Entrepreneurs

U of T's Geoffrey Hinton and Ajay Agrawal on ROB's “Power 50” list

ullahnor — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 19:49:40 +0000

U of T's Geoffrey Hinton and Ajay Agrawal on ROB's “Power 50” list

ullahnor Wed, 04/26/2017 - 15:49

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University Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton speaking at Entrepreneurship Week last month. He and U of T's Ajay Agrawal are on the new list of top 50 influential Canadians (photo by Johnny Guatto)

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City & Culture

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science

Geoffrey Hinton

Rotman School of Management

Ajay Agrawal

Creative Destruction Lab

Startup

Entrepreneurs

The Report on Business Magazine's “Power 50” list of the most influential Canadians to watch includes U of T's Geoffrey Hinton and Ajay Agrawal. They share a spot on the list with the likes of Drake and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“Some call him the godfather of AI, others its elder statesman. Artificial intelligence is the hottest technology emerging today, and Hinton – professor emeritus at University of Toronto and engineering fellow at Google – is its biggest star,” the magazine states.

Hinton is also the chief scientific adviser of the newly created Vector Institute, which is hoping to build on the expertise of the deep-learning team at U of T and become a global leader in the booming field of artificial intelligence.

The list nods to Hinton's influence in AI where computers get better at pattern recognition, promising “significant advances in everything from self-driving cars to medical diagnoses.” And, it mentions his influence in training new leaders in AI like Ilya Sutskever, research director at Elon Musk-funded OpenAI, who is a former student; Ruslan Salakhutdinov, AI research head at Apple who was also a former student; and Yann LeCun, director of AI at Facebook, who did post-doctoral work under Hinton.

Canadian Olympians get green protection against Brazilian mosquitos

lavende4 — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 17:22:15 +0000

Canadian Olympians get green protection against Brazilian mosquitos

lavende4 Thu, 07/21/2016 - 13:22

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Left to right: Greenlid founders Morgan Wyatt, Adil Qawi and Jackson Wyatt with one of the biotraps they'll be donating to the Canadian Olympic Foundation (Image screengrab from YouTube)

Terry Lavender

Author legacy

Terry Lavender

Topic

Creative Destruction Lab

Entrepreneurs

With the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro only weeks away, many athletes – including Canadian tennis star Milos Raonic – have pulled out of the Games, citing fears of contracting the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

But U of T graduates Morgan and Jackson Wyatt, two brothers from Brockville, Ontario, are doing their best to protect the Canadian athletes, coaches and officials who do fly down to Rio. The Wyatts are founders of Greenlid Envirosciences, a Toronto-based company that is enjoying great success with its fully compostable Greenlid compost bin. The Wyatts have developed the Biotrap – a biodegradable mosquito trap based on the Greenlid – and are donating hundreds of the traps to the Canadian Olympic Foundation for use in Rio. U of T News spoke to Morgan Wyatt about the mosquito trap.

Your Biotrap is generating a lot of publicity, with stories in the Globe and Mail and Metro News, among other media outlets. But it’s based on your existing product, the Greenlid. How did the Greenlid come about?

The idea first came when my brother Jackson and I were having to deal with compost and food waste in the kitchen. It was always a mess and the compostable bags always seemed to leak, and so we just thought there could be a better way. I had a PhD in chemical biology (from McMaster University). So I started to look at different ways we could maybe make a fully compostable container that didn’t leak.

We’ve been concerned about the environment for a long time – even in high school – and we just thought we had something that could actually make it easier for people to make those eco-friendly choices.

You introduced the Greenlid a few years ago. Has it been a success?

It’s been very successful. We have a tremendous customer base across Canada. We’re in about 2500 stores across the country. We found a local manufacturer in Ontario that was able to produce the bin. Ontario has a great recycling program so we actually use a lot of end-of-life recycled cardboard that’s collected around Ontario and we repurpose that into the Greenlids.

What’s your U of T connection?

We both have our undergraduate degrees from U of T – I have a BSc in pharmaceutical chemistry while Jackson has a BSc in physiology. We also took the Greenlid through the Rotman School of Management’s Creative Destruction Lab last year, so we were back at U of T quite a bit for that program.

