DCSIL Industry Partners

We are partnering with TELUS AI Accelerator to explore the critical intersection of generative AI innovation and ethical responsibility. The theme for this term will be to build a startup addressing the challenges and opportunities in responsible generative AI development and deployment.

Generative AI is everywhere. The opportunities are endless, as demonstrated by various applications at TELUS. However, there is also the potential for harm, especially for vulnerable and marginalized groups of people. For example, recently, it was discovered that Grok allows users to generate images of people (mostly minors and women) in "minimal clothing". Many questions arise out of this incident, such as consent, ownership of original images as well as overall questions about ethics and legality.

This partnership will challenge students to think critically about how we can harness the power of generative AI while ensuring safety, ethics, and responsible deployment. Students will work on developing solutions that address these complex challenges while creating value for organizations like TELUS.

TELUS AI Accelerator is committed to advancing responsible AI innovation. The team brings expertise in developing and deploying generative AI solutions while maintaining the highest standards of ethics, privacy, and safety. Their work spans research, translation, summarization, brainstorming, and other applications where generative AI can add value.

TELUS has established comprehensive Generative AI Guidance principles that emphasize responsible use, human oversight, transparency, and professional judgment. These principles ensure that AI initiatives are reviewed, verified, and deployed with careful consideration of their impact on both team members and customers.

This term we are excited to be partnering with Cohere, a Toronto-based company focused on artificial intelligence for the enterprise, specializing in large language models (LLMs). The theme for this term will be to build a startup applying LLM technologies to real-world challenges and systems.

Advancements in LLMs over recent years have captured public interest and the attention of the technology sector. This has only further accelerated core research and applied improvements in LLM performance, accuracy, and costs for successful integration into a wide range of industries such as retail, e-commerce, healthcare, IT, media and entertainment. According to market research analyses, the global LLM market is projected to grow to $61.7 billion by 2032, driven by the increasing need for improved communication between humans and machines and the growing demand for automated content creation.

Cohere is a research-driven generative AI company, with a strong research presence at the core of its founding and culture. In 2022, Cohere announced Cohere for AI, a non-profit research lab that provides both dedicated research staffing and support for open science initiatives, with a focus on fundamental research and responsible AI. Cohere develops enterprise-ready AI solutions that power modern workplace productivity through intelligent search, generation, and retrieval capabilities. Their platform is trusted by industry leaders and developers worldwide, including Oracle, Dell Technologies, RBC, LG CNS, Fujitsu, Bell, SAP, Salesforce, Notion, TD Bank, and many others.

Cohere's models can be used across 23 languages, including English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, and many more, enabling global deployment and diverse use cases. Beyond language models, Cohere's platform offers state-of-the-art Embed and Rerank APIs, which provide semantic understanding and relevance optimization for high-precision search applications grounded on external data sources.

• Enterprise AI Solutions: Specialized large language models designed for real-world business applications across multiple industries, with best-in-class AI security and data protection.
• Multilingual Support: Models trained across 23 languages enabling global deployment and diverse use cases for international organizations.
• Research-Driven Innovation: Backed by Cohere Labs and a commitment to fundamental research and responsible AI development, ensuring cutting-edge technology that businesses can trust.
• Private Deployments: Offers secure deployment options including dedicated virtual private cloud (VPC) environments and on-premises, air-gapped solutions for maximum security and compliance.

We are partnering with EAIGLE, a startup in computer vision in Toronto. The theme for this term will be to build a startup using/around computer vision technologies.

Nowadays due to advancement in AI, computational power, and vision technology, computer vision systems can see and understand the world around us in a human-like fashion. With these recent advancements in sophisticated cameras, image sensors, and deep learning methods, the scope of the use of computer vision systems has expanded across a wide range of industries, such as healthcare, education, robotics, manufacturing, retail, consumer electronics, and security and surveillance.

EAIGLE is a human-centric AI company developing enterprise computer vision solutions for the workplace and public spaces to optimize processes, reduce costs and grow revenue. As one of the fastest-growing AI companies in Canada, EAIGLE continues to drive new product innovation and expand its reach with a diverse customer and partner footprint that spans across the Americas and Europe.

We are partnering with Dandelion Networks, a startup in blockchain and cryptography in Toronto. The theme for this term will be to build a startup using/around blockchain technologies (excluding exchanges, portfolios, or anything to do with transfers).

Blockchain is most well known for its use in cryptocurrency, though there are a number of other avenues to use it. Examples include immutable ledger-based information systems, privacy related ventures, and compliance and regulatory environments, and more. There also exist problems that need to be solved around efficiency and environmental impact. Join DCSIL and Dandelion Networks, a highly scalable startup in the blockchain space, in winter 2022 to work on this exciting opportunity!

Dandelion Networks is a company built around Blockchain technology. While they can help in most areas related to Blockchain, they are highly knowledgeable in Cryptographic signature systems. We'd recommend taking an extra look at startups and problems in that space.

Cryptographic signature systems are central to providing validation and security in modern networks, but the signatures require a huge amount of work from computers. Dandelion is working on ground-breaking algorithms, such as the Boneh-Lynn-Shacham (BLS) cryptosystem, which work to solve this problem. These algorithms, while breakthrough, have not solved the problem for a variety of reasons. How can we bridge those gaps and provide a commercially viable solution in the cryptographic space when it comes to costs and sustainability?

This semester we have teamed up with Canadian Sport Institute Pacific (CSI Pacific), a world-class institute that fosters an ideal Olympic and Paralympic training environment.

CSI Pacific is the team behind the team and they have asked our class to work alongside them and their sport partners. They have offered to donate data, problem sets and subject matter supported by the team in Biomechanics & Performance Analysis, led by Dr. Ming-Chang Tsai.

Through the support of national and provincial partners, CSI Pacific's sport scientists and medical experts provide leading-edge programs and services to athletes and coaches in order to ensure they have every advantage to win medals for Canada. They are committed to Powering Performance. Inspiring Excellence.

CSI Pacific is a world-class institute that fosters an ideal Olympic and Paralympic training environment. Their team works closely with athletes and coaches to provide cutting-edge support across biomechanics, performance analysis, and sports science.

We are partnering with the Marketing Science organization at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). The theme for this term will be to create a startup built around marketing campaigns and optimization for various regulated clients.

In marketing, as a general rule, the more you spend on a campaign, the more successful it'll be. But, how much should you spend? And, what success can you expect? While in the tech industry, online controlled experiments (A/B testing) is one of the gold standard methods for making various marketing decisions. In banking and other industries, various constraints (such as the nature of the products/services offered, regulations, etc) makes the use of these methods difficult. Therefore other methods, such as the use of observational data, must be used in order to make causal conclusions about the effectiveness of various marketing campaigns.

RBC will join us this semester to help guide you in answering these questions.

The Marketing Science organization at RBC brings expertise in data-driven marketing and optimization strategies. Their team works with observational data and advanced analytical methods to make informed marketing decisions within the constraints of regulated industries like banking.

RBC is one of Canada's largest banks, providing a wide range of financial services. Through this partnership, students will gain insights into marketing optimization challenges faced by regulated industries and learn how to apply data science and analytics to real-world marketing problems.