Three Northern Ontario artificial-intelligence-based projects have received a portion of $634,110 in Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario (FedNor) funding which aims to support Canadians with the tools needed to continue growing and contributing to the national economy.
The Northwestern Ontario Innovation Centre will receive $456,000 for its Youth Tech Impact Program (YTIP), which connects young professionals with small- to medium-sized enterprises across Northern Ontario to work on artificial intelligence, which is commonly known as AI, and technology projects.
Richard Gemmill, the centre’s executive director, explained that through the Youth Tech Impact Program, 30 Northern Ontario businesses can hire and train skilled youths to develop or implement new technologies.
“It’s another evolution of youth programming that we’ve been running out of the Innovation Centre for several years and this rendition of the program is really focused on AI,” Gemmill said.
With the first of three cohorts completed, he said they placed nine students and graduates with nine businesses to work on specific projects involving the integration of AI into the operations.
“This funding supports the entrepreneur to hire and subsidize the wages of that student for a 16-week placement,” he added.
Kinmetrix, a Sudbury organization that works with athletes to strengthen their necks, will receive $155,000 to support the development of an AI-powered physical rehabilitation tool.
The Muskoka Lakes Chamber of Commerce received $23,110 to implement AI to better support members and visitors seeking information and local resources.
Patty Hajdu, MP for Thunder Bay-Superior North, minister of jobs and families and minister responsible for FedNor, was on hand at the Northwestern Ontario Innovation Centre with Evan Solomon, minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation and minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for southern Ontario, to make the announcement on Thursday.
Hajdu noted that data shows Thunder Bay as being “slightly behind the rest of Canada” in terms of AI adoption.
“People are using AI every single day in their lives, and in some ways they know about it, and in other ways they don’t. AI is part of our life. It’s part of the way that we do business,” she said.
She added that there’s a fabric to AI that’s starting to underpin the way that business is done, and the challenge is to make sure that people know where AI is going.
Solomon said the funding, which comes through the Regional AI Initiative and is delivered through FedNor and its southern Ontario counterpart, FedDev, supports innovators and businesses that are hiring. He pointed out that in Canada, there’s already well over 150,000 people working just in AI.
“And it’s growing all the time in new jobs, and that’s part of over 800,000 to a million Canadians who are working in the digital space already,” he said. “This is the fastest-growing job sector so far.”
Solomon says the federal government is soon starting a national and free AI literacy program aimed at every Canadian to make sure that everyone is educated on what these technologies are about.