What inspired the mosquito biotraps?

It was developed from the same technology that makes our compost bins leak-proof. We were looking for different applications that we could use this with, and one came up when the Queensland Health Authority in Australia contacted me looking for a biodegradable container to use for their mosquito traps that they set out to combat dengue fever. I worked with them for about 18 months to modify our current formulation so that we could get something that would last in tropical conditions and the conditions that are around a lot of mosquitos.

How do they work?

The biotraps mimic the breeding ground of mosquitos and are coated with insecticide so they target only the female mosquito. You just add water and they’re effective for four to six weeks. We can see a pretty significant reduction in the mosquito population as a whole when you put out enough of these traps in an area. Mosquitos only travel a few hundred metres in their lifetime, so if you put out enough traps you’ll actually decimate the mosquito population in your area. So they’re good for around your cottage or your home.

How effective are they?

Over 1,000 Biotraps were deployed in Queensland and shown to last for six weeks in both wet and dry conditions on a variety of surfaces (concrete, mulch, and dirt). During this time, the kill rate was established as greater than 95 percent within 5 minutes of making contact with Biotraps.

You’re donating Biotraps to the Canadian Olympic Foundation for the Rio Olympics. Did you approach them or did they come to you?

The Zika crisis began about two or three weeks after we began to ship the biotraps to Australia to help them combat dengue fever. One of the big questions was what are the athletes going to do down in Brazil, so we contacted the Canadian Olympic officials. My brother and I, along with our business partner Adil Qawi, will fly to Rio de Janeiro with several hundred traps. Some will be put around the actual Olympic facilities in Rio and some will be put out in trials in Brazil in smaller communities, because the government and the health authorities there are interested in purchasing them.

Obviously, you’ll be cheering for the Canadian team. But what if other teams approach you asking for Biotraps?

We’re focussing mostly on the Canadian team right now, but if other countries are interested in having them around, we can actually facilitate that, since we are bringing extras traps down with us!

What does the future hold for Greenlid Envirosciences?

Right now we’re probably going to be optimizing the Biotrap and working on a larger family format for our compost bin.

We hope to donate and deploy at least 100,000 Biotraps in 2016. And for every Biotrap someone buys, we will donate one trap to communities that are affected by mosquito-borne illnesses. You can learn more at our crowdfunding campaign at https://www.igg.me/at/biotraps.

Interested in startups? Visit U of T's Banting & Best Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship

University of Toronto and RBC create startup accelerator for young innovators

lavende4 — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 12:35:36 +0000

University of Toronto and RBC create startup accelerator for young innovators lavende4 Tue, 04/05/2016 - 08:35

Olivia Tomic

Author legacy

Olivia Tomic

Topic

The University of Toronto and the Royal Bank of Canada today announced ONRamp, a major new initiative that will help support Canada’s innovative entrepreneurs.

Located in the Banting & Best Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (BBCIE), ONRamp will provide new collaborative workspaces for students, entrepreneurs and startup companies to support them in developing commercial ideas.

“U of T is a global leader in transforming innovative ideas into products, services, companies and jobs,” saidMeric Gertler, president of the University of Toronto. “With RBC’s support, this new initiative will further expand the university’s entrepreneurial efforts and help ensure our nation remains competitive by keeping talented innovators in Canada.”

Set over three floors in the BBCIE, ONRamp will enable these new companies to network with each other, showcase to potential investors and grow their businesses. A $3 million contribution from RBC, Canada’s largest bank, will also be used to create fellowships, prizes and a speaker series intended to enhance the university’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.

“We have some of the brightest and best ideas emerging from our universities, but too frequently our young entrepreneurs have to look abroad to get their businesses off the ground. ONRamp should help change that,” said Bruce Ross, group head of technology and operations at RBC. “This initiative will provide the perfect environment to help these innovative start-ups develop and, importantly, to stay in Canada. We are delighted to be partnering with the University of Toronto on this exciting program.”

