CEO Message

March is Women’s History Month, an annual celebration of the vital role and contributions of women to society. Profound Impact is proud to celebrate women through the stories you’ll read in this month’s issue of Profound Connections, as well as activities we’re sponsoring throughout the month.

This month’s Impact Story profiles Zainab Azim, a young woman whose passion for space, education, neuroscience and public policy has inspired her to found an organization that works towards providing access to quality education, serve as a mentor in the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs Space4Women program and present her research to audiences around the world – all before completing her undergraduate degree!  Read about Zainab and her plans for expanding her work in mentoring and in the policy space to empower young girls and women interested in pursuing space and STEM fields.

In this month’s Researcher Spotlight we feature Julita Vassileva, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan. You’ll learn about Julita’s passion for promoting the status of women in computer science and in all areas of science and engineering where women are underrepresented. You can also learn about her ground-breaking research on applying AI to solve educational and social problems.

International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8 each year and the theme for IWD 2024 is Inspire Inclusion. Profound Impact is proud to be a sponsor of IWD 2024 events presented by WCT-WR, the Waterloo Region Chapter of Women in Communications and Technology. WCT-WR will host two live events on March 8 and March 27 that will include conversations featuring trailblazing professionals in the arts and culture sector, entertainment, and musical interludes.  Full information about those events and registration information is available here.

In last month’s newsletter, we announced the launch of Women Funding Women (WFW).  Founded by myself, Profound Impact board chair Deborah Rosati and Lara Zink, VP of Client Service and Development at Delaney Capital Management, WFW is a collective working to address the funding gap faced by women-led ventures.

We’re excited about the incredible energy generated by WFW’s two-day launch event on February 7 and 8. Our keynote speaker was Joanna Griffiths, founder and President at Knix, who shared her story with our collective.  

You can also tune into the From Fear to Fire podcast, where I speak with Heather Hansen O’Neill about how WFW is leading the charge to challenge established norms within the venture capital sphere, redefining the landscape for women founders and funders.

Are you a researcher looking for the perfect funding match? For a limited time, Profound Impact is offering a free evaluation of our AI-powered tool, Research Impact, to individual researchers, colleges and universities. You can view a video here or sign up for a live demonstration during one of our Demo Days.

Thank you for your support and we hope that you enjoy this month’s edition of Profound Connections!

Sherry Shannon-Vanstone

Julita Vassileva

Professor of Computer Science
University of Saskatchewan

Julita Vassileva has been acclaimed both for the excellence of her research in Artificial Intelligence and Education, User Modelling and User-Adaptive Systems, Multi-Agent Systems, Trust and Reputation Mechanisms, Incentive Mechanisms, Online Communities and Social Computing, and her passion for promoting the status of women in computer science and in all areas of science and engineering where women are underrepresented.

Born and educated in Sofia, Bulgaria, Julita wanted to be a poet and writer as a teenager. But Bulgaria was a socialist country, freedom of speech was severely constrained, and only those whose creativity flew in the permitted channels could make a living as poets or writers. How did she choose a career in science? “I come from a family of scientists,” she says. “My grandfather was a professor in biochemistry.  My mother was an associate professor of chemistry and my father – of physics.”

She continues, “I hated math in primary school and wasn’t very good at it until we started learning geometry in grade 5. Suddenly I was captured by the simplicity of images and elegance of geometry as compared to the formal rules to be followed in algebra.”

Julita competed to be accepted to the Sofia Mathematics Gymnasium high school and she credits one great teacher, who taught her class for only three months in grade 9, for her enthusiasm for math. “The teacher creates the vocation,” says Julita. “He taught math in a completely different way. He didn’t follow the textbook but taught us as though we were university students, starting with complex numbers instead of teaching how to solve quadratic equations by ‘Just remember this formula’.” We saw the problem stretched on the plane with an imaginary axis and a real one instead of squeezed on a linear axis and suddenly the solution – the Viet formula – made perfect sense. I saw the link between algebra and geometry.  The whole class was hooked. He was also an opera singer. When a student solved a problem well at the blackboard, he would sing an aria!”

