FutureMakers Talks: Demystifying Digital Ethics 

FutureMakers is an RBC program that brings together diverse tech professionals to share knowledge and discuss major tech advances. We’re strong supporters of peer-to-peer tech groups in areas like machine learning, cybersecurity, mobile development, design, and enterprise architecture. We also share our insights through FutureMakers Talks and articles onrbc.com/FutureMakers.

RBC FutureMakers

“<A HREF="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/location-data-privacy-apps.html" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret</A>” – NY Times
“<A HREF="https://www.wsj.com/articles/you-give-apps-sensitive-personal-information-then-they-tell-facebook-11550851636" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">You Give Apps Sensitive Personal Information. Then They Tell Facebook.</A>” – WSJ 
“<A HREF="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3m7jq/dozens-of-cities-have-secretly-experimented-with-predictive-policing-software" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Dozens of Cities Have Secretly Experimented With Predictive Policing Software</A>” – Motherboard at Vice
“<A HREF="https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Facebook pays teens to install VPN that spies on them</A>” - TechCrunch
“<A HREF="https://www.thestar.com/vancouver/2019/01/21/google-confirms-it-uses-dummy-phone-numbers-to-record-calls-with-local-services.html" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Google confirms it uses dummy phone numbers to record calls with local services</A>” – Toronto Star
With headlines like these, it’s no wonder that ethical use of data is a hot topic in 2019.
Technology is changing and evolving, and with it, there is more data being collected about us and the world in general. Public and private lives are available in databases, but what is being done to safeguard our privacy? Are we exchanging our digital lives for something worthwhile, and is the data being used ethically? 
Without a strong ethical framework, we are left with organizations to self-regulate and to self-police. Do we trust our organizations to do this? Looking at “legacy” industries, we can see a strong history of regulations being put in place only after great harm was done. We may not be learning from our past if we don’t pre-emptively implement safeguards for technology, especially as software starts to come for the real world.
Join this month’s FutureMakers Talks on April 24th as we explore the implications of digital ethics and how it affects legacy industries, the aggregation of data, and our lives.
Agenda:
5:15pm : Innovation Lab Tour 6:00pm: Doors Open 6:30pm: Talks Begin 8:15pm: Open Networking
The evening will feature talks from various tech ethics and privacy experts:
<IMG ALT="Helen Kontozopoulos's Headshot" SRC="https://cdn.evbuc.com/eventlogos/226146418/helenaprilcirclenewthing.jpg">
<H2>Helen Kontozopoulos Co-Founder, ODAIA.AI. Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Computer Science, Univeristy of Toronto</H2>
 
 
<IMG ALT="Headshot of Deborah Raji" SRC="https://cdn.evbuc.com/eventlogos/226146418/fmheadshotdeboraheventbrite.jpg">
<H2>Deborah Raji Student Researcher, Google AI </H2>
 
<IMG ALT="Sarah Sun's Headshot" SRC="https://cdn.evbuc.com/eventlogos/226146418/sarahsunheadshoteventbrite.jpg">
<H2>Sarah Sun Chief Data Strategist, Goldspot Discoveries Inc.</H2>
 
<IMG ALT="Masoud Hashemi's Headshot" SRC="https://cdn.evbuc.com/eventlogos/226146418/masoud27scircleheadshot.png">
<H2>Masoud Hashemi Senior Data Scientist, RBC</H2>
<DIV CLASS="eb_sched_close"><HR>
<H2> </H2>
<H2>Speakers' Biographies</H2>
 
<H3>Helen Kontozopoulos</H3>
Helen Co-Founded ODAIA.ai, a customer journey analytics and prediction platform for enterprise companies. ODAIA’s core data mining and prediction algorithms were developed at the University of Toronto and supported by UofT’s Intellectual Property Office’s accelerator UTEST and MaRS Innovation. Helen is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto, where she teaches product development, design, and entrepreneurship in the Department of Computer Science and Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences. She co-founded the University of Toronto’s Department of Computer Science Innovation Lab, an incubator to support students and researchers to commercialize their innovations in emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Cyber security, and AR/VR. Her next community initiative is to increase the voices and diversity in the development of Artificial Intelligence by co-founding TheINGroup.ai
 
