黑料福利网

Topic 

AI Readiness in Peripheral Regions: Insights from the Canadian Maritimes

Abstract

The Maritime provinces of Canada鈥擭ew Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island鈥攆orm a small coastal region whose demographic and geographic profile significantly shapes its capacity to adopt and innovate with transformational technologies. With a combined population of roughly two million and one of the oldest age distributions in the country, the Maritimes faces challenges familiar to many smaller jurisdictions: dispersed population centres, fragmented digital infrastructure, artificial barriers to interprovincial collaboration, and uneven institutional capacity to experiment with emerging technologies. These conditions complicate meaningful adoption of artificial intelligence and limit the region鈥檚 ability to deploy it at scale.

In this talk, I examine the Maritimes as a case study of AI readiness in peripheral regions. I argue that while these structural constraints risk positioning the region primarily as a downstream consumer of technologies developed elsewhere, they also highlight where AI could be genuinely transformative鈥攑articularly in supporting aging populations, enabling innovation in natural-resource industries, and improving access to public services across rural communities. I will illustrate this through examples from our own research in resource management, health technologies, and longitudinal, population-level administrative data. Together, these examples show how the region鈥檚 small size strategically positions it for innovation in both traditional sectors and public services, while simultaneously laying groundwork for meaningful participation in global markets. By situating these opportunities alongside persistent structural challenges, I aim to show how the Maritimes can inform a broader academic and policy understanding of responsible AI deployment in resource-limited contexts.

About the speaker

Dr. Scott Bateman is Scientific Director of the Research Institute in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (RIDSAI) at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. He also leads the Spatial Computing Research Centre and co-directs the Human-Computer Interaction Lab. His research focuses on human-computer interaction, applied AI, game  design, and mixed reality, with applications in health care, training, and collaborative work. He works closely with Maritime industry to assist in their adoption of emerging technologies. Dr. Bateman holds a PhD from the University of Saskatchewan and has held research roles at Microsoft Research and IBM Watson. He is a member of the Steering Committee of the CHI PLAY conference series and has been a visiting professor at the Universit茅 de Lille and Singapore Management University. His work has earned multiple awards, including a Best Paper and three Honourable Mention awards at the ACM CHI and Spatial User Interfaces conferences.

Your host

Max Birk, Associate Professor at the department of Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences.

Registration is required but free of charge.