RBC Borealis partners with Mila to host thought-provoking event at AAAI 2025 

RBC Borealis strives to make Artificial Intelligence (AI) more inclusive and accessible to everyone. As part of this effort, the team partnered with Mila – Quebec AI Institute to co-organize an engaging session on Inclusion and Diversity in AI at the 39^th Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence held in Philadelphia this year. Being one of the exclusive events featured in the conference’s Diversity and Inclusion track held significant value, providing AI researchers and industry leaders with a platform to engage in meaningful conversations around inclusivity, responsible AI and social good.  

Artificial Intelligence is shaping the future of our society. If we want that future to be equitable and just for everyone, we need to ensure that all social groups, all voices, backgrounds, and perspectives are represented in the AI development process from design to implementation.

Dr. Eirene Seiradaki

Director of Research Partnerships at RBC Borealis

Expert Insights: A Panel Discussion on AI and Social Good

The event featured a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Seiradaki, with experts from academia and industry, including Luisa Cutillo (Faculty at University of Leeds | Board of Directors at WiML), Indra Kubicek (President & CEO at Digital Moment), Sedef Akinly Kocak (Director at Vector Institute), and Bonaventure Dosou (PhD Candidate at Mila | Co-Founder of Lanfrica). The panelists explored the evolving landscape of AI and the importance of diverse perspectives in shaping ethical and effective AI systems, discussing topics such as inclusion, diversity, responsible AI, fairness, low-resource languages, and courses of action to achieve fair representation of all social groups in AI and ML. 

The conversation centered on real-world challenges, such as how to ensure AI systems account for diverse linguistic and cultural contexts, educational and social backgrounds and how to create pipelines for underrepresented groups to thrive in AI. Of particular importance is the topic of supporting young people from all social groups to get involved with AI early on, educating them on potential risks and guiding them to use the latest technologies for social good. 

The audience, comprising members from all three Canadian AI institutes (Mila, Vector Institute, and AMII), universities, and key industry professionals, actively participated in the conversation, raising thought-provoking questions and proposing ideas for courses of action. The dialogue with Dr. Alan Mackworth and Dr. Lili Mou was particularly insightful and engaging. 

Networking for Impact: Partnering Organizations and Initiatives

The event culminated in a dynamic networking session featuring a curated exhibition of the following partnering organizations and initiatives focused on inclusivity and encouraging underrepresented groups to take part in AI.

RBC Borealis’ participation at AAAI 2025 is a notable milestone, reaffirming the team’s deep commitment to ensuring that AI systems are fair, inclusive, and accessible to all.

Research and Innovation: Presenting a Paper on Zero-Shot Machine Translation

Beyond the “Inclusion in AI” event, the team had the opportunity to present a research paper from a partnership between RBC Borealis, University of Alberta, AMII and Mitacs during the main technical track of the conference. The paper is titled: “EBBS: An Ensemble with Bi-Level Beam Search for Zero-Shot Machine Translation” [Yuqiao Wen, Behzad Shayegh, Chenyang Huang, Yanshuai Cao, Lili Mou]. The RBC Borealis team also organized a successful workshop on “AI for Social Impact,” and attended one of the most important highlights of the conference: the release of the AAAI 2025 Presidential Panel Report on the Future of AI. The report includes 17 chapters on various AI topics from research to applications to methodologies and describes potential opportunities and challenges in the field ahead. 

RBC Borealis is committed to collaborating with organizations and individuals dedicated to building an ecosystem where AI and ML work for everyone. The discussions that took place and the relationships that were built during AAAI 2025 are a powerful reminder of why this matters.

If you were unable to attend AAAI this year, below you can find a small photo album with some highlights from our event on Diversity and Inclusion in AI.