Dear Friends, Partners, Alumni, and Trainees,
On the heels of kicking off the 7th cohort of the AI4Good Lab, and announcing the Lab’s integration into Mila, I would like to provide you with an update on our leadership structure.
As of May 1st, 2023, the Lab’s leadership will now be anchored in the AI for Humanity team at Mila under the direction of Benjamin Prud’homme and Anna Jahn, and the AI4Good Lab’s Advisory Board including myself, Doina Precup, Elissa Strome, Alan MacIntosh, and Stephanie Enders.
Due to these changes in our leadership structure, Maya Marcus-Sells will be departing as Executive Director of the AI4Good Lab. Maya was instrumental in crafting our strategic plan to integrate with Mila, and in the past 3 years, she has played a phenomenal role in leading the Lab. Under her direction, we solidified our Pan-Canadian presence across Montréal, Edmonton and Toronto, and launched a hybrid delivery model which ensured the Lab’s continuation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, Maya accelerated the development of our funding partnerships with the public and private sectors to help grow the Lab’s cohort size from 20 trainees to 90 in just three short years.
On behalf of the Advisory Board I would like to thank Maya for her significant contributions to the Lab.
Personally, I would also like to deeply thank Maya for taking a leap of faith when we asked her to come on board in 2019. At that time, Doina Precup and I had proven our hypothesis that the Lab played a role in catalyzing the career development of next-gen women+ and underrepresented groups in AI, however, it was volunteer-run. We both knew that it needed a full-time leader to fully realize the potential we had envisioned. Any startup founder will tell you the uneasiness that is involved in entrusting a new leader to execute on the vision you set out, however Maya exceeded our expectations and under her leadership the Lab evolved to become a successful national initiative under the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy.
Maya, we wish you well, and we greatly thank you for the positive impact that you have had on the AI4Good Lab.
Sincerely,
Angelique Mannella
Co-Founder and Advisory Board Member, AI4Good Lab