Let me start off by acknowledging that
we're meeting on the traditional
territories of the Blackfoot, Blood, Peigan,
Stoney and Sarcee  and
the land of the signatories of the Treaty
7 region of southern Alberta the Siksika,
Piicani, Tsuu T'ina, Kainai and Stoney Nakoda. As well the City of Calgary is
home to the Metis Nation of Alberta
Region 3 with all of them with whom
with all of them and we as more recent
inhabitants in these beautiful lands now
have the privilege of sharing the land
together. So let me just give you a
little piece about of APEGA.
It's our 100th anniversary, we've come
up with a tagline A Century Well Built
and I think when we look back on it
we have engineers and geoscientists in
Alberta have who have made a big impact for
Albertan's. Our mandate is
public safety so I think
you'll agree that bridges don't fall
down here, rock slides don't occur when
properly geo technically put
together; we've found enough oil and gas to
sink a ship and all those kinds of
things. We've done well for our Albertans. The last century saw a lot of disruption
and I think this digital age is gonna
and I think this digital age is going to see a lot of disruption in the future.
Not  in a bad sense, but it's
going to see lots of change. And that's
what we're going to talk about today. A
follow on to our century well built
tagline is "with trust we can build
anything" and I think all of us agree
that you know APEGA... people
don't know who we are,  what we do or why
we do it and that's okay,  they shouldn't
have to,  they need to feel perfectly safe
going over the the Centennial bridges
and those kinds of things. But
it's important, I think, that we
actually spend some time in this next
while telling people about what we do
and why we do it. We have a short video
to kick off our Centennial year, so if we
can get that up. Thank you. First APEGA
built trust; we built it with our
membership, Alberta engineers and
geoscientists. Then we built it with
Alberta. That trust empowered
professional geoscientists whose
insights built our industry, whose
curiosity taught us where we came from
and whose passion tells us where we're
going next. That trust empowered
professional engineers whose ambition
brought us higher, whose ingenuity
brought us closer and whose perseverance
made it all stand the test of time.
That trust built Alberta. Because when you build trust you can build anything.
Here's to the next 100 years. Here's to
the Centennial anniversary of the
Association of Professional Engineers and
Geoscientists of Alberta. Here's to a
century well built.
Thanks to our communications department.
So a
few more introductory remarks. At APEGA we wonder how to regulate new
technologies that will arise. And new
industries in and around what already
exists - the energy sector, the
agribusiness and other sectors of the
economy that are going to develop. New
research areas ,new skills that are going
to be required and new trends in society
like conservation sustainability those
kinds of things. What will society look
like in the future - its workers and
employment; urbanisation of the
population seems to continue;
infrastructure and transportation. So
we've got three very distinguished
guests here today to help us with this
and I'm going to introduce them.
Disruption and Opportunity in a Digital
Age is our topic today. A future
that could be quite uncertain. First I'd
like to welcome Dr. Leslie Rigg, Dean of
the Faculty of Science. Leslie is an
internationally recognized scholar with
over 25 years of experience working in a
post-secondary education. Currently in her
second term as dean  - glutton for
punishment -
she's a forest ecologist by training.
Leslie has a bachelor's degree in
Geography and Environmental Studies from
York University, a master's degree in
Geography from the University of
Colorado and a doctorate in Geography
and Environmental Studies from the
University of Melbourne in Australia.
Before coming to the University of
Calgary in 2015, she was vice president
of research and innovation partnerships
at Northern Illinois University in
DeKalb, Illinois. Pease join me in
welcoming - there she is!
Our next panelist is Bill Rosehart, P.Eng. ,the Dean of the Schulich School
of Engineering and an APEGA licensed
P. Eng obviously. Bill is a fellow of the
Canadian Academy of Engineering named in recognition of his commitment to
innovation in teaching and learning. He's
known for his research in electrical
energy engineering. Under his leadership
Schulich has transformed its
research and teaching spaces, started a
new series of initiatives under the strategic vision - Catalyst for a Connected World.
This multi-year plan is focused on enhancing a global
research impact, expanding access to
engineering and enriching the student
experience. Bill is a founding member of
the Canadian Engineering Education
Association.  Please help me in
welcoming Bill.
Our final panelist Dr. Mohammed al
Habibi is an alumnus of both Schulich
and Haskayne schools and an entrepreneur
Mohammed is the co-founder and executive
vice president of Micro Engineering Tech
and president of Robo Garden both of
which are located here in Calgary.  He's
bent on improving the
employment rate here.
He's a futurist, a goal driven business
professional with a strong industrial
experience and was named one of Avenue
Magazine's top 40 under 40. Mohammed
received his PhD in geomatics
engineering in 2006, an Executive MBA in
2017 both from the University of Calgary
obviously. He also won the 2015 Aztec
Award for Outstanding Achievement in
Applied Technology. 
Please welcome Dr. al Habibi.
So we're going to move directly to the
panel discussion. We actually had some
time a week or so back to a telephone
conversation to sort of figure out how
we were going to do this and so we have
a few questions prepared and hopefully
they've got a few answers prepared. But
there'll be some some on the fly as well.
So the first question is I have is
building the professions of engineering
and geosciences as the world
evolves is a top priority for everyone
on this panel obviously. And everyone
in the room  come to that. So what are
the universities, industry and
professional organizations doing to
prepare employees with strong digital
and data backgrounds they're obviously
going to need in a digital future. Maybe
I can turn to you first. Okay great.
