Monday, April 30, 2018

University of Waterloo in Ontario opens an Artificial Intelligence Institute

The University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada has opened its Artificial Intelligence Institute. The institute will concentrate on foundational artificial intelligence (AI) and operational AI.

Foundational AI includes research on statistical learning, deep learning, game theory and data science. This is research that advances the whole technology industry. Operational AI research develops scalable, secure and transparent solutions for a wide range of applications.
Officials praise new institute
Feridun Hamdullapur, president and vice-chancellor of Waterloo University said: “The launch of Waterloo AI enhances Canada’s leadership in foundational and operational AI as it brings together world-renowned researchers with industry to accelerate innovation and prepare for future disruptions. By connecting research talent with industry expertise, Waterloo AI will identify problems and produce solutions that will actively benefit our society.”
Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development said that as a world leader in AI, Canada's talent and expertise attract millions from foreign investors each year. AI is expected to contribute up to $15.7 annually to the world economy by the year 2030.
Waterloo AI will pursue new areas of research that have important societal and business effects. The areas include healthcare, environmental protections, urban planning, manufacturing, autonomous systems and human-machine interaction. It will provide access to expertise by individuals and industry.
Waterloo AI is a joint venture between the two faculties of science and engineering. However, it will also include researchers from other departments including arts, applied health sciences, environment and science. It is also affiliated with a number of existing labs and institutes at the university.
The University of Waterloo
UW or UWaterloo is a public research university with its main campus in the city of Waterloo Ontario. It has a large main campus if 404 hectares or 1,000 acres of land besides the uptown of Waterloo and Waterloo Park It has academic programs in six different faculties and ten faculty-based school. It also has three satellite campuses plus four affiliated colleges.
Waterloo is a member of a group of research intensive Canadian universities called U15.
The university is famous for its cooperative programs. These programs allow students to integrate their education with applicable work experiences. The university claims to have the largest coop program of this kind in the world with 17,000 undergraduate programs and over 140 cooperative programs.
According to Wikipedia: "The university operates and manages 41 research centres and institutes, including the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research, the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology, the Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing and the Institute for Quantum Computing. Official recognition and designation of all centres and institutes requires the approval of the university's Senate."
As discussed in a recent Digital Journal article the university has partnered with China in research on autonomous electric vehicles.


Previously published in DIgital Journal

Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) is examining the activities of cryptocurrency trading platforms in the province

The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) is examining the activities cryptocurrency trading platforms that are operating in the province.

OSC claims that cryptocurrencies may qualify as securities
An OSC spokesperson, Kristen Rose reported that the OSC had received a number of complaints about platforms selling cryptocurrencies. She said that the cryptocoins could qualify as securities:"These platforms, and any businesses that allow coins/tokens that are securities to trade on them, may be offside securities laws."
The OSC also noted that any platform offering cryptocoin trading had to determine whether it was a marketplace. Marketplaces must comply with rules governing exchanges or alternative trading systems.
Ontario law on security exchanges
Security exchanges in Ontario must apply to the OSC for recognition. The applications ask firms to describe their business, including corporate governance, operations, access requirements as well as fees and financial viability.
None of the platforms that the OSC is examining have been recognized as exchanges. None have been exempted from regulation either.
The examination is not a full investigation. At the present stage the OSC is simply gathering information about the activities of the platforms. However, the OSC in a recent document for this year said that it would focus on cryptocurrencies. The OSC said that its aims were to provide consumer protection, while at the same time allowing innovation as well letting capital formation to go ahead without disruption.
OSC claims that Initial Coin Offerings ICO's in particular present investor protection issues. However, the OSC is not always hostile to ICOs. Last October it allowed a TokenFunder sale. ICOs are a way by which startups raise capital. Many worry that without regulation some ICO's could be financial scams.
The exchanges and ICO's are operating in grey areas as regulators have yet to define clearly which security laws and regulations apply to the new offerings.
Other jurisdictions cracking down on cryptocurrency exchanges
In the United States the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been investigating a number of cryptocoin exchanges and ICOs.
In February this year the SEC charged the former exchange BitFunder with fraud for operating without a licence when it was a securities exchange. The SEC said that any platform that engaged in the activities of a national security exchange must register and this included digital assets, tokens, or coins.
The SEC said at the time, that it would continue to focus on these types of platforms to ensure compliance with securities laws and protect investors.
Australia earlier this week released new regulations that will require all exchange platforms to register and comply with anti-money laundering regulations. If they do not they will face criminal offense and civil penalty charges.


