Joanne Friedman

AI represents a powerful opportunity to transform the delivery of patient care, as well as help solve some significant system challenges. One such area where opportunity abounds is helping to address the unbelievable administrative burden on our already overworked health care providers. Yes, there can be real value in the information and data being captured by doctors and healthcare providers -- but this comes at a price (and not all of it may be delivering value today). Indeed, in a recent survey by the Ontario Medical Association, "documentation" was cited by as a major driver contributing to "physician burnout" by the province's doctors. Incredibly, some doctors were reporting spending two hours of time documenting every one hour encounter with a patient -- and family doctors reported spending upwards of six hours a day ON PAPERWORK! I don't know about you, but I'd rather have my doctor spend more time on caring for me than documenting the encounter itself! The use of AI tools -- as well as a deliberative, thoughtful, and purposeful approach to determining how and why specific information is to be documented -- needs to be part of the picture to reducing the administrative burden on physicians, other healthcare providers, as well as system administrators. In the article below, our digital health practice lead (and COO), David Thomas, takes a look at some recent announcements that we can hope might provide some relief down the road. #ontariomedicalassociation #healthcaresolutions #ai

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Are you implementing a community-facing AI solution in the Canadian Public Sector? If you are you MUST read the Stanford AI Index Report. The most critical consideration is that Canadians are in a dead heat for last place in the world for trusting that AI's benefits outweigh the risks. This means that it is not enough to build it, you need to lead with community engagement and clear communications around the responsible and ethical use of your solution. It's reassuring that Info-Tech Research Group's members in the Canadian public sector have been quick to leverage our support in defining practical and actionable approaches to building the AI principles, governance, and strategy that make that lighter work! https://lnkd.in/g4stWKAZ Dave Wallace Theresa Hughes Jim Kirk Benoit Proulx Christine Coz, MSc., CGEIT, CISSP Rob Meikle

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An excellent overview (and some of us know about these debates) - Canada needs a Digital vision and that includes modernizing laws. It's encouraging to see that a number of politicians also think so. EU, UK are so far ahead. Where does that leave us??? Ohhh, Canada! #digital #privacy #bigtech #canada #datadriven #era #vision #modernization

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Having been a tech #entrepreneur for 30 years now, this is absurd. Colin Deacon outlines key issues with the newly announced increase in Capital Gains taxes in #Budget2024 and long standing flawed policies. #Innovation doesn’t just happened. It comes about as a result of risk-taking entrepreneurs (taking little salary, if any, for long periods) who raise early-stage investment capital from Angel Investors (investing after tax dollars), who then work to attract foreign direct investment in order to build, grow, and scale in #Canada. This level of risk is taken in the hopes of a successful outcome of an exit (acquisition, IPO, etc.). Many successful outcomes lead to re-investment in other ventures and creation of new early-stage companies. Does it seem right to tax them again and again on after tax dollars? Re-investment tax credits, flow-through shares, or other solutions must be considered in order to mitigate the impact of Angel investors pulling back (leading to less deals for Venture Capital investors) and entrepreneurs leaving Canada. Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland, François-Philippe Champagne — reconsider your position as this is Not best for the long term growth of Canada. #AngelInvestors #VentureCapital #TalentRetention

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☺️Thanks Canadian SME Business Magazine to feature my article Transforming Canada’s SMEs Sector: The Promise of Generative AI Link: https://lnkd.in/ewCd2hbq #article #sme #canada #genai #ai #business #startup #artificialintelligence #tech #technology

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On a global scale, Canada is not a major player. And yet, there is a lot of focus on us from countries that are looking to interfere in our government, economy, health, and security. The two major reasons are our huge natural resource reserves and our close trading relations (and relatively unprotected border) with the USA. Many illicit goods transit through our nation on the way to the US, and as their longstanding ally, we owe them more stringent border protection than we have provided. This was the reason WayFare Identifiers' border security tech received written support from 4 Federal Ministers when we initiated our R&D program. Unlike GC Strategies, our expensive R&D cost taxpayers nothing and, despite this, once US Homeland gave us approval for testing at BC/Alaska border crossings, CBSA refused to assist anyway (laughably based on this quote alone: "we are not kingmakers.") Let's quantify the level of this problem using just Iran as the supplier of concern. Keep in mind that Iran is a big supplier of illicit trade to the globe, but smaller than South America, China, India and Pakistan. Here are the statistics on Iranian dirty-money ventures as a percentage of their overall GDP. Look at these graphs... the cumulative flow of laundered funds that return to Iran are almost exactly 10% of their entire gross revenues. And they are not our biggest problem on this front. Their dirty revenue stream is massive, but smaller than the flow to other suppliers. No need to delve much further than this to explain why Canada's career bureaucrats crushed WayFare Identifiers Inc (WFI.) Once we refused a takeover bid backed by the China Sovereignty Fund (one that would have controlled us), our technology was targeted in order to protect the billions of dollars of illicit trade & laundered money transiting our land every month. In Canada, no drug dealer or money launderer has ever been attacked as aggressively by our bureaucrats as the founders of WFI.

