Inspiring aspiring AI impact entrepreneurs & facilitating tech adoption between startups and large organizations

Very excited, and very humbled to be part of a fireside chat with people I admire. After months of work, one of our projects’ is taking great shape!

C’est une itération avec un régime minceur c?té budgétaire et un nouveau modele d’affaire pour le Coopérathon (3ème itération ;) ) , mais une profondeur qui je l’espère va contribuer cette année (et surtout la prochaine si on arrive à trouver les bons partenaires financiers!) à répondre à un enjeu de taille et sur lequel beaucoup se cassent encore les dents : how to “manufacture serendipity” to create opportunities for complementary co-founders and talent to meet and join a journey into learning and building meaningful innovative technologies that have scalable and sustainable social impact at heart!?

Co-designed and co-organized by Desjardins Innovation and ElanTech (ex-Montreal NewTech) teams, with the help of Mila - Institut québécois d'intelligence artificielle , IVADO , and 微软 , we are starting this year with a data-science and Artificial Intelligence program + an entrepreneurial journey + challenges, time and expertise from some leading organizations such as Desjardins , KPMG Canada , Microsoft for Startups , Génome Québec , Zone Agtech . And huge thanks in this for the support of CGI , Hydro-Québec , Ministère de l’économie, de l’Innovation et de l’énergie du Québec (MEIE) , MILA, IVADO, DMZ , NEXT AI , McGill Engine Centre , Hacking Health Global , Hacking Health Montréal , District 3 Innovation , La base entrepreneuriale HEC Montréal , LE CAMP , Spring , Centech Mtl , 2 Degrés , and many other partners without whom it would not be possible!

The idea this iteration is to have more focus and hopefully efficiency: split the streams in 2 for the participants, one for the aspiring entrepreneurs and students that starts today September 29th, and one for the startups in development looking for clients, expertise, talent, financing and pre-seed/seed funding that starts on October 20th. With 3 elective tracks depending on the expertise (or lack there of) of each participants: Implement AI, entrepreneurship, and industry subject matter expertise with our open innovation partners.

Underlining it; before, and during, is having multiple co-founders and high-potential talent (from youth to young professionals, but not limited in age of course!)?to meet, build trust, and explore problems together. If everything goes well, and we are able to secure the funding and hire talented individuals to join the team (spread the word!); we will re-launch the community tech & business activities such as #CreativeCollisions, #ConnectingIntelligence, Career and Tech Innovation fairs, Venture Days, and of course #StartupCommunityAwards! It takes a village, we've heard that, but it takes a conscious and coordinated effort with benevolent attitude, and values of excellence, genuine diverse and inclusive servant leadership, and insatiable curiosity, appetite for connectedness and true financial partners especially for pre-seed deep-tech funding beyond the current risk averse financial driven frameworks, to be able to achieve such a goal. So, yeah it takes a village, mais pas n'importe lequel. Valeurs de générosité et connectivité, excellence et élégance dans l'execution, et bien s?r un terreau fertile, diverse et inclusif de talent qui a de l'ambition mais aussi à qui on offre le cadre et les moyens de nos ambitions!

That's for 2023 planning with our current and future partners. If interested to join that journey, please reach out!

But #wewillnotwait, clock is ticking both for us and the planet! Let's roll-up our sleeves for the #Cooperathon22 with the kick-off today! And I am beyond excited to share the stage with some world renowned figures of the AI and social impact field. Un énorme merci d’avoir accepté l’invitation Pr Yoshua Bengio (Founder of MILA, recipient of the Turing Award and most cited researcher in AI, and an amazing human being dedicated to AI & positive social impact), Dr Dr. Sasha Luccioni (lead scientist at Hugging Face , co-founder of Climate Change AI ; and just as amazing human) et Bruno Sanchez-Andrade Nu?o (Director of Microsoft Planetary Computer, and definitely looking forwards to know him more as a human).?

We will then have a privileged moment with the open innovation challenge givers and our partners as well as "mixology" opportunities for both passionate problem solvers (and solution ideas providers) and talented people looking to build or join a team to mingle with each others and with our partners and ecosystem support players to help kick-start this journey together!

Thank you Gildas Poissonnier , élise Joly , Polina E. , Bryce Nagels for your trust, expertise and generosity out of your busy schedules to help us bring this process to life for the current and next generation of scalable impact entrepreneurs!

More information and to register for free at the link below for the kickoff, and at www.cooperathon.ca for the whole program and competition (with more than 60 000$ in prizes too forgot to mention! ;) ) :

https://hopin.com/events/lancement-cooperathon-kick-off/registration

It’s hybrid (online and at MILA). We are sold-out, but as you probably know, diversity is crucial for me (especially when we talk about AI!); and we kept some exclusive tickets for the youth and students (CEGEP and University) as well as Women, BIPOC, and 2SLGBTQ+ interest in tech and scalable impact. So if you are or know anyone that identifies as such, please don’t hesitate to join and invite, introduce me or tag them :) (and if you don’t and really wanna come, ping me or my colleagues Simran Kanda ( ElanTech (ex-Montreal NewTech) ) or Madavi Sooriyapperuma ( Desjardins ) to take care of you ;))?

Au plaisir de vous y voir en personne ou en ligne, et bien hate à ce lancement, au parcours qui s’en vient, et je l'espère, à l'impact positif qu'on va pouvoir avoir toutes et tous ensembles!

And if all goes well, we will all celebrate with a big milestone at the Gala on November 17th!