Previously published in DIgital Journal

Sunday, April 15, 2018

Trump administration positive about NAFTA renegotiations

(March 29)Although the Trump administration sounds upbeat about the progress of NAFTA negotiations and the chances of reaching an agreement the chief Canadian negotiator claimed that the US had yet to make compromises necessary for an agreement to be reached.
US and Canadian negotiators gave quite different assessments of the situation.
Trump's chief negotiator Robert Lighthizer, who has publicly criticized both Mexico and Canada said that he was optimistic that an agreement "in principle" in the next little while is possible with some effort and compromise. In contrast the Canadian chief negotiator Steve Verheul said that significant gaps remain and that Canada is not sure what the US means by an agreement "in principle". He also complained that the US had yet to make the necessary compromises to reach a deal.
Verheul told reporters in Ottawa: “An agreement in principle, to our understanding, means some sense of direction on the big issues, the important issues. We’ve not seen that from the U.S. so far. We’ve not seen any proposals in that regard. If we’re going to achieve that, we would fairly require some considerable flexibility in U.S. positions.”
Canada's large Unifor union also criticized the US assessment

President of Unifor union, Jerry DIas, representing autoworkers was quite blunt in an interview: “I don’t know what Lighthizer is smoking, but he should stop it.” Dias said that at most the three countries could complete negotiations on a number of smaller issues by the end of April. On bigger issues they still remain far apart.
Auto manufacturing issue still not solved

Verneul played down recent reports of a breakthrough on the auto manufacturing issue that had been a source of tension. Lighthizer had said last week that the countries were "starting to converge" on the issue. David MacNaughton the Canadian ambassador to the US said that the talks took a positive turn when the US had placed a compromise proposal to its earlier demands that were rejected by both Canada and Mexico. Nevertheless, Verheul claimed that the auto manufacturing issue was still not close to being resolved saying: “We welcome that signal, but ... we are still quite a distance away from any kind of agreement on the approach to auto rules of origin."
The earlier US demand was that 50 percent of a car had to be made in the US in order to qualify for tariff-free treatment plus there would be an increase from 62.5 percent to 85 percent in the amount of a car that would be required to be made in North America.
Factfile on NAFTA. US President Donald Trump has denounced NAFTA as a "disaster" and the w...
Factfile on NAFTA. US President Donald Trump has denounced NAFTA as a "disaster" and the worst agreement ever signed by the United States, blaming it for a $64 billion trade gap with Mexico and loss of countless jobs
John SAEKI, AFP
The new proposal
The publication Inside US Trade reported on Tuesday that the US would drop its US content proposal if Canada and Mexico agree to count autoworker's wages toward the North American content requirement. Mexico could avoid tariffs by paying their auto workers higher wages. However, the qualifying wage for this is thought to be around 15 dollars per hour. This is more than three times higher than the average current Mexican wage.
This could be a boon for Mexican workers but big automakers no doubt would reject it, as one of the main reasons for moving production to Mexico is the lower wages. The Mexican government might reject it as well since there would be no motive for automakers to increase production in Mexico and some production might even move back to the US. No doubt this is part of the aim of the proposal.
Horacio Lopez-Portillo, a trade lawyer with Vazquez Tercero and Zepeda in Mexico said that fifteen dollars as a cutoff was not workable. Lopez-Portillo claimed: “There is no way it’s going to happen. Can the Mexican government be pressured to increase wages in the auto industry higher than they currently are? Maybe. But it won’t be much higher than where they actually stand.”
In contrast to this rejection of the new proposal Canadian PM Justin Trudeau said on March 21st that there was a certain momentum in negotiation. The US confirmed that there had been a breakthrough in negotiations over the auto sector. In Mexico Trudeau said: “There is very strong resistance to including this. Having said that, will it happen? Maybe. And I say maybe because we’re trying to reach common ground ... so Mexico might actually cede a little bit here. How much, I don’t know.”
US wants a deal soon
From time to time Trump threatens to simply terminate NAFTA but in March his administration has struck a more positive tone, indeed more positive than that of Canada or Mexico. The Inside US Trade reports that US trade representative Lighthizer wants a deal by May 1. However, the three countries have yet to even agree to a calendar for the next round of negotiations that are expected to take place in Washington DC in April.
The Mexican presidential election is on July 1 and Andres Obrador the front runner is left-leaning NAFTA skeptic. Obrador is sure to drive a harder bargain that Enrique Nieto the present president.
The last talks were in Mexico in early March. At that time Trump announced that exemption of Mexico and Canada from steel and aluminum tariffs would depend on the completion of successful NAFTA renegotiations. In effect he is using the tariff threats to drive a harder bargain.
Conclusion
NAFTA is basically a trade agreement meant to increase the power of global corporations in North America and foster their interests. Trump wants to change the agreement so that more jobs are created in the US and have the terms align more closely with US national interests and national corporations in line with his America First policy.
Canada continues to take the perspective of global corporate interests. Basic imperfections in NAFTA such as the proportionality clause are not even opened and the press for the most part does not even talk about it. The issue is discussed in a http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/politics/op-ed-canada-s-nafta-priorities-excludes-key-proportionality-clause/article/500171 in August of last year.


