Recording

Vice President, Engineering and Data Science @ Loblaw Digital

Charu is an accomplished technology executive with a rich background in retail, financial services and supply chain, currently serving as Vice President, Engineering and Data Science at Lobular Digital and responsible for all technology, data science and analytics for e-commerce, loyalty and media businesses. With a strong expertise in building high performance teams, technology strategy and a deep passion for AI, He is helping build AI driven best of breed e-commerce experience for all Canadians. Charu is a known name in the AI circles in Canada and has been very active in the community, actively contributing back to the ML community by organizing ML community events, actively advising startups and mentoring young talent. 

Before joining Loblaws, Charu held pivotal roles at Paytm, largest fintech out of India as VP of engineering and ML, where he drove many initiatives like personalization, building media and building financial services business and was part of the team that grew Paytm to 70M daily active users. Charu holds a masters degree in engineering from McMaster University.

Senior Director Business Development Edge and Edge AI @ Advantech

Sven Freudenfeld is Senior Director for Edge and Edge AI at Advantech North America. He previously served as the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of Lanner’s Telecom Applications Business Unit. Sven possesses 30 years of experience in telecommunications, network computing, product management and business development.

Prior to assuming this position in Lanner, Sven had taken several managerial positions in global business developments for Noviflow, LEI Technology (a subsidiary of Lanner in Canada) and Kontron, and had greatly contributed in the cloud, media and telecom market segments. He was fundamental in accelerating the adoption for P4 and OpenFlow based packet forwarding technology, virtual CPE/SD-WAN, and Advanced Telecommunication Computing Architecture (ATCA) technology in the service provider market. Prior to his tenure at Kontron, Sven had held several engineering positions: Network Engineering at Deutsche Telekom, System Architect at Abewa GMBH, Systems Engineering at Nortel and Test Engineering at Sanmina-SCI.

Robotics business development covering the Americas @ Intel Corporation

Born and raised in Upstate New York, Milton attended the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) as an undergrad. In 2022, he went back to RIT to complete an online Executive Master of Business Administration degree. He has a 24-year-old son, and lives with his significant other in Atlanta, GA. They have 3 dogs, a stubborn 12 y/o Dachshund, a vigilant 7 y/o Pit mix, and an excited 5 y/o Great Pyrenees/Lab mix named Sadie. 

Milton previously spent twenty-one years at Intel Corporation in various technical customer facing roles. Eight years of that was spent as a Field Applications Engineer, covering mobile, desktop, server and embedded. Leaving Intel in 2016, Milton dabbled in the robotics startup world and worked to build the Maker community in the Atlanta Metro area. He went back into the industry at the beginning of the pandemic spending some time at SICK, Inc. and is currently focused on Robotics back at Intel Corporation.

In his spare time, he enjoys building robots, snowboarding, teaching, learning, travel, and astrophotography. One of his current goals is imaging the original list of 103 Messier deep space objects.

Digital Transformation Leader /Strategic Advisor / Data & AI Specialist @ Microsoft

Bhawna Manchanda, a trailblazing Data & AI Lead at Microsoft for Atlantic  Canada. With over 2 decades of IT experience,  Bhawna has excelled in roles spanning from Big Data Analytics to IoT and AI evangelism.  Her impactful roles at Microsoft  and other companies have seen her spearhead transformative IoT and AI projects, driving innovation and efficiency. Bhawna’s visionary leadership and deep passion for cutting-edge technologies make her an influential voice in the industry.

Strategic Advisor on AI, Technology, and Innovation.

Bala is a seasoned leader leading AI solutions @ scale in many different industries such as Health care, Real estate, Weather, Consumer insights, Sales/E-Commerce and MarTech. Bala was formerly the Chief Data Officer in Pelmorex (The Weather Network) where he built and scaled the AI capability of Pelmorex from scratch and helped launch several new businesses and products.