So a pleasure to be here. This is a great
question and like what you said we're
everyday in both companies we're
thinking what is next
especially when you come from the small
side of the business. Before for years it
was about the domain knowledge. Actually
today is not about that because
knowledge is more accessible, you
can search, you can find more easily. So
skills like creativity, innovative
critical thinking and more important
actually being flexible because what you
used to be a long term carry paths and
skills I don't think it would be there
anymore.  You have to be flexible and
almost flexible in real-time. The last
result about this one that we
all think in our team members and our
direction is decision making. OK decision
making now are moving actually from the
top of the company to almost everyone.
When you're talking about
real-time data and you're thinking that
you have to really be agile, fast. I'm
sure everyone
in your decisions, this is means that people
have to be ready, our employees,
engineers, geoscientists to decision-making
on the spot and this is good. Now moving
from like I said domain knowledge to
these soft skills which is totally new.
It looks easy words but surprisingly
most of the engineers still need to be
trained and work on this kind of
environment. Noting it's not just the engineers but geoscientists. Leslie.  I'll start by
skills yeah I guess I'll start with
saying soft is hard. But I think that from the university perspective we
have a responsibility in terms of
upskilling and training our students in
areas that we have been training them
for a really long time but we haven't
been labeling it as such and so when we think
about you know you said engineering and
geoscience and I think about what the
the thread that ties them together would
be data. And so when we think about data
science what are we doing here at the
University of Calgary to upskill to
train to prepare our students for the
industries that they're moving into and
for the needs that we can project into
the future that the students will have
to have or the the needs that they will
have to serve. I used to ask students on
the first day of the first year you know
think about what you want to do when
when you leave this university and I
don't ask that question anymore because
we don't know. What we have to ask
the students what are the problems that
you think are out there that you want to
solve and what tools do you need to
solve those problems.  So we've
implemented and I know that that Bill
will talk about some of the programs in
engineering but in science and across
the faculty and across the university we
are trying to instill digital knowledge,
technology data skills to all of our
students. So we implemented a data
science program, we have an information
security program and those are both
laddering programs so that we can create a student who can come in and do a graduate level certificate, 
any a graduate level certificate from
coming in from any discipline.
So we worked with Haskayne,  we worked
with Cumming we worked with engineering
and so the students come in
and they leave four courses later with a
certificate, then they can come back and
get a diploma in an area of specialization
and we're moving to what we call a
professional science-based masters.
These are the kinds of very
applied focused programs that allow
students to go out there into any
industry across Alberta and across the
world
and apply data knowledge driven skills
and I think that's what's going to
become essential and that's our
responsibility as a university. The last
thing I'll say before I pass it off and I know
that you'll talk about this as well. That
from our perspective when we look at the
audience and we say okay what do we need
because we always have to tell you what
we need we need you to place our
students into hands-on industry driven
co-ops and internships. You are the, you
make our students amazing because you
give them the experiences that will set
them up for success so that's my request
as I pass it off to Bill. So we'll pass
it on to the Dean of the Schulich. So it's
a great question and a really important
discussion and really I think I'll just
be building on what Mohammed and Leslie
spoke to and one of the ways that I look
at it it's what are we teaching our
students in this new paradigm and how
are we teaching and engaging with our
students in the new paradigm. And
until we rear mirror who has young
children around them either their own
kids or grandkids or neighbours kids or
something like that right they are
constant that's amazingly few by the way.
I should have asked the question in
reverse who doesn't because there's
always the hesitation to put your hands
up. The generation which includes the
students that we're getting in our
undergraduate degree and it probably
changes somewhere in between they grew
up with digital technology. They are so
familiar with self learning our 10 year
old son as an example, we have a rule at
home on school nights you're only
allowed to watch educational videos but
you can watch as much 
as you want. It's scary  - we've had
that rule for about a year and a half
now
the impact, you know he's coming in and he's
talking one day about photosynthesis and
the next day he's talking about why we
don't call meat from cows cow but beef
and he relates it back to an invasion of
the Vikings and to France and it's it
it's just phenomenal so that sort of
speaks to what Mohammed talked about. The
information is out there right and (you can take
over parenting for me if you want) before I was here
I had to drive all the way downtown and
back for one of the kids and so one of
the big things when we talk about
digital future and we talk about the
digital skills we want to train our
students, and  lifelong learning it's
how we teach them. So if you look in the
the room next door here that's one of
our labs and it is set up and designed
to allow for team-based project-based
learning. And so when the students
are learning things. When I went to
school it was largely scripted lab type
assignments  - do this do that, do this -  now
it's to instill lifelong learning to
help students learn how to learn they'll
get something designed this here's the
equipment in the room here's the
materials in the room and so by taking
that approach students learn a lot more
ownership of their own skills
so the knowledge is there but they learn
how to continually learn. And presumably
Bill this is done in in a team
situation because that's how you're
gonna work. Absolutely and Leslie talked
about the importance of
interdisciplinarity so when it comes to
teams we actually partner with the
Department of Psychology and we have one
of their research labs work with us on
how we train our students to manage team
skills. Now if we switch really quickly
to what we've got to teach our students you
know I think every student at university
anywhere
needs to graduate with some degree of at
least comfort with digital technology so
understanding the basics of IOT and
sensors to understanding what's meant by
data all the way through to at least
having a concept of things like machine
learning,virtual reality, augmented
reality.  In engineering we've launched a
few initiatives the first thing that we
did is we developed the masters of
software engineering but we designed it
specifically for students that didn't
have a software engineering background.
