Amii Innovates announces first cohort, looks to accelerate AI adoption

The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) has launched Amii Innovates, a program aimed to guides teams and businesses in AI adoption.

Amii Innovates is one of four program areas within Amii, and works closely with Alberta-based businesses to grow their internal AI capabilities. The organization’s Innovation Affiliates were selected based on their readiness for machine intelligence adoption and potential for commercial success. Amii said it has worked collaboratively with these 24 companies over the past year, four of which have already become alumni.

“We strongly believe that machine intelligence will be the primary driver of sustainable growth for Alberta’s economy.”

“We’re proud to work with organizations that understand the transformative potential of machine intelligence across every sector, and who are working to innovate within their industries,” said John Shillington, president and CEO of Amii. “We strongly believe that machine intelligence will be the primary driver of sustainable growth for Alberta’s economy, and that this program will help bring our province’s bright future into focus.”

Amii Innovates comprises four core offerings: a machine intelligence roadmap, project validation, advisory and mentorship, and research support. The roadmap is a two-day session allowing teams to collectively to identify processes that are ideal machine learning opportunities. Project validation offers the chance for companies to work with machine learning scientists and advisors to refine a company’s business problem statement.

Through Amii’s advisory and mentorship services allow companies to consult with machine learning scientists for guidance and oversight, which involves regular check-ins with technical staff and strategy formulation. Finally, Amii Innovate’s research support offering enables companies to use its Machine Learning Process Lifecycle, to ensure research on a business problem drives toward a clear objective.

Amii will bring together Innovation Affiliates and members of business and technology communities for Amii Innovates launch events in Edmonton and Calgary. These events aim to showcase the first cohort of Innovation Affiliates, feature other Amii partner businesses, and officially unveil the Amii Innovates program offerings.

“In keeping with the high standard of providing leading edge trading software, our company is pleased to have partnered with Amii to work towards expanding our internal AI capacity,” said Tim Gunn, president of Net Energy Exchange. “Working with Amii has substantially expanded our company’s knowledge in the area of Machine Learning. This knowledge has enabled our company to begin hiring and training our own AI support team, paving our way into the future.”

Founded in 2002 as the Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Machine Learning, Amii is one of Canada’s three AI centres of excellence established through the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy. Over 200 technologies have been created since the organization’s inception, including algorithms, architectures, theories, methodologies, approaches and applications)

The first cohort of Innovation Affiliates includes: