of the hard work, dedication and passion of our team members, who has volunteered their time and efforts, to create an inclusive AI for the future.”
Canada is a global leader in AI
- As a result of decades of investment in research, Canada is home to three major research centres for machine learning: Amii (Edmonton), Mila (Montreal) and Vector Institute (Toronto)
- Canada also has a Pan-Canadian AI Strategy led by CIFAR
- Canada has built a depth and breadth of expertise across AI disciplines that is now enabling new AI-based startups.
Given the strong presence of artificial intelligence in our country we hope to empower female representation and participation in this ecosystem.
Expansion into 6 major cities
Since the beginning of WaiCanada, we have built a team of experts and leads who volunteers to build Wai community across 6 major cities in Canada.
WaiCanada’s participation in the first Global Summit
WAI’s first Global Summit occurred on September 8, 2020 with over 40 participating countries. The Global Summit was a gathering of the global community of women in AI including researchers, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and policy makers. The summit provides the platform for women to share ideas and perspectives towards the creation of a more inclusive and diverse AI. The Canadian team contributed to this summit by:
- Leading a discussion on “Shaping AI for Good: The Canadian AI ecosystem”
- We had 6 outstanding panelists consisting of experts and C-Suite executives from research, startup and industry
11 events and over 1200 registered participants
- We held a variety of WAI events including 7 WAITalk’s, WAIConnect, WAITime, WAISymposium and WAIEducate
- We participated in 5 external partner events
- Over 42 speakers from a variety of industries such as finance, health, AI research, consulting, computer software, education and many more graced our events
The Toronto chapter launched the first “WaiCONNECT” event
- WaiCONNECT aims to connect Data Science hiring managers with potential job-seeking candidates in a networking event
- There was a large turnout of hiring managers and potential hires that contributed to the success of this kind of event
- Toronto currently houses the most number of WaiCanada members at 35%
Our members and virtual touch
- We currently have over 630 members registered in WaiCanada
- Over 50% of our members hear about us through social media
- Majority of WaiCanada’s LinkedIn visitors come from Toronto, Calgary and Montreal, but we’ve also made our appearance globally with visitors from San Francisco, Boston, and Mumbai
We have a diverse group of members at different stages in their career
- 43% of members are in the tech industry
- 35% of our members share an expertise in AI or Computer Science
- About 60% of our members have an MSc or PhD
- 61% of our members are in the early-mid stages of their professional roles
We are grateful for our sponsors and partners
All of our local sponsors help contribute to the growth of WAI Canada and support our initiatives: AltaML, University of Alberta, NextAI, School of Continuing Studies of York University.
Collaborating with local partners helps us reach a wider audience and offer meaningful programs: Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii), Products by Women, Invest Ottawa, Kids Code Jeunesse, Le Wagon Canada, AI launch labs, Shift Center for Social Transformation of Concordia university
Come join us for this greater cause
WaiCanada is looking for more volunteers for social media, member engagement, website development, finance, event management and much more. Fill out this application and one of us will reach out to you!
Women in AI is a community working towards shaping inclusive AI for our common future. To make this happen, we need your support. Please contribute to our #WAISpirit crowdfunding campaign, by which you can give women a voice, combat bias in AI and increase diversity.
Ending with a quote from Henry Ford, “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”
Stay tuned for upcoming events
Follow WAI Canada on LinkedIn and WAI Global on LinkedIn and Twitter to learn more about what we do at the largest global community of Women in AI.
