Trump’s AI plan, a16z says OpenSesame, and a Yukon-born startup strikes gold

Trump’s plan includes enhancing America’s global AI dominance, targeting so-called “woke” AI models, and making it easier for companies to build data centres. Screening pollsters for voter fraud is not an explicit part of the administration’s plan, which was unveiled this week.

Wagepoint has appointed Xero’s managing director of North America, Ben Richmond, as president and CEO. Richmond, who was responsible for driving Xero’s growth and operations across the United States and Canada, takes the reins of Wagepoint alongside a seat on its board of directors on August 18.

Hyper’s AI tool is meant to help understaffed emergency dispatch centres receive only the critical calls that require their assistance by screening out non-emergency calls. The Yukon-founded startup closed $8.5 million CAD in funding this week.

While Glumac was named BC’s minister of state for AI, he will oversee AI, quantum computing, and life sciences as part of the role. The move was part of a cabinet reshuffle that saw BC’s minister of jobs, economic development, and innovation role rebranded as the minister of jobs and economic growth.

A “super baby” refers to a baby born with genetically enhanced traits, generally due to genetic testing and gene editing technologies, which are growing increasingly popular among Silicon Valley elites.

OpenSesame says it wants to become the “Canva for AI interfaces.” The startup, which was selected for the upcoming cohort of a16z Speedrun and is backed by Cohere’s Aidan Gomez, helps companies add and manage agentic AI capabilities in their software products using natural-language prompts.

Eyam has signed a research partnership with Medicines for Malaria Venture to develop malaria treatments that cost less than one dollar. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), malaria vaccines currently cost between two to four dollars per dose.

Shah said he believes cleantech investors are scared of financial losses in a conversation with The Globe and Mail.

“We never were afraid of financial losses,” he said of the Biden administration. “We did such a good job that we didn’t have many – we were at less than three-percent loss rates. But we were leaning in.”

During her conversation with Waabi founder and CEO Raquel Urtasun at Homecoming during Toronto Tech Week, Fidler credited AlexNet for changing the world. AlexNet was developed in 2012 by Alex Krizhevsky in collaboration with Ilya Sutskever and advisor Geoffrey Hinton at the University of Toronto.

Fidler also noted Canada’s depth in talent, noting about xAI founding member Jimmy Ba, “Every time you guys train a neural network, you’re using his algorithm.”

Tailscale!