Behind the Scenes of the Vector Institute — A Quick Recap
Last week, I had the privilege of attending a ‘behind the scenes’ look at Canada’s forthcoming Vector Institute, at a small fireside chat with one of the co-founders, Jordan Jacobs. This article is meant to serve as a condensed overview of the amazing work they are undertaking.
As a lifelong science geek and physicist, I still fondly remember first learning about vectors in grade 9 science class — “a quantity having direction as well as magnitude.”
Let their be no mistake about it, with this massive bet on cementing Canadian expertise in the artificial intelligence space, the Vector Institute is clearly taking its namesake to heart. To paraphrase a comment Jordan made in the session — this is an opportunity to associate Canada with the next revolution in technology, beyond the stereotypical polar bears and hockey.
Vector’s stated vision is to “To propel Canada to the forefront of the global shift to artificial intelligence (AI) by promoting and maintaining Canadian excellence in deep learning…and by actively seeking ways to enable and sustain AI-based economic growth in Canada”
What this means in practice is a multi-pronged approach, including being a world-leading centre for AI research; graduating the most machine-learning PhDs and masters students in deep learning and machine learning globally, and becoming the engine for an AI super cluster that drives the economy of Toronto, Ontario, and Canada.
At the research level, Vector will provide the opportunity for the best and the brightest machine learning grads to better access each other, the latest developments, and shared problem sets. It also frees these researchers from the constraints of sticking to a purely academic or purely commercial focus — a problem most are faced with today upon exiting grad school. This combination is an effective tool in combating the ‘brain drain’ that can occur when the tech giants of the world in Silicon Valley come calling with massive compensation opportunities (top PhD grads have starting salary + bonus in the range of superstar athletes). For an example of this, look to recent news from Uber, successfully bringing in Raquel Urtasun to head their Advanced Technology Group in Toronto, which is dedicated to self-driving technologies, mapping, and vehicle safety. Raquel remains an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, a Canada Research Chair in Machine Learning and Computer Vision and a co-founder of the Vector Institute
At the corporate level, companies who partner with Vector will get unique access to bring interesting problems to these leading researchers. They’ll also have the opportunity to share their existing data sets (open sourced or private), greatly augmenting their own data science capabilities, and potentially setting up a talent pipeline with students and researchers who are now familiar with the problem at hand. Impressively, despite a huge inbound flux of companies seeking to partner, Vector is able to be very strategic in their decisions — focusing on partnerships with companies that have a real stake in the game, via an on the ground presence or focus on Toronto. No AI tourists, please.
In the education world, Vector is working on partnerships with leading Canadian universities to increase the number of machine learning grads by 5–10x, via introducing new curriculum and training, including for undergraduates. They are also creating ‘summer school’ like programs for top CTO’s of partner companies, providing a deep dive into advanced machine learning to accelerate the adoption amongst highly capable technologists.
To achieve these ambitious goals, Vector has secured some major support,including sharing $125M in federal funding with fellow institutes in Montreal & Edmonton, and securing space inside the MaRS Discovery District. What’s truly impressive is the pace at which this was accomplished — Jordan candidly recounted that in tandem with Ed Clark, he pitched more than 150 corporations in 2 months, and would often get late night emails saying that he would have to go pitch high level government officials the next morning.
While the possibilities for integration of AI into our daily lives are vast, we are already seeing rapid progression in driverless cars, ‘tricorder’ like phone applications, innovative retail, and of course headline winning ‘human vs. machine’ contests. Putting aside the skepticism of those who fear that ‘the robots are coming’, the future of deep learning seems truly remarkable.
As the Vector Institute comes online, Toronto will not only be able to hold on to its world class deep learning & machine learning talent, but will also offer a huge incentive to attract other talent from leading global institutions. This greatly expands the capacity for next generation AI organizations and innovation to flourish in Toronto.
It’s an exciting moment to be a Canadian, and more specifically to be on the front lines of the Toronto tech scene, as the Vector Institute seeks to change the world.
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For more on the Vector Institute, please visit www.vectorinstitute.ai
Do you want to continue the conversation? Email me at gdubejsky@marsdd.com or follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Medium.