So think of it as a one-year boot camp
that at the end of the one-year you have
knowledge of undergraduate software
engineering plus graduate level software
engineering. We've then launched this
year a minor in digital engineering and
that's for undergraduate students from
any of our programs and the thing that
we're now looking at launching next year
is a digital spine so that means every
one of our students will get exposure to
the key elements of digital technology
as part of their undergraduate degree. So
in that kind of sense that future is
already here. The future needs to be here
and I had a busy morning. One of the
things I was on a conference
call at 5:00 a.m. with a group of global
Dean's and unfortunately a topic of the
conversation was the corona virus and
two of the Dean's that were on the
conference call were from China and so
they were going in and explaining how in
their schools they've been actually
teaching their courses online and so
when we think about technology and how
it can enable one of the deans was
saying attendance is actually higher and
the students are really enjoying it. So
that speaks to the need to
transition right you've got to teach the
fundamental skills so they can absorb
the different types of knowledge,
you can't just say go watch a bunch of
YouTube videos It has to be a curated
experience so that you can develop those
fundamental skills. My opinion is you
need to
transition from traditional classrooms
to more of what you see going on in that
room there. Take the traditional
classroom stuff and move some of it
online to your YouTube type videos or
other types of experiences and then as
Leslie said work integrated learning
which is the buzzword for things like
internships and co-op programs
Absolutely essential. We've seen a 60%
increase in the number of students
placed in paid 12 to 16 month
internships in our school over the last
three years. Our goal is that every
student will graduate with an
opportunity to have had some type of
meaningful work integrated learning and
so to help balance that we've now started
something called our engineering career
practicum which for students that don't
want to go out for the whole 12 months
16 months that we're offering support to
find two four-month co-op type
experiences for our students. As well so
as Leslie said absolutely essential part
of the learning experience.
We've done the same thing in
the Faculty of Science. Created those
those opportunities so that students can
be flexible and we used to have very
specific programs and we got rid of all
of them and made a faculty wide
internship and co-op program.
Getting out into industry
that's very important. Yeah so obviously
there are going to be some incredible
opportunities presented as new digital
technologies evolve.  Where are some, I'm
going to start with you again, where
are some of the most exciting new
technologies that you see or foresee
being developed. Yeah this is a very
tough question. That's why I gave it to
you. So I mean if you google what is the
trend the technology trend most probably
gets a very long list but the question
when you try to industry because I'm
sure everyone is aware economy globally
is not doing well so the problem now
that technology actually is not
connected to growth.
So we believe from a
small company perspective that multi
experience technology is the key for the
future. So VR by itself or AR or 5g
connectivity being fast, AI is a kind of
not an industry by itself, the experience
that you can able and engineers
geoscientist can do an added value to it
to these multi experience technologies
is where we see the trend. And this is
why ten years ago most probably when
there is an app going out in Apple Store
Google Play most probably everyone is
using it today it's not like that.
Every day you have millions of apps and
actually these are million of companies
million of new ideas, new technologies.
The winner and we always
think about the one winner is the one
with the best experience and how to tie
the multi experience technology with
that our given a above again the
experience and the shift. And I love what
Bill said about China and the
attendance. So we were planning from our
education a company to start in China
last month and guess what we came back
on January 20 it's almost a month now so
everyone's safe nobody has to run so and
two days after it was the outbreak of
the corona virus. And when we designed
the experience in China all our partners
there including education institutes
said it has to be in the class and we're
trying to convince them it's better to
be online. Anyway so now
suddenly everything is changing because
students are staying at home teachers
staying at home and there was a big
shift so we went online and within one
months we have 10,000 students. Ok one
more thing, here the government start
talking to us about because we have a
kind of joint work between Alberta and
China and we are looking for a
coronavirus content ok that go
everywhere. So we're able actually last
week to create the coronavirus how to
protect yourself how to make sure that
you're safe, and we're releasing this
today
and I think it's used in China okay and
it's coming out in Chinese interesting
we're hoping to do it in English. So what
I'm saying the shift of that this is
again an experience because the you have
an access to again online cloud service
you get the positive experience now
you're ready to attend you're ready to
use you're ready  to receive more knowledge
and it's immediate and it's you're
reacting to something that's a hundred
percent so coming back again to the
question multi experience technology
whenever there is a positive experience
there will be a success to the
technology and there will be a trend it
uses gross and did that chain itself is
complete.  So at risk of them going on
forever.  yeah so what are the most
interesting things that I think are
going to happen due to digital
technology. Number one would be more
interdisciplinary opportunities and
Leslie started to speak to this and the
first question. We're going to see more
people working together because the
digital technology can bring them
together and there's example after
example of that happening for example in
our pipeline engineering center we have
a collaborative project that's going in
for funding right now it has people from
mechanical engineering it has people
from civil engineering, electrical engineering and also computer science
which we haven't traditionally seen
that we haven't traditionally seen and that particular
project is bringing in expertise around
visualization artificial in time in
virtual reality and augmented reality
the second piece I would say that is
really exciting is access so I'm a firm
believer that education is absolutely
key and we think about access to
education and how digital technology can
change that. With my phone I can look up
just about anything on any topic
and done in a curated way the number of
people globally that we can give access
to stronger K to 12 education and then
university education including elements
of professional degrees is phenomenal
and that's going to be a major game
changer globally and in my opinion in in
the third part I would say and this is
in a way holding us back to some extent
right now is how we connect technology
to people. Some of the things that
we're starting to see now from a
technology point of view we knew how to
do a couple years ago and so getting
better at understanding the ways to
interface and also get people to adopt
and feel comfortable with technology. On
the CBC radio this morning they were
talking about I think it was in Windsor
that people can install cameras around
their houses and the police can if
they're trying to figure out they don't
say there was an incident of some type
near your house that they can ping your
camera you get a little message are you
going to let the police see the video. I
mean if you say yes the police get to
see videos of what happened in the
neighborhood and so learning to be more
comfortable with technology and
understanding those balances between
what technology can do and privacy I
think will be really important. Thank you.
