Creative Destruction Lab

U of T Entrepreneurship

Geoffrey Hinton

Subheadline

“U of T is Canada's leading engine for research-based tech and AI startups and talent - and you see that reflected in both the lineup for Collision speakers, and the entrepreneurs who attend”

Some of the most anticipated speakers at this year’s Collision tech conference are artificial intelligence luminaries from the �ؿ�ζSM – and they will be sharing their insights on how the revolutionary technology is poised to transform industry and society.

Known as the "godfather of AI," Geoffrey Hinton, a cognitive psychologist and U of T University Professor Emeritus of computer science, will host a session on June 19 titled “Can We Control AI?” that explores the potential benefits and risks inherent in AI advancement.

Aidan Gomez, one of Hinton’s former interns at Google Brain, is speaking on June 18 about the real-world impact of AI. He’s CEO and co-founder at Cohere, which he and two U of T alumni founded, and which has been dubbed one of the “buzziest AI startups around right now.”

And Raquel Urtasun, a U of T professor of computer science and the founder and CEO of self-driving truck company Waabi, which launched with one of the largest rounds of seed funding in Canadian history, will share her insights on the trajectory of AI-driven transportation solutions during a session on June 19.

Jon French (photo by Brian de Rivera Simon)

“U of T is Canada's leading engine for research-based tech and AI startups and talent - and you see that reflected in both the lineup for Collision speakers, and the entrepreneurs who attend,” says Jon French, director of U of T Entrepreneurship.

He adds that the conference also gives the university an opportunity to promote “our innovative ecosystem and connect with corporate partners from around the world and investors looking to grow their pipelines, governments and academic institutions at home and aboard.”

Anticipated to draw more than 40,000 attendees, Collision runs from June 17 to 20 at the Enercare Centre in Toronto and will feature startup founders, business leaders, investors, scientists, journalists and celebrities, including tennis star Maria Sharapova.

Before the conference officially kicks off, U of T Entrepreneurship will host two tours of the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus in partnership with the City of Toronto and the Government of Ontario. It will also have a booth at Collision to showcase U of T’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, featuring self-driving lab and robot demos from the Acceleration Consortium and CRAFT Microfluidics – both U of T institutional strategic initiatives – and a “Startup Spotlight.”

U of T’s Black Founders Network is part of a group of community organizers leading the Black Innovation Zone, which will have its own booth with programming for Black innovators.

French says the conference provides U of T startups and entrepreneurs a chance to pitch their ideas and connect with global mentors, advisers, investors, partners and peers.

“For many founders, it is an eye-opening conference that gets them thinking bigger about the markets they serve and often leads to participating in programs and opportunities in geographies around the world,” he says.

Nuha Siddiqui (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Nuha Siddiqui is among the U of T-connected entrepreneurs participating in Collision this year. She is the co-founder and CEO of Erthos, which has developed a plant-based resin that can be used as a substitute for traditional plastics when manufacturing everyday products. She launched the company with Kritika Tyagi while they were studying at the university and received support from U of T’s entrepreneurship community, including the Creative Destruction Lab at the Rotman School of Management.

Siddiqui said she’s “incredibly thankful” for U of T’s continued support to Erthos’s growth.

“My co-founder and I started Erthos years ago while we were still students, and since graduating, U of T has continued to broaden our network, contribute to meaningful media coverage and remain active champions of our success,” she says.

“It's an absolute honour to represent the entrepreneurship community on the main stage at Collision this year and to have the opportunity to amplify our mission towards building a more material-conscious future."

Here are just a few other U of T faculty, alumni and other community members who will be shaping the dialogue around innovation, tech and entrepreneurship at this year’s conference:

Christian Weedbrook, founder and CEO at Xanadu and a former U of T post-doctoral researcher, will discuss the future of data centres and how quantum computing can be leveraged to avoid future economic and climate issues.
Mike Murchison, U of T alum and founding CEO of Ada, which received support from the Creative Destruction Lab, will discuss the evolution of AI customer service agents and their implications for brands and consumers.
Curtis VanWalleghem, co-founder and CEO at Hydrostor and a U of T alumnus, will speak about Hydrostor’s innovative technology that utilizes underground spaces for a sustainable long-term energy storage.
David Wong, chief product officer at Thomson Reuters and U of T alumnus, will explore the transformative power of AI and offer insights on how organizations can unlock its full potential for business operations.
Mara Reiff, U of T alumna, chief customer officer and interim co-CEO at Freshbooks, and Dan Richards, assistant professor, teaching stream, at the Rotman School of Management, will discuss how to empower small business owners to make smart decisions.

Ada CEO Mike Murchison is using AI to 'make customer service extraordinary'

rahul.kalvapalle — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 15:08:28 +0000

Ada CEO Mike Murchison is using AI to 'make customer service extraordinary'

rahul.kalvapalle Mon, 11/20/2023 - 10:08

Cutline

Mike Murchison's startup Ada uses AI to help businesses and brands automate their customer support (supplied image)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Entrepreneneurship

Subheadline

U of T alum plans to talk about his entrepreneurial journey at upcoming event

For Mike Murchison, the best way to understand a problem isn’t to analyze it – but to immerse yourself in it.

So, when the serial tech entrepreneur found himself looking for a way to improve companies' customer service, he decided to work as a frontline tech support agent for several months.

“I used to believe that creating a solution to a problem is an intellectual exercise,” says Murchison, who studied cognitive science, psychology and human-computer interaction in the �ؿ�ζSM’s Faculty of Arts & Science. “But the way you execute on that is very different if you actually understand the toil that exists in the day-to-day.”

Murchison's call centre insights helped shape the work and mission of his startup, Ada, which uses AI to help businesses and brands automate their customer support.