Julita studied mathematics and mechanics at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski and, after completing her Ph.D. in mathematics and computer science, she accepted a position as a Research Associate at the Federal Armed Forces University in Munich. “This was after the fall of the Iron Curtain and it was now possible to travel from Bulgaria to the West,” says Julita. 

Although she enjoyed her time in Germany and wanted to pursue a career in research and academia, the position was limited to a five-year term. Julita’s home country was in deep economic turmoil, so returning to Bulgaria was not an option. She decided to make the move to Canada after receiving an offer from the University of Saskatchewan, where she would work in one of the five leading groups in the world conducting research in Applied AI, AI in Education and building good systems for teaching.

Julita’s ground-breaking research is focused on applying AI to solve education and social problems and includes intelligent tutoring that incorporates personalization and user modeling, multi-agent systems that build trust to ensure technology is seen as beneficial, designing incentive mechanisms that encourage participation in online communities and persuasive technology that facilitates behaviour changes to benefit users and their communities.

“Since people are motivated by different things, I am particularly interested in personalization approaches that tailor incentives for users depending on their personal features and the features of their groups and communities,” she says about her focus on building successful online communities and social computing applications.

Julita is passionate about science outreach and promoting the advancement of women and minorities in Computer Science. As the NSERC Cameco Chair for Women in Science and Engineering (WISE)/Prairies from 2005-2011, she developed the Science Ambassadors outreach program, which enriches classroom science learning in remote Indigenous communities. “Indigenous people are extremely underrepresented in Science and Engineering. What if we could encourage more women from Indigenous communities to enter these fields through a program that brings science students to the north to help the teachers teach science in interesting ways and to serve as role models?”

Julita credits colleagues Chary Rangacharyulu from the Department of Physics and Lee Wilson from the Department of Chemistry for the idea of Science Ambassadors. As Chair, she had the budget to make it happen by paying a summer job honorarium for University students to work with teachers and students in remote communities for one month. The program, which reaches over 2,000 children annually in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, covers the cost of flying university students to northern communities that have trouble attracting teachers. These students consult in advance with teachers to understand how they can help, and then develop and help deliver material based on those discussions.

The Science Ambassadors program has been active for 16 years and continues to be operated by the College of Arts and Science after Julita’s term as NSERC WISE Chair ended. “I am very proud of the program and the impact it has had on bringing a larger cohort of Indigenous students to the University of Saskatchewan,” she says.

In addition to the prestigious NSERC WISE Chair, Julita’s research and outreach work has been recognized with the University of Saskatchewan College of Arts and Science Distinguished Scientist Award in 2021 and with a Saskatoon YWCA’s Women of Distinction Award for Science and Technology in 2015. She has received appreciation letters from the Hon. Senator Lillian Dyck, and from the professional societies ACM and IEEE for her work on promoting women in science and engineering. She is proud of the many “Best Paper” and especially the “Best Student Paper” award certificates for her students that decorate a wall in her office.

Julita is enthusiastic about Saskatchewan and her work. “I felt as though I could finally breathe freely when I moved to Saskatchewan. I love the climate, the blue skies and the clean, white snow. And I love my research and working with my students. My happiest moments are when we hit “Submit” just before midnight after collaborating on a paper in the cloud for many hours with my students to meet a publication deadline!”

You can see more about Julita’s career and impact in the visualization below.

Zainab Azim

Zainab Azim
Founder, GIVE

Zainab Azim’s interest in and passion for space was sparked at the age of 12. “Some parents read bedtime stories to their children. My father showed us documentaries about space.” 

Currently in the final semester of her Bachelor of Science undergraduate program at the University of Toronto, Zainab designed her studies to focus on a mix of the interests she is passionate about, including neuroscience, astrophysics, public policy, education and society.

“When I was younger, space was everything to me. When I reflected on why I cared about space, it wasn’t just about discovery and exploration. It was about the connection between people, the community and how we are part of something much bigger than ourselves.”

