Top 3 findings of a first day at C2 Montreal

Setting its 2019 theme as Tomorrow, the 2019 edition of C2 Montreal was expected to be all about futurism but the lesson that arises from this very first day, is that tomorrow will only be possible if we start changing ourselves, the way we behave, and if we give a voice to young innovators.

Lab-grown meat anyone?

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What if, instead of turning vegan, you could actually taste meat while avoiding the killing of animals? Beyond Meat has been producing plant-based meat substitutes for a decade but a 15-years old scientist explains how she wants to develop genetically modified proteins and a new generation of lab-grown meat. Isabella is part of a The Knowledge Society, an innovation programme that develops young leaders skills. She wants to disrupt food production processes through her cellular agriculture research.

Artificial intelligence is everywhere

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It is a known fact that artificial intelligence was everywhere, from healthcare to transportation, from Google search to agriculture… For the general public, AI is associated to Siri, robots and sometimes machine learning (when Gmail suggests the end of your sentence). Even better, AI can be used to predict if someone is likely to contract a disease. Samarth and Ayaan, 14 and 15 years old, are working on algorithms to make diseases predictions even more accurate and better understand human biomarkers. Today, accuracy for an AI-generated diagnosis is of 90% (vs. 70% for a human).

The future is circular

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Did you know that IKEA had launched a programme dedicated to circular economy? Dominique Fularski‘s mission, through Circular IKEA, is to work towards becoming the biggest circular retailer, reusing only existing material, by 2030. The giant Swedish retailer wants to work towards a better world, at its own scale. If circularity is often associated to recycling, it also has to do with refurbishing and remanufacturing. IKEA has decided to reuse, repurpose, repair and recycle, not only because it makes the company grow sustainably, but also because it is more convenient for its customers.

Stay tuned for more highlights around C2 Montreal. The 2019 edition is happening from 22 to 24 May in Montreal.

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Save money as you spend through Mylo

We have already touched upon fintech on Innovation Montreal: the use of cryptocurrencies and blockchain to finance projects with a social impact (Impak Finance), or Hardbacon’s app that allow users to become better self-directed investors.

Today we present Mylo: a mobile app that automatically rounds up every purchase you make and invests the spare change.

Fintech on a social mission

What drives Mylo’s founders from the beginning is to make saving and investing accessible for all Canadians and especially for Millennials.

To use Mylo, you do not need any knowledge in finance. Mylo works through a partnership with Tactex Asset Management advisors who invest your money in Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs).

Basically, the more you spend, the more you save… simple, right? If you buy a $3.60 coffee through your debit or credit card, Mylo will automatically round your purchase to $4.00 and invest the extra $0.40.

Going even further, Mylo is not just a tool for investment, it gives recommendations that are customized and personalized. Using artificial intelligence, the app helps its clients optimize important financial decisions such as insurance coverage, interest payments, travel purchases…

“We’re focused on building the next generation of innovative technology, using AI in conjunction with financial data, to help Canadians improve all aspects of their financial lives.”

The financial model is very attractive: there is a monthly fee of $1 to get access to the app. The customized recommendations are completely free but if clients implement the recommendations, the Mylo team then earns a success fee from their partners.

Finance veterans turned startupers

Phil Barrar and Liam Cheung, Founder and Chairman, are already veterans when it comes to financial investment.

Phil is less than 30 but has been into the Canadian entrepreneurial community for a while. He successively launched and sold two ventures after graduating from Concordia University and ended up joining a Montreal investment fund in 2015: Ferst Capital Partners. This is when he started thinking of ways to democratize financial investment decisions. Mylo emerged from his market study in 2016.

Liam joined the adventure later in 2017. With over 25 years of expertise in finance and technology, he had founded Tactico Inc., the parent company of Tactex Asset Management, an investment firm that manages client-focused equity portfolios.

Mylo acquired Tactex gaining more credibility in the process: a relatively new fintech actor had enough power for acquiring a team of portfolio advisers that manages over $110 million in client assets.

From pitching to seed investing, a tremendous growth

Mylo participated to the iconic TV show Dragon’s Den and got a great deal from three of the investors but as months past and as they worked on a beta version, the team managed to secure a strategic offer that made more sense for our company. They raised $2.65-million in seed financing lead by Desjardins Capital which allowed them to officially launch on the App store.