Ada – which successfully completed the Creative Destruction Lab's seed-stage accelerator program at the Rotman School of Management – has established itself at the vanguard of the AI-enabled customer support business. In 2021, the startup secured a Series C funding round of $130 million. That pushed its valuation above a $1 billion, earning it “unicorn” status; its clients include tech giants such Meta, Shopify and Verizon.

Murchison plans to further discuss the startup’s growth and his own entrepreneurial journey in a keynote address on Nov. 21 as part of the Desjardins Speaker Series organized by U of T Entrepreneurship. The series is part of a three-year partnership with Desjardins that includes a student startup pitch competition with more than $100,000 in prizes.

It’s one of many initiatives designed to inspire U of T’s ballooning entrepreneurship community, which now comprises more than 12 campus-based accelerators that have spawned 650 companies, created more than 9,000 jobs and generated more than $3 billion in investment over the past decade.

Murchison says Ada is moving to expand its AI platform, which helps companies resolve complex customer inquiries with minimal human effort.

“We’ve developed what we call a reasoning engine which essentially brings together a bunch of different large language models – some of which are foundation models powered by the likes of OpenAI [makers of ChatGPT],” he said.

Ada also recently introduced a product, Generative Actions, that enables clients to train their AI bots on how to retrieve information from their business systems, making for more personalized responses and actions that can be carried out. “We’re now starting to see AI experiences that we’re powering that are not only on par with what humans are capable of, but are exceeding human capability,” Murchison said. “That’s huge because the whole mission of Ada is to make customer service extraordinary for everyone.”

Murchison urged entrepreneurs in the AI space to think of the technology as a tool to solve real-world problems, as opposed to an end in itself: “What sends people in the wrong direction is when they believe that the technology holds some inherent value and their intellectual or high-level approach is all they need to build the right solution."

He also suggested entrepreneurs view AI as an employee that requires feedback and coaching to improve its performance. “When you hire a human employee, you expect their impact will be greater a year later than on day one. That same paradigm is what’s needed to get the most out of AI,” Murchison said, noting his upcoming keynote will address some ways this approach can be implemented.

As for students interested in AI and other technologies of the future, Murchison urged them to seek out the array of knowledge, resources and mentors available at U of T.

“I went to U of T when [University Professor Emeritus] Geoffrey Hinton was still teaching and was very lucky to be able to crash his courses. I also spent a lot of time just going into random labs – like, [computer engineering Professor] Steve Mann let me just show up in his lab and hang out,” Murchison said.

“U of T gives you an incredible level of access to world-renowned research that’s at your fingertips. It’s on you to access it and tap into it.”

Murchison also appealed to students to take advantage of U of T’s vast entrepreneurship supports.

“It’s really heartening and exciting to see the growth of entrepreneurship at U of T,” he said. “Being in an environment where you have a structure to catch you if you fall – or as you experiment – is so valuable; it becomes harder later on. I’d love to encourage more students to do that.”

Finding ChatGPT: U of T grad's startup helps detect AI's fingerprints

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 19:59:50 +0000

Finding ChatGPT: U of T grad's startup helps detect AI's fingerprints

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 10/18/2023 - 15:59

Cutline

Alex Cui co-founded GPTZero just a few months before finishing his master’s degree in U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science (photo by Kemeisha McDonald)

David Goldberg

Topic

Vector Institute

Subheadline

Co-founded by Alex Cui last year, GPTZero has already raised US$3.5 million

With the ink barely dry on his master’s degree from the �ؿ�ζSM, Alex Cui is tackling a towering issue spawned by the recent revolution in artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT: How to tell if written content is generated by person or machine?

Enter Cui’s startup GPTZero. It analyzes patterns in writing, using sentence length and syntax to identify the likelihood text was generated by AI.

“GPTZero has a lot of imagination and potential in a future where AI is everywhere and it’s rampant,” says Cui, who studied computer science as a master’s student in the Faculty of Arts & Science and graduated in June.

"We haven't even really cracked the surface of what we could do.”

Cui co-founded GPTZero with Edward Tian last January – just a few weeks after ChatGPT went public and triggered a torrent of questions about academic integrity and authenticity – and has already drawn the attention of Silicon Valley investors, raising more than US$3.5-million to date.

As institutions around the world grapple with the impact of generative AI, U of T has advised faculty to be clear with students about whether AI is permitted in their classrooms and actively discourages the use of all AI detectors, many of which are still in development, in favour of traditional methods of assessing students’ work.

Read a Q-and-A with Susan McCahan on U of T’s approach to AI in the classroom

Alex Cui launched GPTZero with Princeton University grad Edward Tian in January 2023 (supplied image)

Cui’s fascination with AI began at �ؿ�ζSM Schools – an independent secondary school affiliated with U of T that Tian also attended before going to Princeton University – and at U of T’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering’s renowned DEEP Summer Academy. His early affiliation with the university gave him regular access to lectures by U of T faculty, who, even a decade ago, urged Cui and his classmates to learn AI skills as soon as possible.

After high school, Cui earned his bachelor’s degree from the California Institute of Technology, but kept his Toronto connections. As an undergrad, he interned with one of the world’s leading experts on self-driving cars, U of T’s Raquel Urtasun, professor in the department of computer science and co-founder of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

When Cui returned to U of T, Urtasun supervised his master’s thesis, which included writing code for the Waabi self-driving truck.

“U of T is one of the world leaders in machine learning,” says Cui. “There's no other ecosystem in the industry that combines AI innovation, commercialization and research partnerships.”

As GPTZero’s chief technology officer, Cui is overseeing fresh innovations, including plugins for Microsoft and Google products that help users detect AI text in any document or on any website.