Under the umbrella of the BBCIE, U of T’s vast ecosystem already consists of more than 60 entrepreneurial program and course offerings, and is supported by a network of nine campus-linked accelerators established to fill demand from the university’s diverse faculties and three campuses.

ONRamp will build on this central program of support in order to continue to serve the university’s innovative students, giving them the opportunity to pitch their business ideas, be recognized, and secure financial assistance as they undertake their entrepreneurship journey.

A number of post-doctoral and graduate scholarships and fellowships have also been created that will recognize, reward, and support innovative students across a broad range of research areas.

ONRamp will also house the RBC Innovation Hub within this new space for incubating startups, located within the BBCIE in downtown Toronto. RBC’s investment will support U of T’s $2 billion Boundless campaign which addresses the university’s commitment to enhancing the economic and social wellbeing of our communities, and to helping our citizens realize their potential.

“Universities and colleges play a key role in driving innovation and fostering entrepreneurship,” said Scott Mabury, vice-president, university operations. “The University of Toronto has emerged as a leading institution in creating startup companies based on research and ONRamp will further support our startups’ growth so they can create wealth, provide jobs and contribute to the nation’s prosperity.”

“We are excited to partner with RBC in order to provide facilities and programming that will be a launching pad for early-stage companies,” said Vivek Goel, vice-president of research and innovation at U of T. “Innovation and entrepreneurship are vital components of a robust economy and this initiative will help foster a rapidly growing hub of Canadian startup culture and support the next generation of successful entrepreneurs.”

ONRamp will provide a collaborative space for University of Toronto students and graduates, and to new young companies from other Ontario universities and colleges.

Conference Cloud: siblings' startup brings conferences to entrepreneurs

sgupta — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 11:28:42 +0000

Conference Cloud: siblings' startup brings conferences to entrepreneurs sgupta Tue, 01/26/2016 - 06:28

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Dinesh Ramdhayan, Olivia Simmons, John-Alan Simmons and Jay Engineer (photo courtesy ConferenceCloud)

Olivia Tomic

Author legacy

Olivia Tomic

Features

Startups

Mathematics

Faculty of Arts & Science

For brother and sister Olivia and John-Alan Simmons, juggling an undergraduate education and running a business is par for the course.

As products of an entrepreneurial home, the Simmons siblings say they have an inherent understanding of the hard work, dedication and support that it takes for a business to succeed. So when it came time for them to go to university, they didn't opt for traditional part-time jobs.

Instead, the Simmons siblings created their own startup: ConferenceCloud

“To get us through [my] applied mathematics degree and [John-Alan’s] computer science degree we had a web-development company along with a few of our own side projects,” Olivia says. “We made some good money and it was a great experience building technology for other people, but we always knew we wanted to build something for ourselves.”

Apart from their formal U of T education, the duo also went to a number of events and conferences to learn more about project management and to become better developers. But, like many students, their budget only allowed them to attend reasonably priced events within the GTA.

Which made them ask: why isn’t there a better curated hub for digital conference content? Enter ConferenceCloud

ConferenceCloud is a virtual attendance platform that allows users to live-stream conferences or to watch the event on-demand afterwards. The platform also aggregates ticket sales, virtual networking and interactive content all in one location.

Founded in 2014, ConferenceCloud has worked with UTEST (University of Toronto Early Stage Technology), one of U of T’s nine campus-linked accelerators, to grow. Over 18 months, UTEST provided the siblings with dedicated work space, mentorship, networking opportunities and educational opportunities.

At the start of 2016, UTEST and MaRS Innovation invested $30,000 in ConferenceCloud. The investment coincided with funding from a new, Toronto-based provincial fund called MLA48 Angel Investment Fund. Affiliated with Maple Leaf Angels, the fund provides pre-seed funding to early-stage startups. Investment decisions are made within 48 hours of application, making the MLA48 fund unique in Toronto’s ecosystem.

“What impresses us most about Olivia and John-Alan is their willingness to pursue a large vision while adapting to market-driven feedback,” says Joel Liederman, vice-president, Physical Sciences, at MaRS Innovation. “While in the UTEST program, they were receptive to their advisors and pivoted several times to arrive at their current product. We’re pleased that external investors like MLA48 share our admiration for this team.”

