CAISIC's Roundtable with Members of Minister Solomon’s AI Strategy Task Force
On behalf of the Canadian AI Sovereignty & Innovation Cluster (CAISIC), I’m reaching out with an invitation to join a special national roundtable event bringing together Canada’s AI innovators, researchers, and entrepreneurs to provide input into the Government of Canada’s AI Strategy Task Force.
As you know, Minister Solomon’s newly formed 20-member Task Force is conducting an accelerated 30-day consultation to shape Canada’s AI policy framework. To support this important effort, CAISIC is hosting an AI Industry Listening Session on Wednesday, October 22 from 3:00–4:00pm EST, focused on surfacing the most urgent needs, barriers, and opportunities facing Canada’s AI ecosystem.
We would be honoured if you could join us to hear directly from industry and research leaders across Canada. This session will:
Provide Task Force members with direct, real-time input from companies and institutions driving Canadian AI innovation.
Generate valuable data (via pre-event survey and discussion notes) that CAISIC will compile and share with the Task Force to inform your upcoming report.
Strengthen alignment between government, academia, and the private sector under a shared vision of Canadian AI sovereignty.
The session will be hosted virtually and moderated by members of the CAISIC Event Committee. Participants will represent a cross-section of AI startups, scale-ups, investors, research institutions, and ecosystem enablers from across the country.
To guide the discussion, attendees will be asked to complete a short pre-event survey. The survey captures foundational information and asks participants to reflect on several key questions:
Size of organisation
Type of organisation
Location of organisation
What do you see as Canada’s most significant advantage or missed opportunity in AI development? What would need to change to capitalise on it?
What is the biggest obstacle currently preventing your organisation from achieving its AI ambitions? Why?
If there were one thing that would meaningfully accelerate your AI work, what would it be and why?
If you could ask the Task Force or the Federal Government one question, what would it be?
We are honoured that Dean Mary Wells (University of Waterloo) will lead the discussion. Other members of the Task Force have also been invited to participate.
This is a timely opportunity to connect Task Force deliberations directly with Canada’s AI builders and innovators — and to help ensure that our national AI strategy is informed by the voices shaping its future.