Today, the startup wants to offer more than just an app. On International Women’s Day, Mylo released a report analyzing the gap between women and men when it comes to saving and investing and offering recommendations to reduce the gap and innovate investing habits.

Montreal, an urban laboratory for experimenting artificial intelligence?

Newcities is a non-profit organization dedicated to making cities more inclusive, more dynamic, more innovative. They organized a round table dedicated to AI and urban issues. Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA) was represented by Myriam Côté, Executive Director. She highlighted the importance of a socially responsible AI for founder, Yoshua Bengio.

Myriam Côté, MILA (https://www.facebook.com/NewCitiesFoundation/photos/) 

At a time when technology and big data are blurring the limits of privacy, when academic research is driven by economic priorities, how can AI and innovation in general positively impact the lives of populations?

Cybersecurity and avoiding data deserts

The main social concern with AI applied to the city is to avoid data deserts – areas where certain groups do not have data regularly collected about them. And a prerequisite to answer this concern is to educate citizens to the relevance and benefits of sharing their data in a well-defined framework.

Damien Silès is the Head of the Quartier de l’Innovation, an experimental laboratory supported by the four Montreal universities, the Federal and Provincial government and corporate partners. Its mission is to experiment with urban innovations in downtown Montreal.

We want to break down silos and make this neighbourhood a collective lab where private, public and academic actors collaborate. Only then can we truly protect data.

Artificial intelligence by and for the community

There are already great initiatives to improve the social and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence. Last November, a dedicated conference was organized by AI Alliance Impact (AIIA) and headed by Valentine Goddard. AI on a social mission presented best practices of companies applying AI in sectors like mental health, education, social work (Myelin was part of them).

During Newcities event, Valentine lead a roundtable on the subject with participants from various backgrounds: Cisco, IBM, HEC Montreal, the French Chamber of Commerce…

Today, we are beyond technological challenges when it comes to AI. Challenges are ethical. We need to present innovations as solutions to concrete problems

Valentine Goddard (https://www.facebook.com/NewCitiesFoundation/photos/) 

AI can be a real solution to transportation issues: location-based search engines like Google Maps can allow to make predictions so that bus drivers spend less time on focusing on their route and more time on strengthening the social link with passengers.

When it comes to artificial intelligence, there is a fundamental gap between researchers and the general public. This gap is more than ever visible in the city.

Visual representation of debates on AI and social impact

For people to adopt AI tools, it is important to educate them – not explaining the algorithms but showing how data can impact their daily lives.

Myelin makes artificial intelligence a social innovation tool

Providing a digital structure to social help

Marc-Olivier Schüle, along with his two partners, Marise Bonenfant and Francois Menet, is introducing Myelin, a new innovative startup that gives access to the best, most accurate information on autism. The AI tool adapts its answers to your level of knowledge and the type of question you want to ask.

Myelin is not inventing anything new, it innovates the way actual knowledge is processed, structured and delivered.

When you look at current information on Google related to autism, it is non-professional, non-official and… probably false. Myelin will be a source of knowledge supported by recognized institutions like the School of Psycho-Education from Université de Montreal, Quebec Federation on Autism, Ivado (the Institute for Data Valorization) and many other.

Academic excellence at the service of social intervention 

Marc-Olivier knows what he is talking about: he has years of experience in psychosocial intervention that made him realize the need for a serious and reliable foundation to build trusting relations with patients and their parents. At the same time, his academic experience (he is doing a PhD at Université de Montreal) reveals that the latest advances in research are unfortunately buried in universities’ intranet servers.

There are over 2000 articles published every day on mental health. How can we all process it and make it useful? Psychosocial actors need secure and reliable tools so we can spend more time on working on our relation with parents and children

From a prototype to a social artificial intelligence tool  

This is only the beginning of the story: Marc-Olivier’s speech at TedX Laval was viewed over 40,000 times on Youtube (an all-time record) so it is undeniable that people believe in artificial intelligence applied to health issues.

The prototype is now ready for autism but Myelin wants to touch on other subjects in the future: ADHDH, anxiety, Alzheimer… to provide the general public with the proper tools to make a free and informed choice in their lives.

With a successful crowdfunding campaign on La Ruche, support from prestigious academic, medical, institutional and entrepreneurial actors and – last but not least – a dedicated and passionate team of entrepreneurs, Myelin is clearly innovating the startup scene.