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“Innovate or Sue” Don’t be That Guy! ClickFunnels once the king of the sales funnel jungle, is taking GoHighLevel.ca to court over patent infringement claims. We’re talking about patents that, quite frankly, cover pretty standard tech for creating marketing websites which any half-decent platform today would use. Sounds desperate? You bet it is. Here’s what I’ve been able to gather: ClickFunnels claims HighLevel stepped on their toes with technology that’s supposedly under patent—stuff about creating websites with directional webpages. Basically, the bread and butter of what these platforms do. But here’s where it gets juicy—instead of pumping out new features or smashing through the tech ceiling, ClickFunnels’ master plan is to drag their competition through the mud of legal warfare. Russel Brunson, the guru behind ClickFunnels, used to preach about pushing the envelope, about being at the cutting edge. Now? It seems he’d rather call his lawyers than his developers when he feels the heat from up-and-comers like HighLevel. Let's cut through the Bullshit: This lawsuit reeks of fear. Fear of competition, fear of irrelevance. While ClickFunnels was busy patting itself on the back, HighLevel was gearing up, building a community, and—get this—innovating. And when the underdog starts to look like it might take the lead, the old guard hits the panic button. Remember what Tony Robbins says about anticipation being an entrepreneur's best asset? Well, somewhere along the line, ClickFunnels missed the memo. You can't just sit around, resting on your laurels, waiting for someone to eventually outpace you. If there was a real patent issue, why wait till HighLevel became a powerhouse with a community and a billion-dollar backing before throwing legal punches? So here’s my two cents for any entrepreneur listening: Don’t cry like a baby when you get beat fair and square because you didn’t keep your edge. Lawsuits might seem like a quick fix, but they’re just a costly distraction. In the time you waste fighting in court, your competitor is out there, hustling hard, winning your customers. Stay awake, stay alert, and for heaven's sake, stay innovative. Because in this fast-paced market, if you’re not moving forward, you’re just dead weight waiting to be left behind. Tired of watching from the sidelines? Ready to play the game like a true forward-thinker? Join our weekly free AI training where we dive into the latest tech that keeps you ahead, not just afloat. Drop a "AI" in the comments and let’s fire up your business with real innovation, not just legal papers. In this world, it’s innovate or die, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to roll over just yet. Let’s get to work

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Please spend a few minutes and share your voice - Ever received a prescription, are 18+, and Canadian? You qualify. Click logo below. Password is Voice2024. Results intended for publication and includes diversity and inclusion experiences. You can opt to get a copy and enter a draw too. Your perspectives matter. #patientadvocacy #healthcare #yourvoicematters

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The 33% increase in Capital Gains tax (a 66.6% tax inclusion rate is 33.3% higher than 50%) significantly widens the gap between Canada and U.S. investment tax structures and makes it much harder for Canadian investors (like private equity firms) to beat out their U.S. competitors when attempting to buy a Canadian company. The Canadian PE firms after-tax profit outcomes are so much lower, so they can’t put together a competitive bid. BTW: the U.S. firms already had a big leg up on the Canadian firms and that’s why Canadian firms were already struggling to compete. This results in future profits from the previously Canadian owned company going to the United States. Not to be spent or taxed here. We have less money to be spent by Canadians in Canada on goods and services, like restaurants and local stores. Canada loses! This is just one example of the impact of the 33.3% tax increase. This in no way only impacts the top 1%. Regular people investing in Canadian companies will be impacted when the Canadian companies become less competitive, as well as regular people just simply working at regular jobs trying to make a living.

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A clear and detailed description of the AI and Data Act (AIDA) in Canada in terms of key actors and technologies targeted, core objectives and enforcement procedures. "AIDA hasn’t yet matured but if all goes well, it should take effect by 2025. The Act is being designed to align with the AI legislation approaches of the UK, EU, and US to facilitate interoperability and international collaboration—many of the core concepts engrained in the EU AI Act, NIST AI Risk Management Framework, AI Bill of Rights, UK Proposal for AI Regulation, and OECD AI Principles have also made their way into AIDA. Simply put, AIDA is a risk-centric legislation that aims to protect fundamental rights, human health and safety, and democracy while balancing AI risks with opportunities to foster trustworthy and responsible AI (RAI) innovation."

