Smart Create Mentorship
Empower Your Future: Mentorship Opportunities
Trainees will be aligned with mentors for career, professional and personal development. Mentors will be chosen from team members, collaborators, industry partners, leaders with lived experience for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and Gender-based Analysis Plus GBA+, and others.
Mentors will meet with students as needed to review progress toward individualized professional and career goals. They will provide guidance and feedback on students’ professional development goals.
NSERC SMART CREATE and Amii Host Interactive Mentorship Event at Upper Bound 2026
In collaboration with Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, an engaging NSERC SMART CREATE mentorship event organized by Dr. Patrick Pilarski was held on May 19, 2026, as part of Upper Bound 2026 at Fu’s Repair Shop. The interactive session, “Pitch Freeze Tag: Deconstructing Startup Pitches Live”, brought together students, researchers, entrepreneurs, and innovation leaders to explore the key elements of effective startup pitching. Using a live “freeze tag” format, speakers paused and analyzed pitches in real time, discussing storytelling, investment readiness, market appeal, and communication strategies. The session featured a semi-scripted pitch by Dr. Patrick Pilarski and a real startup pitch by Catana Vasquez of Nanostics, followed by live feedback from Arden Tse of Yaletown Partners, Chris Robson of Wyvern, and Jesse Cole of BetaKit.
From Ideas to Impact: Networking with AI Leaders at Upper Bound 2026
An excellent networking and social opportunity was provided for NSERC SMART CREATE trainees to connect with participants attending Upper Bound 2026. The informal discussion and mentorship interactions created a welcoming environment for trainees to exchange ideas, explore interdisciplinary collaborations, and learn from leaders across the AI and innovation ecosystem. CREATE students particularly enjoyed the opportunity to meet and speak with Dr. Richard S. Sutton, professor of computing science at the University of Alberta, Fellow and Chief Scientific Advisor at Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, one of the pioneers of modern computational reinforcement learning, and co-recipient of the 2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award alongside Andrew Barto for his foundational contributions to temporal difference learning and policy gradient methods.