Cui sees GPTZero offering immense value for several sectors, including publishing. He says the volume of author submissions is growing exponentially, especially with AI-driven content. Software like his could help editors determine what’s been written authentically, and how to take the writing to the next level.

Cui continues to be supported by U of T and its partners. GPTZero recently started consulting with the Creative Destruction Lab at the Rotman School of Management and is also a member of the Vector Institute’s FastLane program, which advances AI adoption for Canadian startups and scaleups.

"Alex is an exceptional and experienced researcher and builder. His accomplishments speak for themselves. He is humble, knowledgeable and great to work with,” says Vector’s Junid Ebadi, the FastLane program’s business analyst.

"GPTZero is a fast-growing, well-resourced and driven company. They have been great partners for us, and we are happy to support them in their journey.”

Cui hopes his story will ease the stress of aspiring startup founders.

“It's not as scary as you think,” he says. “Especially in AI right now, a lot of people want to make bets on promising ideas, and I think if you are a talented individual solving a pressing issue, there's a good chance you can get some investors to fund your ideas.”

Despite the attention from media and investors, Cui is staying humble and focused on remaining a leader in AI detection.

“We have people who are betting on us, but I wouldn't say we're proven yet. To build a sustainable business, you can't just be a flash in the pan. We're still very much in the mindset that we are priming ourselves to go up against some stiff competition. We’re not going to take any liberties.”

Global experts gather at U of T to discuss how ‘self driving labs’ will revolutionize scientific discovery

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 18:44:06 +0000

Global experts gather at U of T to discuss how ‘self driving labs’ will revolutionize scientific discovery

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 08/31/2023 - 14:44

Cutline

Linda Hung, manager of Toyota Research Institute, speaks at this year’s Accelerate Conference at U of T (photo by Worker Bee Supply © Acceleration Consortium)

Catrina Kronfli

Topic

Acceleration Consortium

Chemistry

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

History

Subheadline

The Acceleration Consortium’s second-annual Accelerate conference focused on talent development, collaboration and commercialization

The Acceleration Consortium (AC) at the �ؿ�ζSM recently brought together more than 350 representatives from academia, industry and government from 16 countries to discuss how “self-driving labs” are revolutionizing the speed and impact of scientific discovery.

Held over four days in August, the consortium’s second annual Accelerate conference focused on key themes such as talent development, collaboration and commercialization – all with an eye to finding and developing new materials and molecules that can help solve humanity’s most pressing challenges, from climate change to pandemics.

Alán Aspuru-Guzik, director of the AC and a professor in U of T’s departments of chemistry and computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science, said the conference has quickly emerged as a major draw in a field that’s rapidly gaining momentum around the world.

“The Acceleration Consortium’s Accelerate Conference attracts the world’s leading academic and industry researchers working to accelerate scientific discovery,” he said. “Given the tremendous growth and excitement we have seen since launching the conference just one year ago, it is clear Accelerate is becoming the flagship event for accelerated discovery.”

A U of T Institutional Strategic Initiative that launched in 2021, the AC earlier this year received a $200-million grant from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) to help it achieve its bold vision of realizing the age of materials on demand.

The largest federal research grant ever awarded to a Canadian university, the CFREF grant allows the consortium to bring together researchers and industry to design, develop and implement self-driving lab technologies. These labs combine the power of artificial intelligence (AI) with robotics and advanced computing to create new materials and molecules needed for a sustainable future – at a fraction of the usual time and cost. Applications include everything from life-saving medications to biodegradable plastics.

Alán Aspuru-Guzik speaks at the Accelerate Conference 2023 (photo by Worker Bee Supply © Acceleration Consortium)

Chandra Veer Singh, an associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, and Christine Allen, a professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, noted AI will be critical to a variety of careers in the future and that continuous learning is necessary to equip workers with the knowledge and skills needed to fill these roles.

Sterling Baird, the AC’s director of training and programs, spoke about the consortium’s upcoming digital discovery program – the first of its kind in Canada. Thanks to support from the Ontario Micro-credentials Fund, the program will train scientists looking to apply AI to materials discovery. Flora Wan, a technical education specialist with the Vector Institute, shared the programs that the institute developed to help professionals and businesses develop AI knowledge.

As an emerging field, ecosystem development is also important. Anjuli Szawiola, policy analyst with Natural Resources Canada, spoke to the two networks the federal government is co-leading – Materials for Energy and the German-Canadian Materials Acceleration Centre – to promote knowledge sharing and the adoption of advanced materials for clean energy in Canada and abroad.

For its part, the AC has become a magnet for cross-sector collaboration as its partners look to gain access to the wide range of expertise, research and innovation it has assembled.

The consortium includes more than 100 academics from more than 40 research institutes and 30 private and public sector organizations. Together, they are creating a global community to tackle key challenges in the field such as data sharing and reproducibility of self-driving labs.

Michelle Murphy, a professor in the department of history in U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science and a Canada Research Chair in Science & Technology Studies and Environmental Data Justice, spoke about the importance of incorporating social scientists and Indigenous communities in the research process given the ethical implications of speeding up the pace of science.

Murphy will examine critical issues associated with self-driving labs, including ensuring that those impacted most by the technology have a say in its development in order to prevent unintended harms, whether direct or indirect. With this in mind, equity, diversity and inclusion will continue to guide the AC’s project implementation and research design.

On the topic of commercialization, Sonia Sennik, executive director of the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), shared the non-profit’s history of and philosophy towards supporting entrepreneurs.

