RSVP by November 5 to uoft.me/realtalk

You’re invited to a night of Real Talk with engineering alumni about the intersection of engineering skills and social change. Equip yourself with knowledge that can help you make decisions about when to act for social change versus when to step back, learn how to find your way when you want to contribute your engineering skills but don’t know how, and better understand how engineers can strike a balance between supporting others and empowering themselves to lead.

This night will offer:

• Tools and take-aways from working alumni that you can use as you decide on and a plan a course to contribute to social justice initiatives with engineering skills and expertise.
• Find out how engineering alumni have empowered themselves,
• The hard lessons they’ve learned about social change work, how they’ve adjusted their approaches and persevered
• The power of deep listening
•  A chance for you to plot your own steps towards empowering yourself and others in the face of overwhelming projects for systemic change, including preliminary learning.

Join us this month as Professor Ervin Sejdić (ECE) will discuss the recent advances of artificial intelligence and how it is transforming the healthcare industry.

Artificial intelligence is an exciting field spanning computer science, engineering, mathematics, and statistics. In recent years, it has become a hot topic that promises to revolutionize many aspects of our daily lives ranging from our cars to our health. However, only a few truly understand what artificial intelligence represents, and how it can be helpful in our professional lives.

Professor Sejdić will address a question that we often ask ourselves: Will artificial intelligence replace my clinician? He will also cover some of recent developments dealing with artificial intelligence and dysphagia, a swallowing disorder caused by a variety of neurological conditions (e.g., stroke, cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s disease), head and neck cancer, genetic syndromes, and iatrogenic conditions or trauma. A recently proposed field called computational deglutition is a collaboration between clinicians and the data science community aimed at the development of clinically relevant algorithms that will aid clinicians during the assessment and treatment of swallowing disorders.

View Professor Sejdić’s professional bio and register for this free and exclusive event.

U of T Engineering alumni, join us for this monthly series.

This special event will showcase some of the innovative and progressive research underway at U of T Engineering.

With professors from different departments sharing their expertise and research, you’ll get a taste of the diversity of our Faculty’s research.

Featured speakers:

Upcycling CO2: Achieving energy storage and addressing persistent emissions with renewable electricity, Professor David Sinton (MIE)

Supporting Student Success: Increasing Access to Inclusive Global Research Experiences, Professor Elham Marzi (ISTEP)

Pi in the Sky: Drone-delivered defibrillators for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, Professor Timothy Chan (ISTEP)

Read the abstracts and register for this free and exclusive event.

U of T Engineering alumni, join us for this monthly series.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now a part of the standard physical scientist’s tool kit, and it is regularly used to discover exciting new materials and processes. But AI is famously fickle, susceptible to data set bias and imbalance, subject to information leakage during training, and reliant on humans to evaluate its performance.

Professor Jason Hattrick-Simpers (MSE) discusses best practices for the implementation of AI techniques in the field of materials science, the challenges and successes of his research, and why he believes that robots can help us learn to better trust AI.

Read the abstracts and register for this free and exclusive event.

Join Professor Elham Marzi (ISTEP) in conversation with U of T Engineering alumnus and entrepreneur Ian Small (EngSci 8T6, MSc CompSci 8T9) as he shares insights and advice gained from over three decades of working in engineering startups and management.

Topics will include how to manage and lead change, how to make challenging organizational decisions, and how to help employees and company culture navigate transitions.

Speaker bio:

Ian Small has spent more than 30 years in Silicon Valley since graduating from the University of Toronto, working in tech companies ranging from three-person startups to 100,000-employee multinationals. He first worked as a software engineer, and spent time in software engineering management and software product management before transitioning into a range of business leadership roles.

Ian currently serves on the boards of Lumentum (NASDAQ:LITE, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of lasers and photonic devices) and Snapdocs (a venture-backed startup driving mortgage automation). Ian has worked with a number of Sequoia Capital portfolio companies, including working as CEO of Evernote (personal productivity software), CEO of TokBox (video platform-as-a-service), and a lengthy stint with MarkLogic (NoSQL database). Ian also served as Global Chief Data Officer at Telefónica, following its acquisition of TokBox, served on the advisory board to Loon (a Google X Labs spinout), and started his Silicon Valley career in the Human Interface Group at Apple Computer.

Ian’s experience in Silicon Valley includes fundraising, tech mergers and acquisitions (both as buyer and seller), and tech spinouts. Ian graduated from the University of Toronto with a B.A.Sc. in Engineering Science (Computer Science option) and an M.Sc. in Computer Science, and is a holder of more than 10 patents.

Moderator:

Professor Elham Marzi is a Teaching Stream faculty member in the Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education & Practice (ISTEP). She teaches in areas inclusive of Organizational Behaviour, HRM, Strategy,and Negotiations in the Business Minor Program.

This event will be a moderated fireside chat with audience Q&A.

Register to attend in person or virtually
Tuesday, March 21, 2023 | 6-7 PM EST
In-person: HS610, Health Sciences Building, 155 College Street
Virtual: Zoom link will be emailed to you after registration

Questions? Please email Professor Elham Marzi at elham.marzi@utoronto.ca.