So I think Mohammed and Bill have
really covered most of the big tickets
and so augmented reality, virtual reality,
mixed reality, quantum computing. I think
hasn't been mentioned and all the
technologies that can sort of spin out
of quantum physics generally. We think
about cloud computing, fog computing all
of those different kinds of technologies
and I you know I keep thinking back to
when I was younger much younger and I
was watching Star Trek and what you know
it was sort of a window to the future
and some of these you know my cell phone
is really a tricorder and when I talked
to Alexa it's like I'm talking to
computer and see my phone
activated like what do you want. So I
think that we when we think about what's
coming out of the universities and we
think about the technologies that are
being developed it's really mind blowing.
Bill mentioned the humans right and that
connection to humans so when we think
about human-computer interaction we
usually typically think of what we're
working with in terms of the robots or
the technology but we really do have
to start paying attention to the humans
as well. How we interact with technology
and so we do we have a whole lab that
looks at that and we have a big robot
called Baxter and Baxter and the humans
we look at what the humans are doing and
how we interact and how we respond but I
want to come back to the theme of
connectivity as well and you know the
the notion of coronavirus because that's
the topic of the day and it's a huge one
it turns out that there's some
researchers out of the University of
Guelph and this was just in the news
yesterday they were able to troll social
media particularly Twitter and they can
actually identify an outbreak an
outbreak two weeks before it actually is
an outbreak. So they're looking at images
and statements online and they can use
technology to synthesize that and
analyze it and actually pinpoint the
location of the outbreak weeks before
the CDC or the World Health Organization
can do the same so that what we can do
with technology is pretty amazing I
think about one of the the people who
are in one of our main researchers in
computer science he worked with the
Alberta electricity grid and what he and
his students did was they created a
virtual tech instead of you know if you
think about I think about Simpson The
Simpsons and Homer sitting at the
nuclear control panels and so all those
panels there those are tens of millions
of dollars in any facility to put in and
what this team has done is created a
virtual reality heads-up display where
they can work with people around the
world electricity grids around the world
and talk about what they're seeing and
actually manipulate electricity grids
virtually and so it's for tens of
thousands of dollars instead instead of
tens of millions of dollars. So there is
you know as you mentioned an
economic impact to technologies but also
they're leaps that we can't even
envision and so technologies get used by
creative students. We have one student
who has a virtual reality heads-up
display where he can dive into the solar
system and explore exoplanets and so we
have the virtual walkthrough brain for
healthcare we have it's it's just it's
curiosity sparks discovery and the
discovery through technology is what we
can't even imagine and that's that
that's what comes out of the
universities right now when we're
working hand-in-hand with industry it
just it creates something that we can't
even envision. That leads right into my
next question I think. This has been
described as the sort of fourth
Industrial Revolution, the
the technological revolution and it's
underway so we saw what trends are you
seeing in people's lives and the jobs
that are being changed and so on but but
also is there developing a gap between
those those people who are who are just
not getting any of these digital skills
these technological skills and with we
likely to see a sort of break in in our
in our population with those who are
have the skills and those who don't. But
so first of all sort of what kind of
things are changing what kind of jobs
are changing and with with this
artificial intelligence and machine
learning.
Can I start with you?  Sure yeah so
but this is a great question and this is
coming to I love when you mentioned the
future is here okay so in the old days
to get to just design this and get
production it was a big story I suppose
a big supply chain now with all the
technology with the network 5g coming
which is be faster, 3d printing, design
tools that they're very accessible and
easy everyone can personalize his own
thing. So the whole industry and the
skills are moving now to massive
customization and personalization not at
the company's level actually more at the
individual level okay and these 
requires a lot of skills because in the
old days you have to you can do the same
repetitive job for most probably three
five years before introducing one
new or more skills or information today with
everything we discussed
okay actually everyone can customize and
introduce his own product for himself
and actually for the market. So being
flexible and ready and integrate
everything we discussed today on a
personal skills is very important for
the next future. Your question was great
about the gap yeah okay the gap is there
but we did last summer with APEGA, this
kind of initiative, that we have actually
27 engineers a geoscientist that a kind
will pick them there away from
technology and they're looking for a
shift and when you start with things
organized
focus on a goal ok clear break down and
start building the momentum actually
everyone is catching up. 