“New founders have thousands of things on their to-do list. CDL believes the best judgment an early-stage entrepreneur can get is ‘entrepreneurial judgement’ from an experienced entrepreneur,” Sennik explained. CDL’s program allows select entrepreneurs to benefit from the entrepreneurial knowledge of fellows and associates who help guide CDL ventures.

Co-founded by Aspuru-Guzik, CDL’s Matter Stream is working with the AC to help founders seeking to discover, develop or recycle materials.

What comes next? The AC will assemble a steering committee to tackle various issues facing the sector. In addition to building six self-driving labs and a machine learning and automation lab, the consortium is hiring new scientists, chemists, AI experts, roboticists and more, with the goal of making the Greater Toronto Area and Canada a world leader in accelerated materials discovery.

With files from Erin Warner and Tabassum Siddiqui

Eva Lau, co founder of Two Small Fish Ventures, says universities key to Toronto's growth in tech

bresgead — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 20:04:34 +0000

Eva Lau, co founder of Two Small Fish Ventures, says universities key to Toronto's growth in tech

bresgead Mon, 06/26/2023 - 16:04

Cutline

Eva Lau, pictured here speaking U of T's at True Blue Impact Day, will speak about the importance of diversity in entrepreneurial mentorship at a special session on June 28 (photo by Polina Teif)

Adina Bresge

Topic

Diversity

Entrepreneurship Hatchery

Subheadline

U of T alumna is among the members of the U of T community speaking at this year's Collision conference

As one of the entrepreneurs on the front lines of Toronto’s rise as a modern tech hub, Eva Lau says the �ؿ�ζSM will play a critical role in keeping the city on the cutting edge by fostering the next generation of innovators.

“I’ve been in this ecosystem long enough to see how it has matured,” says Lau, managing director and co-founder of Two Small Fish Ventures, which invests in early-stage tech companies and has backed successes such as SkipTheDishes, Sheertex and U of T drug discovery startup BenchSci.

“And I have to give credit to the universities.”

An alumna of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, Lau is among the U of T founders, alumni and faculty expected to speak at the Collision conference from June 26 to 29 – a list that includes University Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton, known as “the Godfather of AI,” who has garnered global attention for sounding the alarm about the existential risks of the technology he helped developed.

At a special session on June 28, Lau – who was formerly the head of community at online storytelling platform Wattpad – will talk about the positive impact that diverse mentors can have on founders as they go through the accelerator and incubator experience.

She recently spoke to U of T News about the benefits of diverse mentorship and how U of T’s emphasis on entrepreneurship has bolstered Toronto’s startup scene.

How does having diverse mentors help founders and startups grow?

Mentorship is something that a lot of founders may take for granted. They’ll say, “I need someone who understands this space.” If they’re building financial products, they’ll look for someone in the financial sector, for example.

But if we continue to iterate in a domain, we will always get incremental improvements of existing products. Disruption actually happens when people put their minds together and think outside the box. You need to surround yourself with people who think differently from you, who bring different perspectives.

Mentorship is more than getting advice about how to follow other people’s paths to success. It’s about building your own DNA, looking at things from a 360-degree perspective and making use of the advice around you so that you can chart your own path to build a product that works for everyone.

How did your education at U of T Engineering help you as an entrepreneur?

When I was at U of T, I studied industrial engineering. One of the subjects that intrigued me most was human factors – the product-human interface, designing products that suit human needs.

Addressing human issues is what innovation should be all about. When you design a product, you need to understand how humans will interact with it, because that’s what’s going to drive user adoption.

That was a real eye-opener for me. It’s not enough to create something that solves a problem for people. You have to think about how people are going to use your product to solve that problem. I’m not only the creator; I’m creating a solution for an actual person.

How have you seen Toronto’s startup scene evolve and where do you see it heading?

I’ve been in this ecosystem long enough to see how it has matured. And I have to give credit to the universities. Back when I was at U of T, entrepreneurship was barely mentioned. Nowadays, entrepreneurship is a building block of education.

At U of T, there’s the Creative Destruction Lab at the Rotman School of Management, the Entrepreneurship Hatchery at U of T Engineering and so many other incubators and accelerators.

That seed of entrepreneurship gets planted very early on, right after high school. And in the past couple of decades, we’ve seen more and more tech companies founded in Canada – Shopify, Wattpad, Wealthsimple and many others. That’s inspiring a lot more young people to follow suit.

We’re also seeing more budding entrepreneurs get first-hand experience working at companies as part of their education. For example, the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering has the Professional Experience Year Co-op Program, where students can earn up to 20 months of work experience before they graduate. That’s a game-changer.

That’s why we’re seeing the maturity of the startup ecosystem. Our young generation is no longer limited to learning from textbooks, professors and parents. They can get a diversity of mentorship during their formative years.

What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs at U of T, particularly women or people from diverse backgrounds?

Absolutely reach out to our amazing alumni network. And don’t limit yourself to alumni from your faculty. Reach out to alumni from the engineering school, or perhaps in philosophy, or physics, or history or business. Bring in different experiences to create your own recipe for success.

What will you be keeping an eye out for at the Collision?

I am so keen to listen to Geoffrey Hinton and other U of T co-founders talk about trends in artificial intelligence. I’m absolutely a believer that AI is going to bring so much more productivity improvement – or even disruption – to our ecosystem.

Certainly, there are concerns around AI. But the history of technology shows that innovation always creates some friction in the beginning, but the long-term gains are beneficial to everyone.

I want to hear from the people who are at the forefront of AI, and as importantly, see how their messages are received. How is the crowd reacting to what these influencers are saying? Because that’s a good temperature check.

