11 Ambitious AI prototypes for a better world

July 19, 2021

June 22nd 2021, 53 women presented 11 AI prototypes to over 110 attendees at the CIFAR-OSMO AI4Good Lab Demo Day.

Each year, participants of the AI4Good Lab build machine learning prototypes to apply knowledge gained from the program’s curriculum and develop a deep understanding of how AI can be used to further social good.

Demo Day brought together numerous TAs, lecturers, speakers, mentors, sponsors, and experts who have all been there to support this year’s cohort of burgeoning change makers.

From environment to healthcare, participants identified global problems that are meaningful to them and worked in teams to build solutions that address these issues. The teams received guidance from a supportive network of 9 TAs and 36 mentors as they encountered technical and ethical challenges during the projects.

"Everyone in the program was determined to help you succeed, which is so rare and so crucial for a great learning environment." — Kira Wiese, Edmonton Participant

Elissa Strome, Executive Director of the CIFAR Pan-Canadian AI Strategy, met with the teams during the virtual poster-booth Q&A session following their Demo Day presentations. In her closing remarks, she said, “I asked about the challenges you faced as you went through these projects. I was really impressed by some of the stories people shared with me about how you overcame challenges and how you worked with your TAs and your mentors and how you got creative in building your datasets, or just getting out there and being inspired by work that had come before you.”

It was incredible to see the AI4Good Lab community come together to celebrate the achievements of the 53 women in this year’s cohort. The Lab’s founding partners, CIFAR and OSMO, provide the foundation for the program that enables the Lab to continue growing this supportive community.

The mentors who guided us are an incredible resource as well who have made sure we know that we could reach out to them anytime 'today, tomorrow, or five years down the line.' — Rayan Awad Alim, 2021 Montreal Participant

2021 marks the first year of the Lab’s national expansion with the successful launch of the Edmonton cohort, hosted by the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute. One team from each cohort was selected for the Accelerator Award, an opportunity to extend the project with continued support from the Lab network.

Rayan Awad Alim, one of the recipients of the Montreal Accelerator Award, shared her experience with the Lab this summer; "My experience at the Lab was nothing short of inspiring, being surrounded by a group of incredibly talented women and having lectures from some of Canada's most recognized AI names was very motivating. Other than the ML technical knowledge, the Lab's emphasis on creating connections, and building on some of the softer skills is something that I will take with me forever. The mentors who guided us are an incredible resource as well who have made sure we know that we could reach out to them anytime 'today, tomorrow, or five years down the line.' "

“Some parting advice; start before you’re ready.” — Angelique Mannella, AI4Good Lab Co-Founder, AWS

In parting, Lab co-founder Angelique Mannella had the following advice to share with the participants; "Start before you’re ready. You don’t need to have everything figured out. You don’t need to have done something before nor mastered everything that you think you need to master in order to start making a difference and making an impact. Know that you can learn along the way and have the confidence to know that your efforts and energy will indeed make a difference."

The event was moderated by Maya Marcus-Sells (Executive Director) with remarks from Angelique Mannella (Lab Co-Founder, AWS), Elissa Strome (CIFAR), Warren Johnston (Amii), Mariloue Daudier (IVADO).

The Accelerator Award

Extension. Opportunity to extend the project by up to two months.

Additional stipend. $2,000 per region split across the team members (Montreal Award made possible by Concertation Montreal, Edmonton award supported through Amii).

Extra support. Winning teams receive mentorship through the AI4Good Lab partner or academic network in support of the specific needs of their project.

Recognition. Production of an article on their project and experience, to be published on the AI4Good Lab website.

Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation was based on two criteria critical to the Lab’s mission.

Innovation. Does this change existing methods of interacting with the world?

Impact. Does this fundamentally improve society or the world at large?

Award Judges

National. Elissa Strome (CIFAR); Maya Marcus-Sells (AI4Good Lab)

Regional. Montreal: Emilie Boudras (CMTL)

Edmonton: Lauren Briske (Innovate Edmonton)

Montreal Accelerator Award Recipients

Award made possible by CMTL

Datallite

Team members: Michelle Murphy, Rayan Alim, Tinotenda Matsika, Raphaëlle Tseng, Haoyi Qiu

Mentors: Flynn Strathearn (MNP), Ankit Anand (DeepMind), Ella Wilson (Borealis AI), Andrew Patterson (IBM)

TA: Mohammad Fekri

Links: Website, GitHub, Demo

Data where it’s needed most. Utilizing satellite imagery, we can extract and measure different socioeconomic and infrastructural indicators to fuel impactful interventions to elevate developing countries out of poverty. We base our work on the research conducted by Stanford's Sustainability and Artificial Intelligence Lab.