Prior to Pelmorex, Bala led engineering and software teams at Johnson Controls (Fortune 100) and Eutech Cybernetics which was rated by Gartner as one of the cool companies in smart city solutions.  Bala has a Master’s of Science in Computer Engineering from The University of Alabama, and an MBA from Ivey Business School. 

Process Automation Area Lead @ ArcelorMittal Dofasco
Sessional Professor @ McMaster University

Pedro is a seasoned engineering professional with over 17 years of combined experience in aerospace and industrial automation engineering. He has held various positions at UTC Aerospace Systems and ArcelorMittal Dofasco, where he has driven process automation initiatives and implemented cutting-edge solutions to enhance operational conditions and safety. Pedro’s ability to balance innovation with practical engineering applications has allowed him to lead teams and projects that have transformed complex industrial processes into improved, data-driven systems.

In 2013, after completing his master’s, Pedro expanded his involvement into academia by joining McMaster University as a sessional professor. He is recognized for his dynamic teaching style and depth of knowledge in structure and properties of materials and IoT (Internet of Things), inspiring a generation of engineers to adopt innovative technologies.

Pedro is passionate about mentoring young engineers, and his dual role in both sectors allows him to bridge the gap between theoretical research and practical application. This unique perspective positions him as a leader who is not only advancing technological innovation but also shaping the future of engineering education.

Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering @ the University of Toronto.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and a Life Fellow of the IEEE. He authored: Probability and Random Processes for Electrical Engineering, and Communication Networks: Fundamental Concepts and Key Architecture. He led the NSERC Strategic Network for Smart Applications on Virtual Infrastructures (SAVI). SAVI designed and deployed a national testbed in Canada that converges cloud computing and software-defined networking. His research is focused on intelligent automated orchestration and management systems for large-scale infrastructures such as multi-tier clouds.

Professor in Computer Engineering @ the University of Toronto

David Lie received his BASc from the University of Toronto in 1998, and his MS and PhD from Stanford University in 2001 and 2004. He is currently Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Secure and Reliable Systems.  He also holds appointments in the Department of Computer Science, the Faculty of Law and is the Director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, an Associate Director at the Data Sciences Institute, a Vector Faculty Affiliate and a Senior Massey College Fellow.  He is known for his seminal work on the XOM architecture, which was an early precursor to modern trusted execution processor architectures such as ARM Trustzone and Intel SGX.  He was the recipient of a best paper award at SOSP for this work. He developed the PScout Android Permission mapping tool, whose datasets have been downloaded over 10,000 times and used in dozens of subsequent papers.  David has served on various program committees including OSDI, Usenix Security, IEEE Security & Privacy, NDSS and CCS. David’s research interests are broadly focused in the areas or privacy and cybersecurity.

Founder and Managing Partner of Simulation Division @ Megalab Group Inc.

Mohsen has over 20 years of experience in engineering services, combining technical, business, and leadership skills. He holds his post graduate degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Tehran Polytechnic, and accomplished my Post Doctorate at University of Montreal as well as advanced MBA from McGill University. He has received multiple awards for his technical expertise from GM Canada and for management and revenue generation for simulation software. Mohsen is passionate about solving complex engineering problems and achieving business goals with innovative and cost-effective solutions.

Senior Director of Partnerships @ LandingAI

Responsible for the strategic partnership between Advantech and LandingAI. This includes go to market planning, technical product integration,  sales & marketing enablement and customer project discovery and management. Carl has almost 30 years experience working with customers to implement computer vision and automation solutions at the edge.

Founder and CTO @ Edge AI Innovations Inc.

For the past 12 years Majid has been working as scientific programmer, and lead data scientist in various tech startups and large companies. He is a dynamic and engaging speaker who is passionate about the transformative power of AI. With a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from McGill University and a proven track record in scientific research and hands-on experience in data science and AI, Dr. Fekri brings a unique blend of scientific expertise and real-world experience to the stage. He is the founder of Edge AI Innovations, a platform dedicated to education and consultation about Edge AI, empowering individuals and businesses to harness its potential.