Durham College partners with NEXT Canada to provide AI mentorship

Durham College (DC) has been selected by NEXT Canada, a national non-profit focused on increasing national prosperity by accelerating the development of high potential entrepreneurs and innovators, to provide vital connections between experienced Artificial Intelligence (AI) mentors and students enrolled in the newly launched NextED AI Business Strategy & Application Course. A pilot initiative for NEXT Canada, NextED is powered by Riff Learning, a spin-out company of MIT Media Lab, and is quickly establishing itself as Canada’s premier AI-adoption program for business.

“The profile of the Durham College Hub for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence for Business Systems has been steadily rising since its launch a little over a year ago,” says Don Lovisa, president, DC. “To now be partnering with NEXT Canada and working alongside other AI experts from MIT and Oxford University, among others, is an incredible testament to our DC team and the work being done in our AI Hub.”

The Next ED AI Business Strategy & Application Course leads students through an intensive eight-week program focused on developing a disruptive AI innovation and learning hands-on techniques to apply AI to a specific business problem. In the last four weeks of the course, as participants develop a business plan for an AI solution, DC will support students by providing them access to mentors who are AI Hub industry partners.

“DC’s AI Hub mentors will bring expertise in really diverse sectors, including customer service, health, real estate, shipping and logistics, agriculture, digital media, finance and education,” says Debbie McKee Demczyk, dean of the college’s Office of Research Services, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. “Delivering these mentorship services as part of the NextED course capstone project is an exciting opportunity to further demonstrate and strengthen DC’s leadership in the Canadian AI ecosystem.”

The AI Hub at DC offers industry partners access to technical expertise, state-of-the-art facilities and platforms, and student talent, to help them uncover business insights while providing intelligent and autonomous solutions that increase their company’s productivity and growth.