Women in the local tech sector have a lot on their mind and AI is at the top of the list.
On Thursday, six female leaders in the sector gathered at TD Place ahead of the Ottawa Redblacks game for a panel breaking down the “Op-HER-ations of Tech.”
While it’s the second time Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) has hosted the event, this time co-organizer Mitch Schnitzler said a greater emphasis was put on highlighting women on the engineering and operations sides of local tech companies.
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“It’s a field where women are crucial and important in the roles they play in the industry,” said Schnitzler, who is manager of group sales and regional partnerships for OSEG. “Just through relationships and connections, we understood there was a need to showcase women in those roles.”
The event attracted 130 attendees from across the sector, he added.
When asked what tech trends have most piqued their interest, almost everyone on the panel of women leaders mentioned AI — but not without some caveats.
Coming from a telecommunications background, Deep Shree, senior 5G developer at Ericsson,
said AI could play a major role in advancing 5G networks and connectivity overall.
“I’m actually really excited to see what AI has for us,” she said. “I think everyone will have their own AI model that they can train. Most companies are trying to build their own AI models to train them to fetch data and they do that pretty much on a day-to-day basis. We will train AI models to tell them what to do.”
But while there is excitement, she said she approaches AI with caution.
For Shree, in order for AI to do the work of advancing 5G networks, attention needs to be put toward data security and encryption to maintain user privacy.
For some of the other panellists, there’s also the question of whether infrastructure can keep up with increased power demands.
“From where I sit in my role, I’m looking at data centre networks right now,” said Heidi Adams, head of IP and optical networks marketing at Nokia.
“Data centres consume an enormous amount of power. There’s going to be a lot of amazing applications but looking at the underlying network infrastructure, AI doesn’t do any good if it’s sitting in a data centre somewhere. You need to be able to connect everything. You need to connect your users to it.”
In addition to security and privacy, she said bias is another issue with many large language models, which are often trained on biased data to begin with.
For those reasons, Adams said the proliferation of AI is both “very scary and very exciting,” leading her to take a cautious approach.
Another panellist treading carefully is Marwa Wazzi, development manager at non-profit Canada Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks (CENGN).
Wazzi called the movement toward AI a “revolution,” a word she said she used intentionally.
It’s a technology that she said could have far-reaching impacts, including on economies. For that reason, she said she’s glad to see the federal government taking it seriously.
“It’s a testament to how much it’s going to change, not just the Canadian economy, but global economies, that we now have a new AI minister,” she said. “It’s good that Canada is trying to keep up with the AI revolution. I do think we are a little bit behind some other leaders worldwide, so I do think there’s some more effort needed there.”
While security, privacy and bias are top of mind, Wazzi said she’s also thinking about sovereignty and sustainability.
“These are all aspects that we might not have a very set gameplan yet for how to govern this,” she said. “How to protect this information and how to really use AI models and what’s happening with all the data and so on. Lots of questions up in the air and that’s where a lot of energy can now be focused.”
Tiffani Westerman, CEO of Wesley Clover Services and GRC Concierge, said she’s more of a critic of AI than an advocate. Though she is excited about the opportunities for automation, she said the bias built into many AI systems poses major concerns.
“It’s really the bias that scares me in the way that models are being trained,” she said. “One thing I hope, especially as women in tech, is that if you are in an industry that is touching or playing with AI or building your own models, please be the advocate for where that data is coming from. We want to keep going forwards, not backwards.”
While AI is one of the biggest issues, some panellists have their eye on other trends.
Marie Ashman, manager of mechanical engineering at health company Nordion, said wearable tech is presenting unique opportunities for data collection that could spur innovation across health care.
“The use of personalized medicine is very, very interesting,” she said. “We can collect data on your day-to-day activities and the status of your health. You can pair (your phone) to a diabetes monitor or other devices and we’re empowering people with good actionable data. It can go a long way in helping alleviate some of the pressures on our health-care system.”
She added that data collection is especially important in women’s health care.
“Medical science has been biased to developing treatments on male models,” said Ashman. “So having women in technology identifying those gaps, collecting data from women, helps us bridge that gap and deliver better care for women everywhere.”
While emerging technologies are fun to watch, Ingrid Mag is most excited about a different kind of trend: more women entering the tech space.
“In my university days, there were fewer than 10 per cent (women),” said Mag, chief operating officer of Dragonfly Systems. “Now in a lot of STEM programs, it’s approaching 50 per cent. Encouragement is there from a young age and I’m seeing the uptake of that and really excited about it. Women tend to be natural collaborators and its collaboration that fuels innovation and product development. So I’m really excited to see where that goes.”