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This June, in collaboration with Mitacs and Dawson College Artificial Intelligence, our team at AI Launch Lab / Lancement IA will begin operating AI Accelerator Programs, an initiative designed to develop AI competencies in Canada's future workforce and to increase AI adoption in industry. As increasingly powerful AI models and tools begin to transform our roles in the workplace, the barriers to developing capacity to participate in these innovations is dropping. Having not yet been inculcated by workspaces of the present, college students are especially well-placed to learn, adapt, and contribute. AI Accelerator Programs can help enable a generation of college students to be prepared and capable to help Canadian industry lead this transition. College students with any background and from any discipline will be able to join a free, accessible, and diverse AI cohort, learning state-of-the-art skills through the process of creation while being mentored by experts in the field. Applied Learning will be followed by Launch, where distinguished students will be selected for a paid internship in order to complete an applied AI R&D project while retaining the full support, training, and mentorship from our teams and experts. AI Accelerator Programs' unique model enables rapid upskilling and provides industry value throughout the training process through starting and scaling R&D projects, prototyping, and experimentation to capable teams with a minimum of cost, management, and onboarding. It also promotes responsible AI by catalyzing practical deployment of data security and privacy-first practices as well as algorithmic impact assessments, leading to better outcomes for all stakeholders, and reducing potential liability from AI adoption to companies. AI Accelerator Programs will further advance Canada's strengths in AI education, increase adoption across industries and business sizes, expand the AI talent pool, and support the success of underrepresented groups in the talent development pipeline. I am thrilled to be part of this initiative, which we aim to scale to many thousands of students over the coming years. It is the outcome of more than 5 years of work from our current and previous teams, as well as the indispensable support of many colleagues, collaborators, and friends during that time. If you're interested in hiring an intern through this program (subsidized 50%+ by Mitacs) and benefitting from the project management, support, and deep expertise from AI Launch Lab and our partners, as well as the vast pool of trained and dedicated college students who will be contributing to your project's success even as they learn, apply at the link below. If you want to collaborate with us in another way or want to learn more, send me a message. The future competitiveness of the Canadian economy depends on its ability to vastly increase AI adoption and the AI talent base. Let’s help lead the way together. https://lnkd.in/eC5fFRwE

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The latest edition of @Collision Conf in Toronto has just concluded. It is with a touch of sadness that we witness this flagship event leave the city. However, this transition opens up new opportunities for the innovation ecosystem on the East Coast of Canada.   At ALL IN, we are more committed than ever to taking the #AI ecosystem to the next level. With a rapidly expanding sector and significant momentum both locally and internationally, we have ambitious goals: to double the size of the event and to reach close to 8,000 visitors and business people by 2025.   What is the impact of these changes for our business and innovation community? We have all the assets to become the new center of gravity for business and technological innovation, thus attracting numerous professionals and sponsors in search of technological excellence.   We invite all members and leaders of Canada's AI ecosystem to join us in strengthening our position as a unique technological hub in North America. Together, let's seize this opportunity to propel innovation and business to new heights! ALL IN #Innovation #AI #ALLIN2024 #CollisionConf #BusinessEcosystem #TechHub #Canada #ArtificialIntelligence #Montreal https://allinevent.ai/

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How Generative AI Can Transform Canada’s Future Microsoft and Accenture report indicates #GenerativeAI (Gen AI) could contribute $180 billion annually to the #Canadian #economy by 2030, with potential labor productivity gains saving workers 125 hours per year. #SMEs could benefit significantly, potentially adding $100 billion to the economy by 2030, crucial as they generate around 50% of Canadian GDP. Key sectors like #healthcare, #government, financial services, and natural resources could see substantial improvements through #GenAI, from enhancing patient care to optimizing resource extraction. Challenges to broad adoption include increasing public trust in AI, with only 9% of Canadian businesses currently using Gen AI and public trust at 31%. Enablers for responsible adoption include public awareness, clear policy frameworks, skilled workforces, innovative culture, affordable models and infrastructure, and collaborative ecosystems. Microsoft emphasizes its commitment to responsible AI development and deployment, supporting initiatives for governance and transparency in AI advancement. Urgency is stressed for #Canada to accelerate #AI adoption to maintain global competitiveness, with Microsoft pledging support for SMEs and enterprises in their AI transformation journey. For more information: https://lnkd.in/dK_ev4Wx

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Disrupting AI Search - Upend Emerges from Stealth with 100 LLMs to Challenge Tech Giants As generative AI continues to transform search technology, Upend, a Canadian startup, has emerged from stealth to democratize access to advanced AI models. Founded by Jeevan Arora, Upend offers a unique AI-first search platform powered by 100 large language models (LLMs), surpassing competitors like Perplexity in diversity and affordability. Targeting enterprise teams and students, Upend’s innovative pricing model ensures cost-effective access, driving up to 90% savings compared to industry leaders. The platform not only answers queries but aims to execute tasks, signaling a future shift towards comprehensive AI task engines. With traditional search engines predicted to see a 25% volume drop by 2026, Upend is positioned to redefine the search landscape. #AI #GenerativeAI #SearchTechnology #TechInnovation #DigitalTransformation #Startup #FutureOfSearch https://lnkd.in/gH8XwatR