Experts say $200-million grant awarded to U of T will drive ‘big science’ via the Acceleration Consortium

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 20:19:03 +0000

Experts say $200-million grant awarded to U of T will drive ‘big science’ via the Acceleration Consortium

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 04/28/2023 - 16:19

Cutline

A researcher removes a vial of pre-dispensed reagent from an automated solid dispensing robot (photo by James Morley © The Matter Lab / Acceleration Consortium, �ؿ�ζSM)

Tabassum Siddiqui

Topic

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

Acceleration Consortium

Leah Cowen

self-driving labs

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Chemistry

History

University Health Network

�ؿ�ζSM Mississauga

Vector Institute

Women and Gender Studies

The $200-million Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) grant awarded to the �ؿ�ζSM’s Acceleration Consortium will help build a world-leading centre for accelerated materials discovery and innovation.

The funding will support the consortium’s work on “self-driving labs” that realize the game-changing potential of AI by combining it with robotics and advanced computing to discover new materials and molecules in a fraction of the usual time and cost – from life-saving medications and biodegradable plastics to low-carbon cement and renewable energy.

With equity, diversity and inclusion guiding project implementation and research design, the Acceleration Consortium – a U of T institutional strategic initiative – will use the funding to commercialize ethically designed technologies and materials to benefit society and train today’s scientists with the skills they need to advance the emerging field of accelerated materials discovery. It will also examine critical issues regarding the application of the technology, including from environmental and Indigenous perspectives.

“We realized we need to take a cue from self-driving cars and extended that concept to a self-driving lab, which uses AI and automation to carry out more experiments in a smarter way,” says Acceleration Consortium Director Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a professor in the departments of chemistry and computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science who is a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

In particular, the funding will help the consortium rapidly create high-quality datasets to better train AI models and help validate the model’s predictions in real time.

Leaders and researchers from U of T and Acceleration Consortium spoke with U of T News about the impact the CFREF funding – the largest federal research grant ever awarded to a Canadian university – will have on the consortium’s game-changing work and unique model of cross-sector collaboration.

Leah Cowen

U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives

Materials and molecules are central to solving many of the world's pressing challenges, such as climate change, plastics, pollution and cancer. But it typically takes a very long time to develop new materials with new properties that can address those big problems.

By contrast, Acceleration Consortium’s approach combines AI, robotics and advanced computing to radically reduce the time and cost of bringing materials to market. Their autonomous labs predict, synthesize and test materials for key characteristics and can repeat and refine the process, which dramatically accelerates the timeline.

This transformative capability has the potential to affect so many different parts of our lives and our planet. So, the consortium’s focus on equity, diversity and inclusion in program delivery and research design, as well as its emphasis on environmental and Indigenous perspectives, is crucial. The CFREF grant allows us to do big science – through an interdisciplinary team-based approach with an incredible scope and potential for impact – in a way that’s critical for Canada to remain competitive on the international stage.

Melanie Woodin

Dean, Faculty of Arts & Science; professor, department of cell and systems biology

The Acceleration Consortium is already having an impact. Its second annual Accelerate Conference this summer will showcase the latest methods, applications and research in accelerated materials and molecular discovery. But this funding will enable even greater breakthroughs. It will have a transformative impact on our researchers' ability to develop the cost-effective, high-performance, sustainable materials that are needed to solve the world’s most pressing challenges.

Alán Aspuru-Guzik

Director, Acceleration Consortium; professor, departments of chemistry and computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science; Canada 150 Research Chair in Theoretical and Quantum Chemistry; CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence

Our goal is to accelerate science – that’s where our name comes from. To do that, we realized we need to take a cue from self-driving cars and extended that concept to a self-driving lab, which uses AI and automation to carry out more experiments in a smarter way. We’ve essentially supercharged the process of scientific discovery – and this grant will help us to take that even further.

We are already emerging leaders in the world of research excellence and we have a plan to keep building on that excellence. We’ve also shown that we’re integrated with communities – including working closely with Indigenous communities – and have innovative plans to teach this technology to future generations.

Acceleration Consortium Researchers

Cheryl Arrowsmith

Senior scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network; professor of medical biophysics at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine; director of the Toronto node of the Structural Genomics Consortium

The CFREF funds will advance our self-driving lab (SDL) to tackle the early stages of drug discovery by taking an initial compound and developing it into a more drug-like molecule that modulates a protein of interest in a disease. This is a design-make-test cycle that is currently done in a very iterative, slow manner. The Acceleration Consortium approach can speed the process up to try to get to the biologically active reagent much more quickly.

It has broad implications in a whole number of areas. Our SDL will complement another self-driving lab that is making engineered tissues that mimic human tissue or a disease state like a tumour – allowing one to test drugs or early-stage compounds in disease-relevant assays.

The self-driving lab concept condenses the time it takes to get to the answer you need – and does so more efficiently.

Avi Goldfarb

Professor of marketing at the Rotman School of Management and Rotman Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare; chief data scientist at Creative Destruction Lab

This grant will allow us the freedom to invest in long-term planning for more – and more ambitious – projects. You learn more when you talk to people who have expertise that's different from your own. And the consortium has been an opportunity for me to learn from a different set of people with different knowledge than I’m typically exposed to as an economist in the business school.

It allows us to work with people to make new kinds of connections – and, hopefully over the course of the grant, develop entirely new, exciting ideas.

Michelle Murphy

Professor in the department of history and the Women and Gender Studies Institute in the Faculty of Arts & Science; co-director of the Indigenous-led Environmental Data Justice Lab at the Technoscience Research Unit; Canada Research Chair in Science and Technology Studies and Environmental Data Justice

No one person has all the skills to address the sustainability of new substances – we truly need much greater collaboration and a willingness to really think across difference. Insisting on Indigenous collaboration in defining sustainable substances is what marks the innovation of this work.

