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Montreal Is Leading the AI World Takeover

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Re: Montreal Is Leading the AI World Takeover

#41

Post by bogomipz »

Vinsalg wrote: post #38
bogomipz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Montreal has more students/capita than anywhere in North America, due to a clustering of big Unis downtown." This statement is not true, its not even close: Montreal with a population of 1.65 million and 248K students would mean around 15% of the population are students. Larger students per capita in North America would include: Ames, Iowa 34.2 percent. Ithaca, New York 32.8 percent. State College, Pennsylvania 31.…

I think he's referring to the fact that the Uni campuses are situated directly downtown. Something rare in other American cities.

Well that would be a measure of density - more students per square meter or something. I'm not sure why that would be relevant if we're talking about the city as a whole.

Re: Montreal Is Leading the AI World Takeover

#42

Post by rocky1138 »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #34
mablap wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone flag this comment? I don't have the option. I had written a proper response but the level of ignorance and apparent hatred displayed in your comment makes me doubt you would have read it.

While these may not be pleasant attitudes, the effects are real. There's a pretty big disincentive for anglophone engineers to move to Montreal, say from Toronto. Not sure about Waterloo. Waterloo's kind of dead, so I imagine graduates being glad to move anywhere more interesting.

I'm in Waterloo at the moment. There are a lot of really good investments being made currently, but you're bang on with your thought that graduates are glad to move anywhere but here. It's hard to get people to come here from Toronto, never mind from somewhere in the USA.

Waterloo is very much a place where no one lives but everyone comes to for either a job or for school. Once either of those two are completed, the person leaves.

With continued investment, things will change. But, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Re: Montreal Is Leading the AI World Takeover

#44

Post by bogomipz »

technics256 wrote: post #18
ThePhysicist wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you name some DL companies in Berlin please? I'm very interested in this and based here, so I'd love to learn more about interesting projects here. So far my impression was that the "deep tech" scene in Berlin is minuscule compared to e.g. London and SV, and that most companies here work in ad tech and e-commerce (two fields which I have no interest in at all).

Do you live in Berlin? Am also looking for like minded people. Munich seems to have more to be honest, and has a new ML incubator.

I know we hear a lot about Berlin being a startup hub but does Munich also have a startup scene? Lovely city.

Re: Montreal Is Leading the AI World Takeover

#45

Post by gerbilly »

edblarney wrote: post #26
mablap wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one data point: There are about 150 academic AI researchers in in an area of 1.4 square kilometre radius in downtown Montreal.

Montreal has more students/capita than anywhere in North America, due to a clustering of big Unis downtown. So, in a way, it has a 'geography' advantage to such numbers :). That said, I'm highly doubtful that they will be able to effectively leverage the knowledge. Bombardier etc. are slow, monolithic entities, who will no doubt take AI up, but I wonder how effectively and profitably for local entities. Air Canada is…

> The language issue cannot be overlooked - a little less than 1/2 of Montreal is primarily English speaking

A Joke for you:

Little Johnny asks his mother: what does the word "bilingual" mean?

The mother answers, a person who speaks two languages.

Then Johnny asks, what do you call a person who speaks three languages then?

The mother answers: "trilingual."

How about one language?

"American"

Re: Montreal Is Leading the AI World Takeover

#46

Post by forgetsusername »

edblarney wrote: post #26
mablap wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one data point: There are about 150 academic AI researchers in in an area of 1.4 square kilometre radius in downtown Montreal.

Montreal has more students/capita than anywhere in North America, due to a clustering of big Unis downtown. So, in a way, it has a 'geography' advantage to such numbers :). That said, I'm highly doubtful that they will be able to effectively leverage the knowledge. Bombardier etc. are slow, monolithic entities, who will no doubt take AI up, but I wonder how effectively and profitably for local entities. Air Canada is…

>An acquaintance calls herself a 'playwright' and she's written 2 tiny productions for the local theatre with 2 actors each - no props or anything.

I've been to innumerable tech conferences where I've met the heads of 1 or 2 man game shops with no tangible product who call themselves "CEO".

Re: Montreal Is Leading the AI World Takeover

#47

Post by miguelrochefort »

edblarney wrote: post #35
hellofunk wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Francophone networks are weak. They are very local, and poor, and for a variety of reasons a little 'self oriented'. This is a Quebec thing, but also a French thing > An acquaintance calls herself a 'playwright' and she's written 2 tiny productions for the local theatre with 2 actors each - no props or anything. She's late in her 'career' already. You are making such blanket statements of stereotypes. The "career"…

" Francophone networks are weak. They are very local, and poor" A) French speaking Quebecers are poor, relative to N. America. Median wages are 'ok' due to lots of 'decent' government jobs, but mean wages for Francophones are very low. B) Francophone business networks usually don't expand beyond Quebec. There are no elite Universities in Quebec (McGill is pretty good, but not French), and there is zero access to netw…

> The people here do not have any interest in building it.

I have. Where do I start?

Re: Montreal Is Leading the AI World Takeover

#48

Post by JoeAltmaier »

gerbilly wrote: post #45
edblarney wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Montreal has more students/capita than anywhere in North America, due to a clustering of big Unis downtown. So, in a way, it has a 'geography' advantage to such numbers :). That said, I'm highly doubtful that they will be able to effectively leverage the knowledge. Bombardier etc. are slow, monolithic entities, who will no doubt take AI up, but I wonder how effectively and profitably for local entities. Air Canada is…

> The language issue cannot be overlooked - a little less than 1/2 of Montreal is primarily English speaking A Joke for you: Little Johnny asks his mother: what does the word "bilingual" mean? The mother answers, a person who speaks two languages. Then Johnny asks, what do you call a person who speaks three languages then? The mother answers: "trilingual." How about one language? "American"

Not sure where this myth comes from. America is a land of immigrants, and hundreds of languages are spoken here. Right up there with India and Indonesia.

http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=15941

Re: Montreal Is Leading the AI World Takeover

#49

Post by WhitneyLand »

It's interesting most Americans don't seem to be aware of how much good tech work goes on in Quebec (say kay-bec not kwa-bec). I went a few years to work on SoftImage3D and it was the same with computer graphics, lots of talent and innovation I was not aware of.

It may not be the "Silicon Valley of AI" but the point is they are a hotbed.

I would recommend it if you have an interest. People are very friendly, tons of good restaurants, night life, and culture. You get a bit of European flavor without leaving the continent. It is advisable to commit to a crash course in French. Yes a lot of people speak english but for a variety of reasons it makes a big difference in what you'll get out of being an expat.

Re: Montreal Is Leading the AI World Takeover

#50

Post by branchless »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #49

It's interesting most Americans don't seem to be aware of how much good tech work goes on in Quebec (say kay-bec not kwa-bec). I went a few years to work on SoftImage3D and it was the same with computer graphics, lots of talent and innovation I was not aware of. It may not be the "Silicon Valley of AI" but the point is they are a hotbed. I would recommend it if you have an interest. People are very friendly, tons of…

Montreal is the nuts. America won't be singing it's praises mainly because it's quite socialist. Good for Bengio for not going into the private sector, where he would have been forced to put his techniques to utterly pointless work like working out which advertisement can best manipulate someone into buying something they don't need/want. Facebook.

Let's hope that Montreal can capture the value added by their public investment to re-invest back into schools and also that they can keep a lid on land prices / banker parasitic behaviour which has clearly blighted California.

I'd also agree on learning French, I'm not fluent and it pisses me off. Back to Anki.

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