This week, RBC Borealis welcomed a new cohort of undergraduate students from universities across Canada to its 2023 Let’s SOLVE it program cohort, now offered in partnership with CIFAR.
 
Let’s SOLVE it program helps educate undergraduate students at Canadian universities about AI by supporting their interest in solving real problems in their communities using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), to drive positive change.
 
The 2023 cohort of Let’s SOLVE It participants includes undergraduate students from the University of Toronto, the University of Western Ontario, McMaster University, Simon Fraser University, and the University of Waterloo. Their undergraduate programs are also impressively varied, including Management and Organizational Studies, Computer Science, Software Engineering, and many more.

The Canadian AI ecosystem is growing, and diverse perspectives are needed more than ever

Given Let’s SOLVE It program’s focus on making the field of AI more accessible and helping ensure that the future of Canada’s AI ecosystem is diverse, it has been great to see over 70% of students in this cohort identify as visible minorities, with several students self-identifying as LGBTQ+ and as people with disabilities – coming from universities across the country and with varied educational backgrounds.

This year’s cohort aims to solve real problems in their communities, from predicting radon levels in homes to tackling the use of machine learning for stroke prediction and investigating the impact of ChatGPT on education systems.

Taking projects from an idea to impact has been a valuable learning experience for the student teams and for RBC Borealis. Last year, Hungry Hippos, a team of five students from the 2022 Let’s SOLVE it cohort joined the program without any specific background in AI. They have built a working prototype – Sign Me Up – an ASL app to help tackle a global communication problem.

“We came into this program wanting to build a solution to a real-world problem but had no experience with ML/AI. Through the Let’s SOLVE it program, RBC Borealis gave us the opportunity to explore machine learning in our own time while also providing great resources to help us along the way; like computing power to help train models faster,” the Hungry Hippos Team, Carleton University noted upon completion of the Let’s SOLVE It program in 2022.  

“We need to start unlocking the field of AI for people from an early stage in their careers to help encourage diversity in Canada’s future AI talent and help shape the future of the AI ecosystem,” said Eirene Seiradaki, Director of Research Partnerships, RBC Borealis.

The Canadian AI ecosystem is growing, and diverse perspectives are needed more than ever. RBC Borealis is proud to support Canada’s undergraduate students in their dreams of pioneering the next game-changing community solution using AI and ML and helping them get there – providing mentorship, resources, training, and guidance.

To learn more about the Let’s SOLVE It program go to: Let’s SOLVE It.