While ConferenceCloud does support free events, its services are mostly geared to larger, paid conferences, promoting the platform as a new revenue stream for conference organizers. It provides a way for the organizers to expand their audience and get more value out of their content.

“The conference organizers paid for all this content from speakers and put on a one-, two- or three-day conference but then after that all of that value is kind of lost,” says Olivia, co-founder and CEO. “ConferenceCloud not only increases this content’s reach, but it can also save and re-sell that content to new audiences that might have missed the original event.”

Striking the balance

Sounds easy? Don’t be fooled, the siblings say: managing a business while pursuing a post-secondary degree is no small feat. They credit the support they’ve received from their family and the mentorship they’ve received from UTEST and MLA.

“ConferenceCloud is a great example of how students can use U of T’s vast entrepreneurship ecosystem to accelerate their startup’s growth,” says Karen Sievewright, managing director of the Banting & Best Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

“The programs, courses and CLAs are some of the unique ways that the university is transforming the undergraduate experience and the Simmons siblings are perfect examples of how students can nourish their entrepreneurial spirit while balancing their studies.”

With the new MLA funding, the Simmons siblings and their team will be focussing on increasing sales and getting as much client diversity as possible on their growing platform.

Interested in entrepreneurships and startups? Visit the Banting & Best Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship

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U of T startups build a more inclusive and accessible Toronto

sgupta — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 14:54:36 +0000

U of T startups build a more inclusive and accessible Toronto sgupta Fri, 12/04/2015 - 09:54

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Braze Mobility is building a low-cost navigation assistance system that can be installed on any commercial powered wheelchair to prevent collisions and provide feedback to the driver (all photos by Olivia Tomic)

Olivia Tomic

Author legacy

Olivia Tomic

Subheadline

Inaugural accessibility event showcases U of T’s accessibility-related solutions

Rapidly evolving technology is a tool that 3.8 million Canadians living with a disability can leverage to reclaim their independence and live an increasingly barrier-free life.

University of Toronto students, faculty and alumni are among the innovators who have been developing technologies designed to improve the lives of people of all different abilities. In honour of the International Day for Persons with Disabilities, twelve accessibility-related startups were featured this week at Accessibil-UT, U of T’s inaugural innovation showcase.

Many of the startups provided solutions for navigating and interacting within the city, aligning with President Meric Gertler’s commitment to improving the state of the city (read about the president’s three priorities).

That included 3D printers creating prosthetic limbs and wearable technology, such as BuzzClip. This small and discreet wearable device for blind and partially sighted people, developed through iMerciv, allows the wearer to safely navigate around obstacles.

Another featured startup, BreqLabs, is commercializing a wearable hand sensor capable of replicating the user’s hand in the virtual world. This sensor opens up the possibilities for gesture based computer access for all, including persons with mobility impairments.

Lindy Ledohowski, U of T alumna and former instructor at UTSC, was showcasing her startup EssayJack, an interactive web-application that offers pre-structured essay outlines to help students excel in their assignments. The platform is already being piloted in five schools and universities, and recently closed a license with an assistive technology learning centre in Thornhill, where EssayJack will be used to help high school students with learning disabilities.

“I have long been concerned with issues of equity and diversity as both an educator and scholar,” said Ledohowski, co-founder and CEO of EssayJack. “To me, education is about empowerment, empowerment for all different kinds of learners, whatever their different abilities and needs.”

Accessibil-UT also celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), legislation that’s in place to ensure Ontario’s workplaces, homes and schools are accessible for all (learn more about the AODA).

“Since 2005, we have collectively made great strides in addressing barriers for persons with disabilities and creating a society that aims to be inclusive of all persons,” said Angela Hildyard, vice-president of Human Resources and Equity. “However, we are only halfway there. It’s innovations and products like those who exhibited at Accessibil-UT that can move us forward and make Ontario and U of T the most accessible province and university by 2025.”

Hosted jointly by the AODA Office, the Banting & Best Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (BBCIE), Government, Institution and Community Relations, and the Innovations & Partnerships Office (IPO), the event was inspired by the provincially run Accessibility Innovation Showcase at MaRS in August 2015. It was the first event of its kind at the university and likely not the last.