Edmonton Accelerator Award Recipients

SoQuo

Team members: Mia Battad, Ahana Ahluwalia, Emily Lee, Debarati Nath, Joud El-Shawa

Mentors: Venessa Liao (Manulife), Crystal Lui (IBM), Elnaz Davoodi (DeepMind)

TA: Anjana Puliyanda

Link: Presentation Deck

SoQuo is an app that improves a user’s social media experience by helping them evaluate the impact of online interactions on their mental health.

Montreal Projects

articulaite

Team members: Chloe Pappas, Ritu Ataliya , Nadia Enhaili, Hala Hassan, Jiayue Yang, Kamun Karl Itaj

Mentors: Disha Shrivastava (Google), Isabelle Archer Vezina (PwC), Ainaz Hajimoradlou (Borealis AI)

TA: Nadia Blostein

Link: GitHub

A machine learning tool to diagnose a patient's underlying cause of dysarthria by classifying audio input as being indicative of Parkinson's disease, ALS, or Cerebral Palsy.

AI4AI

Team members: Mayumi Ohashi Chuapoco, My Duc Tran, Aylin Erman, Marie de la Sablonnière, Aleksandra Lelyuk

Mentors: Chantelle Bourgeois (MNP), Anita Gergely (DeepMind), Bahar Sateli (PwC)

TA: Dongyan Lin

Link: LinkedIn

A novel app that predicts autoimmune disease flare-ups using stress, weather, and exercise data. This app gives millions of people with autoimmune diseases the opportunity to prevent flare ups, understand their triggers and feel empowered to take control over their disease.

**Di,all,ogue**

Team members: Huidi Li, Xuan Suo, Lorrie Herbault, Tanya Humeniuk, Maria Emilia Checa

Mentors: Parisa Lak (Manulife), Zhitao Gong (DeepMind), Robert Yun (Accenture), Carolyne Pelletier (AI4Good Lab Alumna, Skritswap), Melissa Kargiannakis (Skritswap)

TA: Geetika Sharma

Link: Website

Diallogue is a speech and tone analyzer used in meetings to empower introverts to share their ideas and improve group communication and problem solving skills by providing ongoing feedback.

Green Bites

Team members: Ayesha Liaqat, Lama Khalil, Meriem Khalfoun, Victoria Wang, Kate Szabo

Mentors: Deval Pandya (Vector Institute), Emma Heo (Accenture), Cristina Vasconcelos (Google)

TA: Alexis Pascual

Link: GitHub

A smart grocery list that helps users track their environmental impact and make informed dietary and sustainable decisions.

Edmonton Projects

PhysiFeedback

Team members: Emily Maier, Mai Huynh, Aishwarya Shenoy, Hadiya Firdaus

Mentors: Nina Varchavsky-Bergin (AI4Good Lab Alumna, CRI Paris), Lynn Luo (Deloitte), Mandy Meindersma (Dotdash)

TA: Jake Tuero

Link: LinkedIn

Transforming the at-home physiotherapy experience for individuals with arthritis, through real-time pose tracking and exercise metrics to regain mobility and independence.

N(A)RRAT(I)VE

Team members: Liyang Zhou, Kimia Naghavi, Katie Lu, Jennifer Dong

Mentors: Sara El Shawa (Vector Institute), Sara Soltaninejad (AltaML), Jazlyn Hellman (AI4Good Lab Alumna, McGill University)

TA: Maithrreye Srinivasan

Helping people understand the severity of medication side effects by using natural language processing to analyze the sentiment of symptoms described by patient.

Recordling

Team members: Vidya Sujaya, Quinn Goddard, Qixia Luo, Elexandra Tran, Juliana Virani

Mentors: Zaheer Abbas (DeepMind), Jessica Kaczmer (DeepMind), Chinmay Sheth (RBC)

TA: Anjana Puliyanda

Link: Demo

In order to help document and preserve languages which are critically endangered, RecordLing records a speaker saying specific prompts, which are then segmented and used to generate a grammar of the language based on user feedback.

ZeroCa.ml

Team members: Anitha Sarangan, Baksheesh Kaur, Ming (Chloe) Zhou, Qun Cheng

Mentors: Sedef Kocak (Vector Institute), Keren Gu-Lemberg (DeepMind), Elaine Lau (AI4Good Lab Alumna, TD Bank)

TA: Jake Tuero

Link: GitHub

An AI tool to predict household energy consumption, cost, and carbon footprint for eco-conscious recommendations for users, and future planning for governments with respect to clean energy, incentivization strategies, and environmental impact.

cash the trash

Team members: Hailan Xu, Nagham Eldegwy, Rachel Ralph, Kira Wiese, Ymma Marie Villacastin

Mentors: Tali Remennik (Accenture), Michael Buron (ODS Medical), Anju Tai (AltaML)

TA: Nastaran Gholizadeh

Link: GitHub

The app that gives you rewards for cleaning up your local landscapes. cash the trash detects trash amounts in images before and after cleanup, while gamifying the experience to incentivize users to form cleanup groups and build a sense of community.