This is a moment of the emergence of a new branch of chemistry – and, at the same time, its industrial application has been implicated in major environmental problems we’re facing. Part of what is appealing about this project is that it’s putting questions of sustainability and environmental justice as one of its crucial dimensions – and the decision to invest in Indigenous science and technology studies as part of science at U of T is vital.

Florian Shkurti

Assistant professor in the department of mathematical and computational sciences, U of T Mississauga; UTM Robotics faculty adviser; director of the Robot Vision and Learning Lab; and Vector Institute faculty affiliate

What is unique about the AC is that over the last five years it has built a tightly knit and vibrant community that includes academic and industry researchers, as well as a global team of active and supportive partners in government, industry and entrepreneurial circles. Despite the seemingly disparate areas of expertise, they all work towards a common goal: to accelerate the science of advanced materials discovery in order to benefit society and our planet at large.

Together with my collaborators, Professors Alán Aspuru-Guzik and Animesh Garg, we are working on enabling general-purpose robots to perform as well as chemists in a typical chemistry lab. Having additional funding from the CFREF will help us to pursue more research efforts in enabling robots to visually perceive and autonomously manipulate granular materials, powders, liquids and transparent objects, which traditionally have been extremely challenging. It opens up so many opportunities for robots to be helpful in chemistry labs and work alongside human chemists to augment their capabilities.

Ilya Yakavets

Bioengineering post-doctoral researcher in the Kumacheva Group

The CFREF grant is a game-changer for researchers like me at the Acceleration Consortium.

It's not just about the funding, but also about the opportunities it creates. Collaborating with the consortium has been incredibly valuable for my research project – working to create a microchip that can simulate the growth of cancer cells and test different drug combinations to see which are the most effective, using artificial intelligence.

I'm fortunate to be collaborating with Alán Aspuru-Guzik and the Acceleration Consortium to accelerate the translation of promising multidrug anticancer therapies from the laboratory to clinics. It has been an excellent opportunity to learn from and work with a team of experts who share a common goal.

Laura Matz

Chief science and technology officer, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

Breakthroughs in AI-driven experimentation will revolutionize the process of discovering new molecules and materials for health care, life sciences and electronics. We see the Acceleration Consortium as uniquely positioned to bring the ecosystem together to drive cutting-edge

advancement in the field of accelerated materials and drug discovery through self-driving labs.

Because of this, we have become a founding member of the Acceleration Consortium. Through this collaboration, we look forward to developing and defining best practices in the area of AI algorithms and automation for materials and molecule discovery.

With files from Erin Warner

President’s Impact Awards recognize far-reaching contributions of U of T researchers

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 16:30:23 +0000

President’s Impact Awards recognize far-reaching contributions of U of T researchers

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 03/10/2023 - 11:30

Cutline

(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Topic

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Unity Health

Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

President's Impact Award

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Hospital for Sick Children

Mathematics

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

University Health Network

Women's College Hospital

From informing Ontario’s pandemic response to shaping the fields of education, social policy, robotics and entrepreneurship, the �ؿ�ζSM is recognizing researchers for the impact of their work across Canada and beyond.

Among the winners of this year’s President’s Impact Awards – which honour individual U of T faculty members and teams for research that has led to significant impacts beyond academia – are 13 leaders of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table.

The group was recognized as a team for “outstanding contributions and dedication to supporting evidence-informed decision making and response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario and nationally.”

Fahad Razak

Fahad Razak, who served as the Science Table’s scientific director, says he is grateful to be celebrated alongside his colleagues, noting that it was only through their collective expertise and efforts that the Science Table was able to provide transparent scientific analysis and evidence-based, equity-minded guidance in response to an ever-shifting crisis.

“I'm really happy that �ؿ�ζSM has recognized that much of the consequential work that is done is not done by individuals – it's done by teams,” says Razak, an internist and epidemiologist at St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto and an assistant professor in the department of medicine in U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine and at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME).

“That multidisciplinary composition of our table was one of the critical drivers of success of putting out modelling scientific briefs or other recommendations that were thoughtful and comprehensive about the effects that could happen across society.”

The other Science Table members sharing the honour with Razak are:

Peter Jüni, an affiliate scientist at Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, Unity Health, who was the table’s scientific director and a professor of medicine and epidemiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and IHPME before leaving for University of Oxford in 2022.
Co-chairs Adalsteinn Brown, dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Brian Schwartz, a professor in the department of family and community medicine in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, and Upton Allen, the head of infectious diseases at the Hospital for Sick Children and a professor of pediatrics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and at IHPME.
Assistant scientific directors Nathan Stall, a physician at Sinai Health and an assistant professor in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, and Karen Born, assistant professor of health administration at IHPME.
Director of communications Robert Steiner, assistant professor and director of the Dalla Lana Fellowship in Global Journalism at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
Modelling consensus table co-chairs Beate Sander, a senior scientist at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, University Health Network, and a professor at IHPME, and Kumar Murty, a professor of mathematics in the Faculty of Arts & Science.
Chair of the congregate care setting working group Paula Rochon, senior scientist at the Women’s College Hospital Research Institute and professor in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine
Co-chair of the drugs and biologics clinical practice guideline working group Andrew Morris, medical director of the antimicrobial stewardship program at Sinai Health/University Health Network and professor of medicine in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine.
Mental health working group chair Linda Mah, a senior clinician scientist at the Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Health Sciences Centre and an associate professor of psychiatry in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

The team joins four other U of T researchers recognized this year. They are:

Ajay Agrawal, professor of strategic management and Geoffrey Taber Chair in Entrepreneurship at the Rotman School of Management. He is recognized for his “application of economic theory to the problem of market failures associated with transforming scientific inventions into scalable companies that benefit society,” which inspired the founding of the Creative Destruction Lab – a model that has been adopted by business schools around the world.

