HEC Montréal an academic partner of the SCALE.AI project
AI-Powered Supply Chain Supercluster
February 15, 2018
HEC Montréal is one of the academic partners of the AI-Powered Supply Chain Supercluster – SCALE.AI, which has been selected by the Government of Canada to receive $230 million in funding under the Innovation Superclusters Initiative.
The announcement was made on February 15th by the Honourable Navdeep Bains, the federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.
“SCALE.AI will build something unique: bolster Canada’s leadership in AI and data science, and define the new supply-chain platform, deeply impacting the retail, manufacturing and transport sectors. It will drive economic growth, create highly skilled jobs and boost our talent pool, putting AI at the service of all Canadians,” said Hélène Desmarais, Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the Centre d’entreprises et d’innovation de Montréal and Chair of the Board of Directors of HEC Montréal.
Working alongside its supercluster partners, HEC Montréal will collaborate with industry stakeholders and draw on its expertise in education, commercialization and business development.
“HEC Montréal has a unique set of strengths when it comes to supply chains, logistics, operational research and artificial intelligence, relying on one of the country’s most talented and experienced academic faculty,” said Robert Gagné, Director, Research and Knowledge Transfer at HEC Montréal and Chair of the Board of the Institute for Data Valorization (IVADO).
HEC Montréal professors are also very active with GERAD and CIRRELT, two world-class research centres focused on the application of operational research to supply chains. In addition, HEC Montréal is one of the founding partners of IVADO.
From an educational standpoint, HEC Montréal offers master’s programs in global supply chain management and business analytics. Its EDUlib platform will readily provide access to online courses in supply chain management in contexts where artificial intelligence is poised to play a key role.
Executive Education HEC Montréal has already teamed up with IVADO to deliver various professional development programs in artificial intelligence and has plans to create new courses in logistics, transportation and supply chain management.
HEC Montréal is already committed to commercializing the results of leading-edge AI and supply chain management research through CDL-Montreal, a seed-stage program for science-based companies. And the School will soon be welcoming NextAI, an accelerator for AI-enabled startups.
“This expertise and these advantages will allow HEC Montréal to make a major contribution to its industrial and academic partners within the SCALE.AI supercluster in order to maximize artificial intelligence applications in supply chain management and thus give businesses in Quebec and Canada an edge over the international competition,” concluded Michel Patry, Director of HEC Montréal.