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Overview
The Alberta government has partnered with AltaML, a world-class Canadian artificial intelligence (AI) company headquartered in Edmonton, with a proven track record of developing AI models, solutions, and labs. Under the Applied AI Lab, named GovLab.ai, AltaML works alongside government staff and post-secondary students and graduates as they work to develop smart products and models that leverage AI and machine learning (ML) to solve complex, real-word problems.
Economic opportunities
GovLab.ai helps cement Alberta as a dominant player and innovation hub that attracts talent, business, and job-creating investment. The ultimate vision is for economic growth opportunities to be created by developing intellectual property that is backed by Alberta public sector organizations that can be exported globally to bring royalty revenue right back to Albertans and Alberta companies.
Growing in-demand skill sets
GovLab.ai is designed to encourage the growth of ML and AI skill sets that are in high demand across Alberta and around the world.
GovLab.ai includes a talent accelerator for government staff, post-secondary students and recent graduates. Students and graduates gain real-world, hands-on experience developing solutions, including those designed for the public service. Government staff gain new skill sets and ideas needed to become agents of change in their departments, advocating for more technology shifts.
Investments
The Alberta government is investing $3.4 million annually into GovLab.ai for a 5-year period, ending in 2027. Funding is allocated by Alberta @ Work, through the Alberta Technology and Innovation Strategy. The GovLab.ai creates opportunities for intellectual property creation by local companies, leading to a royalty stream to be reinvested in the program. Profits from commercialization will be reinvested into GovLab.ai.
AltaML committed $1 million toward the first year of operations. AltaML estimates that AI will yield approximately $100 million in benefits for Alberta over the 5-year partnership.
Mitacs is a Canadian non-profit national research organization that partners with academia, private industry and government to operate research and training programs in fields related to industrial and social innovation. Mitacs committed funding to support job opportunities for post-secondary students.
Lab recruitment
GovLab.ai operates on a cohort basis with intakes of government staff and post-secondary interns every 4 months.
- Post-secondary students and recent graduates can contact [email protected] to express interest in participating.
- Government staff can contact [email protected] to express interest in participating.
Concepts and ideas
GovLab.ai evaluates a proof of concept idea according to an agile methodology that includes:
- Feasibility screening: assessment of potential projects to determine whether viable, if supporting data is adequate and projects meaningfully support program delivery.
- Development: creation and testing of models to deliver proof of concepts, scaling to a production solution.
- Operationalization: implementation of models into to full service state.
With 3 total tenants of the lab, multiple ideas will go through this process every 4 months, though not all of them will be considered viable as proofs of concept.
- Viable solutions will be operationalized and commercialized, leading to potentially significant economic impacts.
- Projects viable for commercialization may require additional work beyond the experimentation conducted through GovLab.ai, which may introduce opportunities in the tech sector.
- Under the agreement, AltaML will commercialize Government of Alberta products and return 20% toward lab operations.
Government teams can submit an idea for consideration by contacting [email protected].
Learn more about case studies currently in development.
Resources
A number of governments have begun adopting AI and ML, including, but are not limited to:
- Canada's responsible use of AI initiative
- United States’ National Artificial Intelligence Initiative
- United Kingdom’s Office for Artificial Intelligence
- Estonia’s National AI Strategy
- European Union’s Strategy on AI
A dashboard by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development provides insight into more than 700 AI policy initiatives from more than 60 countries.
- The National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, and the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity have all issued information related to AI’s impacts on cybersecurity.
Contact
Connect with GovLab.ai:
Hours: 8:15 am to 4:30 pm (open Monday to Friday, closed statutory holidays)
Email: [email protected]
AltaML email: [email protected]
Address:
10130 103 St NW Suite 2200
Edmonton, Alberta T5J 3N9