If you're
talking even but again they are
Geoscience,  great domain background if
you move to another layer who people has
actually far away even from this you
still there is there is a role for them
because creativity when they understand
the tool not the mass behind it not the
technology behind it the tools we can
start introducing and contribute for
this kind of personalization and
customization I mentioned in the
beginning. I am a dabble in painting as
well and I've noticed now how many how
many artists are using technology and
putting it into the other side of their
brain or whatever they're doing. Do you have any
 
 
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or whateverthey're doing. Do you have some
comments Leslie on on this topic. So on
the notion of a gap I find that really
interesting it's a great question
I'm a glass is half-full person so what I
I see is that the gap is actually going
to be addressed by the technology and
that the technology is allowing us to
shrink the gap and so we're creating
greater connectedness I think Bill you
mentioned that. You know what a great
example that pops into my head when we
were talking about sort of global
changing as Bill as you mentioned
changing the global education landscape
we have most of you probably know that
the University of Calgary has one of the
best observatories in the world just
south of us at the Rothney and the
Rothney has automated telescopes so we
don't actually students don't have to be
at the telescope anymore they can
connect it they can operate it remotely
but one of the most amazing things
that's going on right now is we have
students in China who are working at a
university in China with their professor
and students working with our professors
here at the University of Calgary and
they work together 24 hours a day
operating the telescope and sharing data
and working on projects together I think
that when we when we envision what our
and what our gaps might be and we're
really talking more to not to presume
but this crowd right like the US and
older the students of today there are no
gaps. They come in more prepared
than we will ever be so what can what
are the technologies that can accelerate
our learning can accelerate our access
and I really truly believe that
technology, digital training, data science
all of the things that we're talking
about today are narrowing that gap
faster than we can than we actually
acknowledge. So I really do think that
it's one of the great levelers that
these technologies hold. Well that's so good
to hear because I get concerned about
this society sort of breaking apart into
those who can and those who don't. Bill
do you have some comments to add to
this particular topic?
The joy of going last is you get to say
I'm just gonna follow up on what they
spoke about.So Leslie that glass is half-full
I'll say I'm a glass mostly full type of
person and you know we've certainly seen in
Calgary you know the need to look at
transitioning and diversifying what we
do and how we do things as well and so
that's why we've seen a lot of our
energy companies looking at digital
technology in terms of how it can
improve efficiency and operations of
their business. Who remembers punch cards?
Okay so I got more hands there than I
did in my earlier question so in the lifespan of
one career we went from punch cards to
iPhones to Siri to Alexa somehow working
on an iPhone over here that was your
example there we go.
We're used to change you know the
other example is who remembers doing
their taxes back in the day where the
government you'd have to go get one of
those fill-in brochures  right and
so here everybody real horrible
experience right like like absolutely
horrible experience so incomes personal
computers there was concern about how
that's going to impact jobs and in these
things and really what it did is it
created a new industry. So instead of me
spending four hours trying to fix all my
mistakes on my taxes in that very
painful form which should have been
simple right it's addition and
subtraction and the occasional
multiplication now I you know it went
from downloading a program to doing it
on the web and this year I'm doing it on
an app on my phone I think is the is the
plan and so digital technology will
create different types of opportunities
it won't create less opportunities what
I think we will see is very repetitive
types of jobs
will go away and I personally don't
think that's necessarily a problem
it means the types of jobs that we will
have are going to involve more
collaboration, more creativity in much
more interesting I think they'll
actually be more of a fulfilling
experience then then some of the types
of work that we've seen in the past.
Remember the movies from you know the
20s and 30s of the accounting company so
you got desks after desks and
everybody's sitting there with some type
of adding machine it's a good thing we
don't have to do that anymore
and so now the challenge is for some
people there's a transition and I think
that's whereas if you look at the
post-secondary education as a whole
you're seeing lots of different type of
entry points. You're seeing on one side for
example here at the University of
Calgary or continuous continuing
education unit on campus offering short
training opportunities to give people a
little bit of a bump and a little bit of
a new skill set and so maybe an example
of that would be your you're really good
at facilitating teams but you don't
really understand some of the digital
technology you take a couple week course
there and that will allow you to open up
some doors We've got some of the laddering
graduate programs and in our Faculty of
Science for people that want to take a
little bit more of a deeper dive on the
data science side of it and then in
engineering we've talked about some of
the things we're doing and software
engineering. So the trick I think in
terms of transitioning more people
especially the people out in the in
their careers already is offering a host
of types of opportunities to support
that but my feeling is the types of
opportunities and careers created
through digital technology are actually
really exciting and less of the
repetitive type of work but we do need
to support transition. Thank you thank
you all. I really struggled with
that gap piece and I see this sort
of filling it
right in actually now that I know I
think about that you thought about it
We hear the term big data and so on and
thinking big if you put your futurists
hats on for a moment what do you think
the single most impact is going to be
impact social change societal change
that you expect to see from the digital
technological revolution and maybe I can
start with you Leslie. Sure so I might
take us not it's not really a different
on a different track because I think
we've been speaking to it I would say
the biggest impact that we're going to
see of the digital revolution is
inclusivity and what I mean by that is
is a lot of what we've already said we
are going to be able to accommodate more
flexible working schedules more
connectivity across the globe. We are
looking at there's a whole group of
technologies called diversity and
inclusion technologies in HR in terms of
analyzing biases that we have or biases
that we have when it comes to say 
the application process. Changing the way
we work and think and who gets involved
So just for an example we were talking
about apps there's an app called be my
eyes and be my eyes is a for people who
are visually impaired and so I'm a
member of be my eyes and if somebody is
in northern Saskatchewan and they're
seeing-eye dog has been spooked they
call me and I connect straight to me
I've got their phone camera and I can
walk them to the stairs of their house
and then I go back to my meeting. And so
there are so many technologies which are
enabling all aspects of society all
groups to be included and involved in a
way that we haven't been able to before
Inclusivity is going to be the greatest
impact and it will have it will have a
tenfold impact on output because the
more people we bring to the table the
more curiosity, the more creativity, the
more ideas that come to the solutions
and it is going to have it
a revolution in my opinion and how we
will solve the problems of the future.