Previously published in Digital Journal

Saturday, April 7, 2018

Trudeau Liberal government will spend $25 million over three years to advance green agricultural technology

The Trudeau government will dedicate $25 million over three years to aid the agricultural sector to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the adoption of green technology. The program will begin on April 1st of this year.

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Provinces as well as territories are eligible to apply for this federal funding and are encouraged to cooperate with industry on projects focusing on precision agriculture and bioproducts.
Precision agriculture
Precision agriculture (PA), sometimes called satellite farming, or site specific crop management (SSCM), manages crop production by observing, measuring, and responding to inter-field and intra-field variability of crops. The goal of precision agriculture is to create a decision support system of management for the entire farm that will optimize returns on inputs while preserving resources.
New satellite technology is crucial to much of precision agriculture although surveillance drones are also of use. Wikipedia describes the technology: "The practice of precision agriculture has been enabled by the advent of GPS and GNSS... This data is used in conjunction with satellite imagery by variable rate technology (VRT) including seeders, sprayers, etc. to optimally distribute resources."
The use of some of these technologies by a Saskatchewan farmer was reported in a Digital Journal article last year. The Western Producer newspaper also has an article on precision agriculture on the Canadian prairies.
Government statements on funding cleantech
Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture ad Agri-Food said: “This investment will help Canadian farmers stay on the cutting edge of clean technology by targeting developments in bioproducts and precision agriculture. Our government has made both agriculture and clean technology a priority for growth in our economy. This new program will contribute to Canada’s place as a world leader in agricultural clean technology, helping farmers to develop new and efficient uses of energy, while also protecting our environmental resources and mitigating climate change.”
The government also notes that a further $155 million will also be provided by Natural Resources Canada for research, development, and demonstration projects of clean technology.
In the 2017 budget the government announced a number of clean technology programs and initiatives. $130 million was directed to cleantech research and development. $400 million over 5 years funds the Sustainable Development Fund that focuses on cleantech projects. Finally, $14.5 million over four years is used to develop Clean Technology Data Strategy.


Previously published in Digital Journal