“Events like this are important because they highlight some of the incredible startups that are coming out of the university’s ecosystem of nine accelerators and incubators,” said Karen Sievewright, managing director of the BBCIE. “We have so many talented entrepreneurs who are working to improve the lives of those around them and we’re proud to provide them with a platform to showcase their innovations.”

Interested in startups? Visit the Banting & Best Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship

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Social entrepreneurship explained

sgupta — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 12:59:44 +0000

Social entrepreneurship explained sgupta Mon, 11/02/2015 - 07:59

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These talking stickers that aim to boost literacy in impoverished communities were developed by the social entrepreneurs at U of T's Team Atollo (above photo by Eugene Grichko – Rotman School of Management

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

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Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

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Skoll Foundations

Rotman School of Management

Roger Martin

Martin Prosperity Institute

Subheadline

Roger Martin and Sally Osberg bring clarity to the concept that's taking off across North America

If you’ve heard the term “social entrepreneur” and wondered what it means, you’re not alone.

The latest book from business innovation and strategy guru Roger Martin, institute director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and former dean of U of T’s Rotman School of Management, offers more than a primer for lay readers.

Martin also provides aspiring social entrepreneurs with guidelines on how to transform their ideas into action and become agents of large-scale change. And the book is already winning accolades, including the Social Enterprise Award from Thinkers50.

“Because the world has problems that governments and businesses are finding hard to solve, this other, new kind of character has entered the scene,” Professor Martin says. “The social entrepreneur seems to be able to tackle some of the problems that neither government organizations nor businesses have been able to. Now a field has taken shape by the name of social entrepreneurship.”

Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works was co-authored by Sally Osberg, president of the California-based Skoll Foundation. That foundation, founded by alumnus Jeff Skoll, has invested more than $500 million worldwide in social entrepreneurship ventures.

The book could be the first to define social entrepreneurship and lay out best practices – while identifying the challenges social entrepreneurs must overcome to trigger global change. Martin, who has written award-winning books and articles for the Harvard Business Review, says the book can also be used as a textbook for classes on social entrepreneurship and even to help apprehensive parents.

“Lots of parents hear their children say, ‘I want to be a social entrepreneur,’” says Martin (pictured below). “Now they can see what they’re talking about.”

Social entrepreneurship is definitely generating buzz. Getting Beyond Better includes a foreword by Arianna Huffington and cover quotations by Melinda Gates and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. Here at U of T, where alumni include Craig Kielburger, co-founder of Free the Children, courses are offered in social entrepreneurship along with a wide range of supports. And examples of social entrepreneurs abound. Professor Yu-Ling Cheng of Engineering was awarded a $2.2-million grant from the Gates Foundation to work on a waterless, hygienic toilet that is safe and affordable and Professor Cynthia Goh co-founded Pueblo Science with Mayrose Salvador.

And, this past summer, Rotman’s Team Attollo, which created “talking stickers” to help improve literacy in the developing world, was among six finalists for the Clinton Global Initiative’s Hult Prize. (Read more about Team Atollo.)

Martin’s book looks at social and business ideas that helped transform the world, beginning in the 15th century with Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press, which greatly expanded access to information. Another breakthrough was Thomas Edison’s electric light bulb, which not only transformed a candle-lit world but boosted productivity by extending work hours. Philanthropist Andrew Carnegie opened a door to knowledge with the creation of free public libraries.

Social entrepreneurs from modern times include Yunus, who has worked in Bangladesh with microcredit programs; Nandan Nilekani, who helped trigger India’s technology revolution and is considered the “Bill Gates of India” because he started a national identity project to ensure services and benefits get to India's poor; and Molly Melching, an American who has tackled joblessness, poverty and the practice of female genital mutilation in rural Africa.

Much social innovation today, Martin says, comes from Silicon Valley. U of T Engineering alumnus Skoll joined Pierre Omidyar to build eBay and went on to create the Skoll Foundation. The Hewlett Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation are important California institutions. Martin says India is also emerging as a new home for groundbreaking social entrepreneurs.