<H3>Deborah Raji</H3>
Deborah Raji is a senior in the Engineering Science program at the University of Toronto, majoring in the Robotics Option. She spent her Professional Experience Year (PEY) as a Machine Learning Engineering intern at Clarifai, a leading computer vision startup. She later became involved in AI research, working closely with Joy Buolamwini of the MIT Media Lab on several projects to highlight cases of bias in computer vision. Her first-author work with Joy has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Verge, Venture Beats, National Post, EnGadget, Toronto Star and won the Best Student Paper Award at the ACM/AAAI Conference for AI Ethics & Society.
Deborah's enthusiasm for coding also led her to found the student initiative, Project Include, which aims to provide summer coding bootcamps for hundreds of middle school students in low income communities in the Greater Toronto Area and Ecuador. She has presented multiple times on the topic of Machine Bias, at events run by Fast Company’s Innovation summit, Women Who Code NYC, Girls Make Apps, and AI4All and is now a mentee in Google AI’s flagship research mentorship cohort, working with their Ethical AI team.
 
<H3>Sarah Sun</H3>
Sarah Sun has almost a decade of experience from the financial industry with a specialty in data value creation. Educated at the University of Waterloo with a double major in Mathematical Finance and Statistics, she has a broad array of experience covering business analytics, predictive modeling, data science, recruiting, innovation, ventures, data governance, monetization, and strategy. As Chief Data Strategist for GoldSpot Discoveries, she is focused on driving long-term growth and revenue through a new approach to resource investing - the combination of fundamental investing and AI-quantitative investing for the resource market. A self-proclaimed math nerd, Sarah's other passion is advanced mathematics education for secondary students. She has served as lecturer, organizer, and coach for various math groups in Ontario for more than a decade, and had the privilege of being Deputy Leader and Coach for Math Team Canada at both the International Mathematics Olympiad in 2017, and for Canada's first appearance at the European Girls Math Olympiad in 2018. She will be leading Math Team Canada once again in 2019.
 
<H3>Masoud Hashemi</H3>
Masoud Hashemi is a senior data scientist at Data & Analytics (DNA), Royal Bank of Canada. He holds a Ph.D. from university of Toronto in Biomedical engineering with expertise in machine learning and optimization algorithms focused on the applications in medical imaging. He has worked as a research scientist at Sunnybrook hospital, enabling more accurate and frameless Gamma knife radiation therapy by adding online CBCT imaging to the treatment process, for the first time in the world. He has worked in different data science roles at Scotiabank, Tangerine, and RBC for past three years, applying his skills in machine learning and optimization for personalized/customer-centric banking. He is currently involved in the trustworthy AI project at DNA’s data-science team, developing standards and algorithms to validate the ART (Accountability, Responsibility, Transparency) of machine learning models. He is an active member of Toronto machine learning communities, interested in deep learning model explainability, adversarial robustness, model and data safety in DNNs.
 
<HR>
 
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="eb_sched_close">
<DIV>
FutureMakers Talks
The FutureMakers Talks series is an on-going meetup and learn tech community event presented by RBC. The talks are designed to bring tech enthusiasts, practitioners and experts in the tech community under one roof to share knowledge and discuss major tech advances. The series will feature stimulating discussions on machine learning, digital payments, digital design, cybersecurity and more.
 
</DIV>
<DIV>*** If cost is prohibiting you from attending our event, please contact us at futuremakers@rbc.com and we will ensure you have access to attend. *** </DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="eb_sched_close"> </DIV>

RBC WaterPark Place Auditorium

Our {communityGuidelinesLink} describe the sort of content we prohibit on Eventbrite. If you suspect an event may be in violation, you can report it to us so we can investigate.

To report other categories of prohibited or illegal content, submit {link}

FutureMakers Talks: Demystifying Digital Ethics

More events from RBC FutureMakers

Discover more events from RBC FutureMakers, from Science & Tech to other experiences you might love.

Still looking for the right event?

Explore all events in Toronto and filter by date, category, and more to find the perfect fit.

FutureMakers Talks: Demystifying Digital Ethics

More events from RBC FutureMakers

Discover more events from RBC FutureMakers, from Science & Tech to other experiences you might love.

More Science & Tech events

Browse more Science & Tech events with different dates, prices, and formats to find your next great experience.

Still looking for the right event?

Explore all events in Toronto and filter by date, category, and more to find the perfect fit.