And so technology is the great leveler
and I truly believe that.  I'm just
I'm passionate about that right I really
really think I think
that you know all of the programs that
we put in place technology is going to
change the way we work together. It
changes that connectivity and it will be
an inclusive leveler. Bill do you want to
add to that because I know you're always
talking about the groups. Absolutely you
know I completely agree and we talked
earlier about the gap and the fact that
technology itself if we think about K to
12 education you know 10 15 years ago
one of the issues were children in less
privileged areas than we are in Canada I
didn't have access to school books right
couldn't work at night because they
didn't have access to light and now
we think about it the you know the
problem was you had computers but
computers were we were not seeing the
mass deployment of computers globally
but handheld devices the number of
people globally that have handheld
devices phenomenally and so when we talk
about access to education as one example
the opportunities are endless in terms
of where we're going to go as a global
society and how that will drive the
global economy. The other area that we
haven't talked about yet which I think
will be a really interesting game
changer is medicine. So we had the start
sorry we had the Star Trek example right
now I think we are really just on the
cuff of how digital technology is going
to impact medicine. So right now for not
feeling well you go make an appointment
with your family doctor they ask you a bunch
of questions and they take a bit of a
guess right the
I mean they're trying to check things
off they might send you for a blood test
if something comes back they might come
and say you might take  another
appointment and they say you gotta go
see a specialist you wait a year to see
the specialist the specialist says
you've got this you wait another year to
maybe get an operation. Imagine what
digital technology can do. Imagine it's
better here than most places in Canada
and but imagine what digital technology
can do that in and just think about the
changes it's not just about the data
it's the sensors too. That you can put a
couple sensors on your body and you can
keep track of all your heart's doing
right and you can detect things long in
advance yeah I have one I'm just not
very good at wearing it. But it's not
just here right you can put something
around your your ankle you can you know
and you think about more complicated
types of scanning or monitoring you know
year by year we're seeing smaller less
expensive technology that's available
that's going to revolutionize healthcare
for us. I think that's going to be a huge
huge change into the future and it's
going to be really good for everybody.
just just a comment on that my doctor
now we have a good relationship with my
physician and he understands that one no
he understands that I'm gonna research
what I think what's happening to me
before I go in there and so he can give
us give me a much better understanding
 because I you can do some
research online and it's just great. I
I'm gonna turn to the two I often refer
to dr. Google yeah yeah uh yes sure I
know what my doctor thinks a doctor
Google but nevertheless. My doctor's
pretty pretty good about it
he knows that I'm gonna do that. We've
been talking to the educators let's just
turn to the industry side and see yeah
so the future yeah the way I see it I
see super-smart society living in smart
city. So when you get these two together
this is an opportunity and I agree with Bill and Leslie
100% is not actually only a challenge
it's a big opportunity I will give an
example and even how designs are
happening from my experience at U of C
first time I moved to Canada and my
first steps was at E building here when
I got a scholarship to do my PhD I still
remember this red bricks no light super
dark printing a big map okay and asking
where is geomatics department okay and
keep walking. I was happy then
with this because I came from a hot
country I'm originally Egyptian so this is
protecting me from the cold then but
when I see today in the morning I came
to an interactive map it's my first time
here the design here this is a
multi-purpose space it's not actually a
theatre or dedicated one natural light
means green efficient
this place is smart okay and when you
move here to the older technology of the
digital changes also the society will be
smart it's a massive opportunity when
you have the knowledge with great access
accessibility to it when you have the
tools and I love what Bill said  about
supporting the transition this is very
important because once you moves from
the beginning where actually there's a
lot of drops there and issues and you
start getting the skills then you are a
ready to be within this smart society so the way
I see it in the future and it's taking
all this technology to get things better
smart cities are not a big topic I'm
sure in the Schulich School of Engineering
and others working on it but also smart
society that are able to contribute and
do added value to the robotics because
robotics will do the repetitive
work and you heard this couple of times
but humans will be always doing the
added value and this has comes to the
skills and how you are really ready for
the digital future. That's cool. I
like the idea of having somebody else to
all the drudgery in the robotics and
yeah thinking of the new things. We're
running out of time and I've still got
other questions but I want to open the
question Q&A period up to the audience
you've heard a lot of discussion here so
raise your hand and we'll get a
microphone to you there's one of the
back there
Hi sorry thank you for for this great
event this great discussion it is it is
hard to talk about data and technology
without talking about privacy and
security and especially that Mohammed
Habibi talked about like being in this
business in Canada and the US and in
China and we have we know that the
privacy and security regulations are
different between those countries to
societies and the importance of the
discussion about security and privacy is
is is very particular here in 
Alberta because I have a question yes I
want I want a comment on the privacy and
security because this is one of the
biggest barriers for for oil and gas
companies to deploy and they implement
technologies related to data and cloud
computational ok so I think you know
it's thank you it's a great a great
comment and I think that across the
campus we have a lot of teams that are
working on the notion of information
security so we have a we actually we
talked about those laddering certificates if
that various units are doing we
have one in information security, so we
have lots and lots of researchers that
are working with industry directly on
you know from quantum computing and what
that means for privacy to even the apps
that you download we have a researcher
that's looking at the apps that are on
your phone and what they're doing in the
background that we aren't even aware of