“People are seeing some early successes and saying, ‘Wow, why can’t we do more of that?’” Martin says. “Part of the purpose of the book is to help clarify what this thing is, because people are talking about it.

“When you get greater clarity, you can study it more, measure it more and, hopefully, get more of it.”

Interested in Entrepreneurship at U of T? Visit the Banting & Best Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship

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Helping leading international students bring their talents to Ontario

sgupta — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 13:45:22 +0000

Helping leading international students bring their talents to Ontario sgupta Tue, 07/28/2015 - 09:45

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Samah El-Tantawy's smarter traffic light technology has grabbed headlines around the world (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Arthur Kaptainis

Author legacy

Arthur Kaptainis

Ontario will fund a limited number of international PhD students starting in 2015-16, bringing the province – and its universities – more in line with the policy in other Canadian jurisdictions.

“Ontario has been the only province that has not provided operating support for international PhD students,” the University of Toronto’s Judith Wolfson, vice-president, international, government and institutional relations, said in an interview.

“Ontario universities have been working with the province to solve this problem and we welcome this important decision as a small but important step toward deeper internationalization.”

The university will now be able to direct the funding for one quarter of the newly funded PhD positions set out in the Strategic Mandate Agreement with the Government of Ontario to international PhD students.

“We are attracting the brightest students from all over the world, and they bring with them a global perspective,” Wolfson said. “They enhance the quality of the experience of all PhD students.”

Among many U of T examples is Nilesh Bansal, who came to from Bombay to do a PhD in computer science and co-invented Blogscope, a market-analysis tool. Sysomos, the company he co-founded in 2007 with computer science professor Nick Koudas, was acquired by Marketwire in 2011 and remains in Toronto.

Or there’s Xiaohua Qu, a 1995 PhD in materials science engineering from China, who went on to establish Canadian Solar. The Guelph-based firm is one of the world's largest solar-energy systems manufacturers with 18 subsidiaries and more than 8,500 employees worldwide. (Read more about Qu in U of T Magazine.)

And more recently there’s Samah El-Tantawy, who came to U of T from Egypt and completed her PhD in civil engineering in 2012. She also developed MARLIN, an artificial-intelligence-based traffic light system that attracted wide media attention. The technology, which uses machine learning to help traffic lights self-optimize, improves the flow of traffic and reduces maintenance and infrastructure operating costs.

With her professor, Baher Abdulhai, El- Tantawy co-founded Pragmatek Transport Innovations in 2013 and won one of U of T's Inventor of the Year awards in 2014. (Read more about her award-winning work.) (Listen to a podcast with El-Tantawy.)

Ontario universities expect to have many more success stories such as these under the new policy.

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Law and computer science collaborate to change the future of legal research

sgupta — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 10:03:24 +0000

Law and computer science collaborate to change the future of legal research sgupta Fri, 04/24/2015 - 06:03

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(photo by Swire via Flickr)

Nina Haikara

Author legacy

Nina Haikara

Topic

Subheadline

App supported by IBM Watson can help answer complex tax questions

As an expert in taxation law and judicial decision-making, Faculty of Law Professor Benjamin Alarie is ready to change how legal research is done.

And you can get a glimpse of his vision of the future at the Ontario Centres of Excellence’ (OCE) Discovery 2015 which runs from April 27 to 28.

“What’s promising about cognitive computing is that there are no limitations,” says Alarie. “Cognitive computing can perform a role as a crosscheck against lawyers’ intuition or understanding of the law, to make sure they haven’t missed something.”

Alarie is part of the team behind Blue J Legal, which will be giving live demos at the OCE event. It’s the latest groundbreaking development to come from the University of Toronto’s collaboration with International Business Machines Corporation’s (IBM) Watson.

In September, the department of computer science was invited to take part in a unique academic and entrepreneurial undertaking with IBM’s Watson. (Read more about the decision to bring Watson to U of T.) Of the 10 top-ranked institutions asked to develop applications for Watson as part of a cognitive computing contest, U of T was the only Canadian university. (Read more about the U of T department of computer science’s top-10 worldwide ranking.)