George Dei, professor in the department of social justice education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Dei was recognized for his “influential work advancing anti-racism, equity, anti-colonial thought and African Indigeneity in education and sustained impact on policies, practices and advocacy for inclusive schooling and Black youth’s educational success.”

Yu Sun, a professor in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and founding director of U of T’s Robotics Institute. He is honoured for “outstanding contributions to robotics at micro-nano scales, whose far-reaching impacts include transformative infertility treatments for patients and materials characterization techniques for industry.”

Ito Peng, a professor of sociology in the Faculty of Arts & Science and the Munk School for Global Affairs & Public Policy. She is credited for global “social policy leadership informing national and international policy bodies on issues of gender, the work of care and care migration.” Peng, whose expertise has been sought out by policymakers across the globe, was also named the recipient of the Carolyn Tuohy Impact on Public Policy Award, presented annually to a faculty member whose scholarship has had a significant impact on public policy as part of the Awards of Excellence Program.

Winners of the President’s Impact Award are designated as members of the President’s Impact Academy, which advocates for sustained excellence in research and innovation impact within and outside of the university.

“These awards represent how U of T’s research community is coming together tackle some of today’s toughest problems and making breakthroughs that result in real-world change,” says Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.

“From global issues to micro-scale innovations, this year’s laureates have shown themselves to be visionaries in their respective fields and consummate collaborators – working with scholars across disciplines and partnering with community members, public stakeholders, industry leaders and policymakers to address our current challenges and drive progress toward a brighter future.”

U of T-supported startup Xanadu aims to lead quantum computing sector

siddiq22 — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 18:14:23 +0000

U of T-supported startup Xanadu aims to lead quantum computing sector

siddiq22 Thu, 03/09/2023 - 13:14

Cutline

Toronto-based Xanadu is racing to build the world’s first photonic-based, fault-tolerant quantum computer – a machine that could have applications in everything from drug discovery to climate change mitigation (photo courtesy of Xanadu)

Tabassum Siddiqui

Topic

Entrepreneurship Week

Quantum Computing

Quantum computing is one of the fastest-growing tech sectors in the world – and Toronto startup Xanadu Quantum Technologies is among the companies leading the way.

Founded by former �ؿ�ζSM post-doctoral physics researcher Christian Weedbrook, Xanadu is working on building the world’s first photonic-based, fault-tolerant quantum computer.

Quantum computers harness the unique properties of subatomic particles to deliver an exponential increase in computational power. Unlike systems that require temperatures colder than those found in deep space, Xanadu’s method involves firing lasers at room temperature, enabling light particles to generate quantum effects on computer chips (Xanadu's architecture still requires cryogenics, but the demands are lower than for rival systems).

While that may sound complex, what it boils down to is an end goal of making quantum computers that are useful and available to people everywhere, says Ilan Tzitrin, a lead quantum architecture scientist at Xanadu.

“We’re trying to build a photonic, scalable full-tolerant quantum computer – those might sound like buzzwords, but basically all it means is that we’re trying to build a device that’s capable of solving certain things faster in principle than the world’s fastest supercomputer, something that’s not attainable using the rules of classical physics,” says Tzitrin, a U of T PhD graduate who got his start at Xanadu by doing an internship at the company while still a student.

Xanadu, an alumnus of the Creative Destruction Lab seed-stage accelerator at U of T’s Rotman School of Management, recently received $40 million in federal funding to support its leading quantum computing technology, lauded by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “cutting-edge not just in Canada, but around the world.”

The company announced last year that its system, called Borealis, had achieved a key milestone by demonstrating “quantum advantage” – the ability of a quantum computer to outperform any supercomputer in the world at a specific task.

“We were working on near-term experiments that are designed to solve a specific problem provably faster than our current best algorithm run on the world's fastest supercomputer,” Tzitrin says. “Borealis was one such demonstration, and we were very excited about that – there was a lot of hard work leading up to it.

“We were able to essentially build a quantum computer – not fault-tolerant just yet, but some quantum device that was able to solve a particular math problem designed to demonstrate quantum advantage, orders of magnitude faster than any other computer. I’m talking doing something in microseconds versus 9,000 years.”

Ilan Tzitrin, a lead quantum architecture scientist at Xanadu, says the company is trying to make quantum computers that are useful and available to people everywhere (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Some of the practical applications of Xanadu’s work include the discovery of new pharmaceutical drugs, financial risk modelling and climate change mitigation. The company also leverages its quantum expertise through corporate and research partnerships, including recent work with automotive giants BMW Group, Rolls-Royce and Volkswagen as well as the Korea Institute of Science and Technology.

In his role, Tzitrin helps support both the software and hardware teams, iterating toward the ultimate goal – or the “Holy Grail,” as he calls it – of improving every component until they build the device they hope to ultimately achieve.

He credits his education at U of T – where he studied math and physics in undergrad under a National Scholarship and went straight into a PhD in physics – for his path toward joining an innovative startup like Xanadu.

“The field I was in, quantum information, was directly relevant to the work we do at Xanadu. U of T is very strong on the quantum optics front, so my knowledge from taking quantum optics courses and from doing research on photonic quantum repeaters was directly transferable and related to my current role with the company,” Tzitrin says.

He notes that his supervisor Hoi-Kwong Lo – a professor in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering (ECE) in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering who is cross-appointed with the department of physics in the Faculty of Arts & Science – also advised Xanadu CEO Weedbrook during his time at U of T.

