Mississauga, ON – (July 17, 2017):

The Research Innovation and Commercialization (RIC) Centre partnered with Arrow Electronics to host the Driving Dreams Conference at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) with ICUBE, the on-campus accelerator. Driving Dreams highlighted the importance of connections, academia, and our community to work on solutions to change the world. It was attended by industry professionals, C-suite executives, government representatives, small businesses, and technology entrepreneurs.

Driving Dreams was the first collaboration, showcasing pivotal technology in the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and big data space. The conference featured many amazing keynote speakers such as Scott Kennedy, Principal Lead for IoT at Rogers, and panelists including Greg Dashwood, Product Lead IoT & Advanced Analytics at Microsoft, and Marcellino Gemelli, Director of Global Business Development at Bosch.

In the first keynote, Scott Kennedy talked about IoT and its relevance in business today. He mentioned how Fortune 500 companies fail because they aren’t jumping at the chance to implement IoT solutions in their business. Scott encouraged companies to enhance the IoT conversation and get a better understanding of the problems their customers are facing.

“Technology is the enablement. You need to emotionally connect with your clients and understand their end-to-end supply chain, to understand what their problem is. Only then will you be able to successfully implement personalized IoT solutions that your clients will adopt,” said Scott Kennedy, Principal Lead for IoT Rogers Professional Services.

One of the panels discussed growing trends in AI, big data, sensors and IoT and involved speakers such as Mohammad Ahmad, Senior Manager at TE Connectivity, Andrew Hunter, Senior Director of Marketing at Cypress, and Rob Martinez the Sales Development Manager at Intel.

Driving Dreams was also a platform to launch the hackABILITY hackathon hosted by RIC, Arrow Electronics and ICUBE and inspired by Sam Schmidt, a former Indy race car driver and quadriplegic.  Thanks to IoT advancements, Sam partnered with Arrow Electronics to build the SAM (Semi-Autonomous Motorcar) that’s allowed him to get on the track once more, just by tilting his head. The SAM car was showcased at the conference, to give attendees a better look at what technology solutions were used.

“hackABILITY takes the ‘dis’ out of disability. When you deal with people who have disabilities and you help them to be independent, it changes their situation forever—It empowers them,” said Sam Schmidt.

The motivation behind the hackathon is to raise awareness about opportunities in these fast-emerging areas of technology. hackABILITY also aims to facilitate rapid prototyping of devices that may be considered for further development and commercialization. The evolution of technology continues to push boundaries and encourages new ways of putting things together and hackABIITY is the place to showcase inventions that can change lives.

As innovation partners, Altitude Accelerator, Arrow Electronics, and ICUBE believe community collisions to create the right environment for creative ideas to spark, grow, and change the world.

Altitude Accelerator

The Research Innovation Commercialization (RIC) Centre helps technology entrepreneurs that want to fast-track their business to market. Altitude Accelerator is like a boutique offering, we know our clients and invest time to help growing technology companies reach a significant milestone. From the idea and concept stage, to the growth and expansion stage of their business, Altitude Accelerator has supported more than 700 startup clients since 2013. Altitude Accelerator clients have raised over $240M in capital, generate over $115M in revenue, and create more than 650 jobs. https://altitudeaccelerator.ca/

Arrow Electronics

Arrow Electronics brings technology solutions to a breadth of markets, including telecommunications, information systems transportation, medical, industrial, and consumer electronics. Arrow provides specialized services and expertise across the product lifecycle by connecting customers to the best technology companies in the world, through their industry leading services. For more information, visit https://www.arrow.com

ICUBE

ICUBE is the business accelerator at the Institute of Management and Innovation, University of Toronto Mississauga. ICUBE offers students and community youth early-stage business development and commercialization services including an entrepreneurial curriculum, business advisory services, collaborative space, expert speaker sessions and a mentorship program. The space contains innovative programming and support that will strive to build a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship at UTM. For more information, visit http://icubeutm.ca/