The IBM service provided a powerful processing engine for the apps developed by U of T students and researchers to create artificial intelligence-based apps shaped around legal data.

Alarie was invited by the department of computer science to take part in judging all five legal apps created at U of T, including the final entry to the IBM Watson University Challenge, Ross, a paralegal researching powerhouse. (Read more about the U of T team that took second place in the IBM Watson University Challenge.)

The campus contest sparked Alarie’s idea for a new collaboration between computer science and the Faculty of Law.

“One of the teams was presenting a tax law adviser – not surprising that a tax law professor would think a tax law adviser would be a good thing to do,” said Alarie.

“I started talking to Steve Engels and Paul Gries in the computer science department and Edward Iacobucci, dean of the Faculty of Law, that maybe we should continue something in the tax law area with Watson. That’s how the Blue J Legal project came about.”

The power of cognitive computing

Cognitive computing goes beyond any typical keyword search. The primary question lawyers and accountants in taxation need to ask, is whether someone is an employee or an independent contractor. Answering this first question, accurately, has further implications to the case as is it applies to taxation, pension, liability, benefits and more.

Curated by its subject experts, Watson has the ability to read the entirety of the information it’s supplied: legislation, academic publications and administrative documents such as Canada Revenue Agency bulletins.

Just as law students learn, so must Watson. As it begins to understand the basics, it can be challenged to go deeper and understand further complexity such as the role of strong and weak precedents, court hierarchies and the variety of motivations that judges might have in rulings that bend and shape the law to benefit society and public policy.

Watson can’t predict where the law will go – yet. But with its ability to read and make connections, it can quickly review a submitted fact pattern – not unlike the case information law that students are given in a final exam – and gives each of its answers a confidence rating.

“Watson is a good student, but we are still teaching it,” said Professor Anthony Niblett during a demonstration of Blue J Legal’s present capabilities.

The future of legal research

“Because of human bandwidth limitations and that fact that we each learn the law on a certain path, with exposure to certain cases, or professors, or different takes on the law, one of the big advantages of a system like Watson, is that it can read everything and give a dispassionate view,” explains Alarie.

“Even an expert will have a certain entry path to that understanding and will naturally make more salient to his or her mind one element or elements. The very best experts will probably achieve an unbiased, dispassionate view and a hierarchical understanding – but that is very difficult to achieve as time is so limited.”

Top of mind was whether legal researchers and lawyers would still be needed, to which Alarie says a resounding “yes”.

“Instead of each individual lawyer having to develop that hierarchical, deeply expert understanding of the field, if you train Watson once, then it is available for everyone to draw on,” said Alarie, who also sees future uses for people who have simple legal questions and cannot afford the professional support.

“It will make lawyers better. It will make professionals better.”

Opportunities for subject matter experts to collaborate with software developers

The department of computer science (DCS) recently announced its new Innovation Lab (DCSIL) located within the Gerstein Science Information Centre, part of U of T's vast network of entrepreneurship accelerators and incubators. (Read more about U of T's Banting & Best Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship.)

The DCS Innovation Lab – which will also be represented at OCE by directors Helen Kontozopoulos and Mario Grech – will introduce students to the structure and dynamics of the software industry and will include students from across the University, who wish to collaborate on software-based innovations.The lab offers its first 12-week Arts & Science Entrepreneurship Program this summer.

“What’s thrilling is that this project points to other potential collaborations across the University, across divisions, where these sorts of things could really take off,” said Alarie.

Blue J Legal is a collaborative process with the app’s body of knowledge developed by Professors Alarie, Niblett, Albert Yoon and JD/MBA student Ramn Wright with the support of computer science students Yana Davis, Daniil Kouznetsov and Jonathan Webb.

Niblett has something in common with Watson. He also won Jeopardy!

“The number of questions Watson could get right would dominate the number I could get right – easily,” said Niblett, who recalls the computer’s appearance on the game show before he won on Christmas Day in 2013.

Nina Haikara is a writer with the department of computer science.