what kind of information they're
collecting so until we can understand
what that chain of privacy looks like
and the depth and breadth of making sure
that the data is secure the information
is secure and that privacy can be
maintained that is a crucial step and I
think there are there is expertise in
Calgary if we combine some of the
industry partners that we have with
Cisco and others
and the work that's going on we are one
of the global leaders and I'm not just
saying that we actually are and so it's
a really good place to be and we need to
make sure that those connections and
that that information is is available
and that the industries who are in
Calgary are accessing the expertise to
help them ensure and encrypt and encode
and make sure that those privacy chains
are secure. It's good to hear that coming
from the Dean of Science and from the
industry point of view do you have a
comment there's a lot yeah there's a lot
of regulations now and coming back for
example to China and Canada. In Canada you
have to host you the data of the users
in a Canadian server for example China
the same China the government has to
have access to the data so if you talk
about our solutions in Canada we're in
Morial our servers in China to Alaba
Alibaba cloud in China and you have to
follow this regulation carefully because
if there is a data breach the
consequences are massive so this is a
kind to be they have be very protective
when you're thinking about it from
industrial point of view.  Any more - the lady
right here in the front. So sorry I'm not
used to using microphone we usually have
a really loud voice my question actually
comes to the systemic systemic and
organizational disruption so an example
for me on a personal side
I applied for a PhD in the School of
Engineering just like a couple
months ago and I was required to get a
paper copy of my transcript mailed to
the University so as somebody in it as
an engineer I was absolutely shocked so
I'm just curious what is happening at
higher levels whether it be in industry
to address those systemic like
challenges in the disruption
it it's a great example and in a way it
relates to the the first question as
well is it's not just all about the
technology we we need to think about for
example public policy right we need to
think about organizational structures to
make the right people understand and
feel comfortable with technology options
I completely agree I mean when we talk
about bringing the world together
through technology you picked the
language I can take my notes take a
picture of it and get it translated into
pretty much any language we want we
still require transcripts to be
officially translated I can do it online
in minutes right and so it's it's a
matter of building the systems and the
confidence in those systems one of the
ones that myself and one of our former
dean colleagues who's a political
scientist we had a panel discussion last
year talking about technology and
elections and my view is when are we
going to start voting by our apps right
like I can log in and do all my banking
and no offense to concepts of democracy
I actually consider my banking more
important than my vote and so if I can
do my banking on my phone but when am I
going to be at a vote on my phone and
imagine what that might do to a voter
participation right it takes you minutes
not an hour but right now we're not
comfortable with that we know the
technology would enable that so to your
point sorry about mailing in the
transcripts I'm not even sure where I
would find my transcripts we will get
there but I think it is one of the ones
and you spoke to industry and I think
it's institutions need to take a lead
government needs to take to take a lead
and corporations need to as well so when
we talk about data we need corporations
to be saying we need standards right and
in
sometimes it's not about more data it's
about the quality of data and getting
the data when you need the data and so
broader education in the area especially
around decision makers and policy makers
I spent last week at Engineers Canada in
Quebec and then the qualifications Board
and the accreditation boards and there
are folks who are looking at those that
have stacks of paper on their desks and
I was thinking oh god it would be so
much easier if we just sent them to them
things maybe they'd look at them just
speed up the process. We've got time for
another question let us take the one at
the back then we'll come back to you
Melanie oh okay well Melanie got the
microphone first. With so much access to
information I'm right here
with so much access to information this
is maybe more for the educators do you
guys see a devaluing of post-secondary
degrees you know there's there's been a
trending downwards for a bit about the
number of post-secondary degrees that
are awarded and also how do universities
remain competitive with all this access
to knowledge. Good question so we are
we're dramatically up in terms of the
number of students that are coming into
the Schulich School of Engineering
compared to five years ago I think
that's partly changes is partly related
to demographics so if you look at some
regions in Canada there's actually less
kids in high school southern Alberta
doesn't have that problem we have a
fairly healthy youth a set of youth
coming through I think what we're going
to see is is a great opportunity for
change in post-secondary education as
you move away from universities are
keeper of the knowledge right so you
come and you get the privilege of
listening to your professor write on the
chalkboard and I still do actually like
chalkboard so that's besides the point
it's going to be a much more interactive
immersive experience so you'll see a
shift away from
teaching in classrooms to one of the
things that we're doing in our
second-year Electrical Engineering we've
developed a stream called ILS integrated
learning stream where we've taken the
lectures, the tutorials and the labs and
we teach everything for all five of
their courses in one design type studio
well they'll have a little bit of a talk
on a subject and then they'll actually
sit there and work if it's electronics
they'll talk about it for a bit and then
they'll design something and work on
something right on the desk and in that
course environment we've also flipped
some of the lecture material so that
it's online and the students can review
it in advance at their own pace so it's
a very individualized learning
experience so I was a little bit slower
one of my classes so generally I could
barely keep up with the notes yet alone
absorb it. When you when you put some of
the material into an online delivery
format people can learn at their own
their own pace when they're here they
get a much richer learning experience
because they've already absorbed some of
the knowledge and we have you know they
can go seek help from some of our tutors
if they're having troubles... Really
like to get time for one more all right
anyways great it's a great opportunity
for the future. Thank you Bill.