“We continue to have a lot of nice collaborations with U of T through the Mitacs program – tangible research assistance to further Xanadu’s goals – which has been a big help,” Tzitrin says. “We've also received support from talented faculty at U of T from professors such as John Sipe and Hoi Kwong-Lo.”

As one of Xanadu’s earliest employees, Tzitrin has had a front-row seat to the company’s rapid growth – when he joined, the startup only had 30 staffers, but now has more than 160. The recent federal funding will go toward hiring new people and purchasing hardware as the company pursues its mission to build a cloud-based universal quantum computer.

Xanadu, which has historically been open about its research, will continue to publish the results of its ongoing experiments in a bid to remain transparent and also help advance the growing sector – recently bolstered by a new $360-million national strategy to advance quantum technologies.

Tzitrin, who considered a career path in academia before joining Xanadu, has some straightforward advice for those taking part in U of T’s Entrepreneurship Week and exploring a potential startup journey: stay open to possibility – and take advantage of the exceptional expertise the university and its partners have to offer.

“Do your own research and see what’s out there, but it’s very helpful to have a mentor to guide you – in my case, somebody in academia who knows about industry; or it could be somebody from industry that you seek out,” he says. “Programs like Mitacs are also an excellent way to get your foot in the door – they really give you a sense of what it’s going to be like working in the area you’re interested in.”

Learn more about U of T Entrepreneurship Week

U of T startup Genecis scales up effort to commercialize ‘the holy grail of plastic replacement’

bresgead — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 16:38:10 +0000

U of T startup Genecis scales up effort to commercialize ‘the holy grail of plastic replacement’

bresgead Mon, 03/06/2023 - 11:38

Cutline

Genecis Bioindustries uses highly engineered bacteria to turn food waste into biodegradable natural polymers that can be used to make a range of environmentally friendly products – from T-shirts to flip flops (photo by Matt Volpe)

Adina Bresge

Topic

Entrepreneurship Week

The Hub

Entrepreneurship Hatchery

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

Sustainability

U of T Scarborough

Remember those carrot peels you threw in the compost? If Genecis Bioindustries has its way, you could soon be wearing them.

The clean-tech company is using highly engineered bacteria to turn food waste into biodegradable natural polymers called polyhydroxyalkanoates – or PHAs – that can be used to make products ranging from soft T-shirt fibres to squishy flip-flop soles.

With more than $20 million in funding raised, Genecis plans to become the first company to commercialize the food-waste-to-PHA production process, which it says would allow it to compete with synthetic plastics in both performance and cost – all without taking a toll on the environment.

“We’re moving very quickly,” says Director of Fermentation Andrew Chiappetta, one of several �ؿ�ζSM alumni who work at the company.

“The plan is to be at full commercial scale in the next few years.”

At a research facility in downtown Toronto, fermenters churn a cream-coloured brew where the microbial magic happens. First, the bacteria consume the carbon in organic matter and convert it into building blocks called monomers. This intermediate is then fed to another set of bacteria, which are deprived of specific nutrients to spur the production of PHA, which is stored in the cells as an energy source. Then, the PHA is extracted from the cells, collected, purified and processed into different formulations.

Genecis got its start in a �ؿ�ζSM Scarborough lab when founder and CEO Luna Yu – who earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree at U of T in four years – and her collaborators demonstrated their nascent technology using rice cookers. The startup went on to receive early support from U of T Scarborough’s the Hub, the Rotman School of Management’s Creative Destruction Lab and the Hatchery at the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

U of T also provided Genecis with space for its lab researchers to refine their approach.

“The �ؿ�ζSM has supported Genecis in many different stages of our development,” says Chiappetta, noting the company now has more than 40 employees.

“The education alone at U of T is great, and students can also take advantage of all the resources and programs that they have available for entrepreneurs.”

Genecis founder and CEO Luna Yu and her team originally demonstrated their technology in a U of T Scarborough lab (photo by Don Campbell)

With the support of Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator, government funds and venture capital financing, Genecis has since expanded its operations to two full research labs, as well as a pilot facility in Scarborough.

The company has also partnered with London, Ont.-based StormFisher Biogas to demonstrate the potential of its technology at scale.

Chiappetta, who graduated from U of T’s master of biotechnology program, says Genecis can fine-tune its PHAs to take on a wide range of properties – from soft and flexible, to hard and rigid.

He says this versatility could make PHAs “the holy grail of plastic replacement” in categories including packaging, medical tools, car parts, textiles and other commercial products.

While synthetic plastics can take centuries to degrade and pollute waterways with microplastics, PHA products that wind up in the landfill can safely degrade both on land and in water.

And when properly discarded, these bioplastics can be composted and upcycled into something new, Chiappetta says.

“This creates a circular end-of-life,” he says. “Our polymers, no matter where they end up, can be composted and fed back into the front-end of the process.”

Addressing two global challenges – food waste and plastic pollution – might seem like a daunting proposition, but Chiappetta urged community members taking part in U of T’s Entrepreneurship Week to aim high and not get discouraged.

“The big thing is to be curious, work hard and if things don’t work – keep trying,” he says.

“Oftentimes, things don’t work out the first time, and I think you learn most from the failures as opposed to the successes.”

Learn more about U of T Entrepreneurship Week

U of T brings together researchers and policymakers to discuss how GTA can advance Canada's quantum sector

siddiq22 — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 18:46:52 +0000

U of T brings together researchers and policymakers to discuss how GTA can advance Canada's quantum sector

siddiq22 Tue, 02/14/2023 - 13:46

Cutline

(Photo courtesy of Xanadu Quantum Technologies)

Tabassum Siddiqui

Topic

Global Lens

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Chemistry

Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Mathematics

Physics

Quantum