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Where learners, instructors and employers meet in the cloud: alumni startup, CoursePeer

sgupta — Mon, 16 Mar 2015 08:34:03 +0000

Where learners, instructors and employers meet in the cloud: alumni startup, CoursePeer sgupta Mon, 03/16/2015 - 04:34

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Hadi and Marwan Aladdin graduated from the UTEST accelerator in 2012 (photo by Jon Horvatin)

Brianna Goldberg

Author legacy

Brianna Goldberg

Subheadline

U of T-developed company expands scope to launch Franchise University

The phrase “life-long learning” can be about embracing change or keeping your brain active as you age.

For University of Toronto alumni and brothers Hadi and Marwan Aladdin, it’s also the bedrock of their successful business: CoursePeer.

The Aladdins see a world full of students. Not just those in school but ‘learners’ more broadly: anyone who needs to gain a certification or update knowledge – from company branding to the guidelines for running a franchise.

So the entrepreneurs developed a virtual space in ‘the cloud’ to bring a diversity of students and teachers together and to make those interactions count when it comes to landing – or excelling in – a job. (Read more about CoursePeer)

“What is most exciting is the way they are drilling down into the softer skills associated with education and trying to use digital technologies to tap into those in innovative ways,” says Joshua Gans, the Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair of Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Toronto.

Gans says he’s had an eye on Coursepeer since the company’s early days and it’s the team’s ability to move in surprising directions that have led to their success.

“In a competitive space they have relentlessly pursued new opportunities and are still growing where others have fallen by the wayside,” says Gans.

The brothers developed their startup in 2012 through the University of Toronto Early Stage Technology (UTEST) accelerator for software-based ventures; the program, produced jointly by MaRS Innovation and U of T, offers mentorship, support and funding. (Read about U of T's vast network of accelerators and incubators, part of the Banting & Best Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship.)

Back then, the brothers' concept was small and focused on helping students get the most out of their education while earning credit for employable skills generally going unrecognized in the classroom such as leadership abilities or problem-solving skills.

“As a company, CoursePeer was started to bridge the gap between students, instructors and employers,” says Hadi Aladdin, chief executive officer of CoursePeer. “Students would get a good profile that employers can leverage during their search for soft skills in their potential hires.”

Their mentors say the Aladdins’ commitment was clear from the start.

“They were two of the hardest-working entrepreneurs I ever met,” says Lyssa Neel, co-founder of UTEST and herself a seasoned entrepreneur. “Apart from being brilliant programmers, their capacity to put in the hours necessary to make a startup succeed was almost superhuman.”

But it was their creativity in envisioning future possibilities that set the team apart.

Mike Betts, co-director of UTEST, says that of all the young companies he’s worked with, Coursepeer has “done an outstanding job aligning strategic partners and stakeholders to their vision which is the bedrock of a great company.”

CoursePeer expanded its market from virtual classrooms to businesses and governments, designing specifically for such industries as insurance, retail, oil and gas. The company established offices in Canada, the United States, China, Europe and the Middle East.

And then they turned their focus to franchising.

“Franchising is a mega industry and growing so fast,” says Aladdin. “Scalability is an issue when it comes to training, especially since franchises rely on their brand alignment between franchisees.

Coursepeer partnered with National Franchise Group, which owns the Canadian master franchise rights for Signarama and Plan Ahead Events, to launch Franchise University. (Learn more about Franchise University)

"Training a new hire and retraining existing employees can be very difficult and a time-consuming task for a franchise operator,” says Ghassan Barazi, CEO of National Franchise Group. “Cloud-based approved training allows staff to be trained without losing focus on their daily operations.”

One of the first clients for which they’ll develop programming is Signarama; its franchisees will all have access to shared conversations, collaborations and training modules.

“Know-how transfer is crucial in franchising and we saw an opportunity there,” says Aladdin. “With the established expertise of the National Franchise Group, and specifically its president, Ghassan Barazi, we can grow fast in that sector.”

Aladdin says the continual process of growth is what drives him.

“You know it when you are on to something big with your startup,” he says. “It’s when you’re hitting the milestones you set, and you are enjoying going to your office every day to work with your team and network of partners.”

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