Thank you. With all the increased
opportunities for access to information
also comes the opportunity to distribute
information that may be false or
misleading in a purposeful way. I this a
concern and is university training
students to watch for this in any way or
should we even be concerned. I think they
all want h to have a go at this one.
Leslie one less time with you. So I think
actually the two questions are related
in a very obtuse way and I think the 
responsibility of the university is not
as Bill suggested we're no longer the
keepers of knowledge but we're the our
mandate is becoming the being able to
teach our students how to understand
data and understand knowledge so what
what has become really essential is that
notion of critical thinking which is
sort of an old
buzzword but it  really infuses itself back
into technology in a way that is more
critical than ever and so being able to
discern and I see this with my own 16
year-old son as he was telling us
something the other night that was
completely absurd and so you know we
asked him to look at the source of that
data and start to think critically about
what it was that he was reading and our
students are no different as we are as
well and so the University it's not it
really isn't
where we're going to be standing on the
podium pontificating anymore
it's it's all about that experience it's
about understanding the amount of
information being able to discern what's
important and so that that notion of
false information but I'll take it one
step further and then I'll stop or let
my colleagues speak it's being able to
understand the depth of deception that's
embedded in the technology that is
invisible and so that's where our
research comes into play in terms of
understanding what's embedded what's in
what's not being seen by us and when we
hit a key what's happening so for
example Bill and I were sitting at a
table at a senior leadership retreat
and we were talking about work
integrated learning and we jokingly said
oh we need like an eHarmony style you
know matchmaking app for our students
and for industry guess what the next
yahoo email that came into my email an
eharmony you know join harmony. It's
listening and so and you know we joke
around about that but it's actually true
and so it's understanding the depth of
embedded deception and that is I think
the role that the university plays in
educating our students or one of them.
This is a great question and coming back
now related to the industry when you do
advertisement for example on Google and
Facebook Facebook now is not achieving
the same results because there is
a lot of fake information
and use Google is much better so even
the big companies who are working on the additional infrastructure regarding
rating this and this is very interesting
when you open things to the max then
they'll try to organize it and so this
is where the additional infrastructure
also AI everything we're talking about
is really working to make sure things
are legitimate and they are good
so again growth on the personal level I
agree with Leslie. Coming back about
critical thinking and decision making
what I mention about the skills because
at the end of the day when you expose to
a lot of information even in your domain
knowledge or generally for news or
whatever it the decision making is
coming down to the individual okay this
is where we go more to the smart
society and mentioned so I'll say it's
two sides organizations individuals that
are working to make sure that there is
regulation for this and also the digital
infrastructure like Yahoo Google
Facebook they also need to work and
they're working on this to make sure
also they can grow and and also we still
use them to find the information and see
an ad that make money and they're making
money out of that. Bill do you have a
last
quick word? I'll pass -what a great job my colleagues did but I was just amazed that nobody talked about
elections and fake news but III do think
what I would add is there's a
responsibility for leaders from all
sectors to to be honest about
information even when it may not be to
their personal or professional benefit
that we need to be role models and we
need to demand that our leaders from all
parties whatever side are doing the same.
He said he didn't have a last word  but that
was good thank you Bill.
We've come to just about the end
here and so I need to wrap up and then we
have a small video to show you. It has
been a distinct pleasure and honour for
me to sit here with these three folks
and with all of you to moderate this
session today and if but a few
thank-yous are in order first of all to
you guys for coming along in droves we had to put up
more tables in  and for
the questions that was really good.
Thanks to the University and to the
Schulich school for graciously hosting
this event but mostly to the three of
these guys and their insights in
Digital future and our roles as
engineers and geoscientists and just
simply members of society. So thank you
Dean Leslie Riggs, Dean Bill Rosehart
and Mr. Mohammad,  Dr. Mohammed al Habibi.
Enjoy the rest of your day before you go
we have a short video I think they might
actually make it like a touch screen
boom like with those octo arms so then
I'd like like you can just think
something and they appears on the screen
link so then you won't have to waste
your time just tap tap tap tap tap tap
tap searching of things eventually I
think people might actually be able to
create like robots that actually acts
like a human you're I'm a Star Wars fan
yeah the Luke Skywalker and right hand
after it's chopped off they open up the
prosthetic hand he's usually if the
pipes are opening opposing then he puts
it back on and squeeze on and then it
just moves around I'm in the future the
hope is that you can do that that'd be
pretty cool right so you lose a limb and
then you're able to reattach it maybe
the muscle fibers and the nerves and
then you're able to use it as your hands
and as I interact with the world I hold
my lightsaber my cup of coffee I can
acquire all the information that would
make me a worthy holder of the lightsaber right
or just not to spill my coffee
well like imagine like a robot just
extends its iron like that would be pretty
cool. One of my previous other mates is
trying to work on the possibility to let
their arms I can hold my coffee my
lightsaber and my foot but we have this
one rule in the lab where you can't
create the dark arm because that's just
evil so we can't go there no more than
seven right so okay yeah who knows what
the future is gonna have right. Like
there could be like I don't know teleporting or something.
you