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Here's a summary of the top AI news for last week! 🔙 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐬: 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐈 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐤 Week 34 | April 8 - April 14 Oh Canada, my home and native land... Industry: 🚨Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $2.4B investment package from Budget 2024 to reinforce Canada's AI sector (https://lnkd.in/g4fwyCie) 🚨 Another Canadian company Cohere releases its new foundation model, Rerank 3, purpose-built to enhance enterprise search and RAG systems. It offers 4k context length, ability to search over multi-aspect and semi-structured data, 100+ languages, and improved latency and TCO (https://lnkd.in/gXNg_cvZ). 🚨Microsoft to invest US$2.9 billion in Japan’s AI and cloud infrastructure (https://lnkd.in/gJ5y4EK9?). 🚨South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Tuesday his country will $7B in artificial intelligence by 2027 as part of efforts to retain a leading global position in cutting-edge semiconductor chips (https://lnkd.in/gXCEAbk4?). 🚨Reka AI announces Reka Core, a frontier-class multimodal language model that excels at video understanding (https://lnkd.in/gWVykUD2?) 🚨Meta confirms that Llama 3 is coming next month (https://lnkd.in/g9-vB8Zy). Meta also announces the next generation of its AI accelerator chip. This new version more than doubles the compute and memory bandwidth of our previous solution (https://lnkd.in/grKmCbAV). 🚨 OpenAI has brought the new GPT-4 Turbo to paid ChatGPT users (https://lnkd.in/gUvhhjEJ). 🚨 Google's gemini pro 1.5 is now available in public preview on vertex AI, Google's enterprise-focused AI development platform (https://lnkd.in/gy_dUiEV) 🚨Amazon adds Andrew Ng to its board of directors (https://lnkd.in/g3TJKb8j) Financing and M&A: 🚨 Sam Altman and Jony Ive (former Apple design chief) is currently seeking $1B funding for an AI-powered personal device (https://lnkd.in/gCdHnE_s) Research and Innovation: 🚨Qwen team releases Qwen 1.5, a 32B and 64B parameter models that achieves strong performance against Mixtral 8x7B (https://lnkd.in/gEQjFzeV) 🚨Mistral has released a new 8 x 22B model, available on Hugging Face (https://lnkd.in/gTAA75C7?). 🚨xAI has announced that its latest flagship model has vision capabilities on par with SOTA models (https://lnkd.in/gvf9E3DY?) Other Interesting Resources: 🚨Stanford AI index report (https://lnkd.in/gtaGf32X) 🚨 Forbes AI 50 list (https://lnkd.in/g7nt9vhk)

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Important Update: Canadian Healthcare Legislation - Bill C-72 Health Canada has introduced a new bill aimed at improving the interoperability of health information across Canada. The bill focuses on empowering Canadians with access to their health information, enabling seamless sharing of patient data among clinicians, and implementing modern health IT standards such as APIs and FHIR. Highlights from the briefing session include the mandate for adopting common technical and data content standards, prohibiting data blocking by health IT vendors, and emphasizing the use of APIs for patient access and system integration, along with FHIR as the standard for data exchange between systems. The legislation seeks to eliminate technical barriers to data flow and prevent intentional or unintentional data blocking. Vendors are required to ensure secure access, use, and exchange of health information without imposing prohibitive costs on patients or providers. Stay informed about the latest developments in Canadian healthcare by following the link below. #Healthcare #HealthIT #DigitalHealth #PatientSafety #CanadaHealth [Link to the full article](https://lnkd.in/gGhGMEEj)

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It’s actually very simple: “Innovation Tax” Now it really doesn’t make any sense for start-up founders to stay in Canada. Such a concerning move that will disrupt Canadian start-up ecosystem.

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Canadian government is setting aside $2.4 billion in its upcoming budget to Exciting times ahead for AI development in Canada! Canadian government is setting aside $2.4 billion in its upcoming budget to build capacity in artificial intelligence. The bulk of that — $2 billion — is going into a fund that will aim to provide access to computing capabilities. As Statista shows the Canadian market size in the AI is projected to reach US$4.13bn in 2024 and it is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2024-2030) of 28.39%, resulting in a market volume of US$18.50bn by 2030. Both countries (Canada and Poland) are expected to experience impressive annual growth rates in the AI market, with Poland at 28.55% and Canada at 28.39% between 2024 and 2030. So what - just to encourage some reflection ... 😉 https://lnkd.in/dmMh4dHb

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