Zainab has made it her goal to inspire girls to study STEM subjects. In 2023, she presented the research she had conducted during high school and in university at the World Space Forum 2023 in Vienna. “This was the first world space forum and not a lot of people were talking about the educational aspect of space. I didn’t meet all of the stated requirements for presenting my research, but decided to apply anyway. They thought my work was interesting and they took a chance on me.”

While in Vienna, Zainab met with representatives from UNOOSA, the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, to talk about how to engage young people in space studies. As a result of those discussions, she now serves as a mentor in the UNOOSA Space4Women, a program dedicated to empowering young girls and women interested in pursuing space and STEM fields. The Space4Women program selected Zainab as the Youngest Role Model for Gender Equality and STEM.

“My dream is to help other people’s dreams come true and education is the way to do that,” says Zainab. Education has been a huge part of her life. She attended a Montessori school that was led by Pakistani-Canadian women – people who looked like her. “That experience was foundational in helping me explore my interests”, she says.

High school was a very different experience. Although she participated in an International Baccalaureate (IB) program, much of her love for learning came from outside of the classroom. “In my later years of high school, I knew that education was something I wanted to focus on. I wanted to explore how to use neuroscience to develop better ways of delivering education and how to make those opportunities available to everyone.”

To help meet that goal, Zainab founded GIVE (Global Initiative and Vision for Education), an organization that works towards providing access to quality education. GIVE also aims to develop a holistic 21st-century educational model based on neuroscience and psychology research to foster the creativity, curiosity, character, and innovation needed for solving the issues facing our planet.

Zainab works to inspire and mobilize the global community as a speaker at international forums, including the inaugural Space Girls Space Women Exhibition in Paris, the 27th Workshop on Space Technology for Socio-Economic Benefits in Washington, DC and the Campionaria Generale Internazionale in Bari, Italy. In May 2023, she participated in the inaugural Emmy Noether National Virtual Forum as a panelist in Women in Conversation with The Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario on The Power of WHY?  Zainab emphasized collaboration, urging Canadian educators and policy-makers to foster belonging, purpose, and excitement in students. “We need pedagogies that connect content to context. We need purpose-based, community-based, collaborative opportunities for learning. When students feel like they are a part of something greater than themselves…we see that that makes a big difference in their motivation, their sense of belonging, and their interest in pursuing STEM,” she says.

While completing her undergraduate degree, Zainab works at NEPC, the National Education Policy Centre, in the US. NEPC provides high-quality information in support of democratic deliberation about education policy. Her work there contributes to learning how public education can be strengthened centrally in the US and to see if those learnings can be applied elsewhere.

Zainab is looking forward to pursuing her Master’s degree and has applied to graduate schools in the US, Canada and the UK with the goal of conducting research on education policy with a concentration on neuro-education, STEM and space studies.

“I’m most excited to find new ways to continue to expand the work I’ve been doing in mentoring and in the policy space. I have a lot to learn from grad school and the other work that I’m doing with NEPC and UNOOSA,” she says.

“I see myself as giving forward. My driving force in continuing to volunteer as a mentor with UNOOSA to advance the mission of creating greater accessibility to space and STEM for more people, while also working at GIVE to ensure that the systemic changes needed in our education system are developed and implemented allowing not only girls, but all children the opportunity to thrive and have access to their future.”

You can see more about Zainab’s education and impact in the visualization below.

Do you have an impact story to share? Let us know at connections@profoundimpact.com for a chance to be featured in an upcoming newsletter!

CEO Message

The first few weeks of 2024 have been busy as the Profound Impact team continues to work with universities and colleges and industry partners across Canada to deploy our AI-powered Research Impact tool, which matches researchers with the best research funding opportunities in their field and helps find industry partners to support successful grant applications. Through our innovative new partnership with CS-Can|Info-Can, the first of a series of collaborations with researchers across Canada, Profound Impact is providing CS-Can|Info-Can member Computer Science departments and researchers with free evaluations of Research Impact. Interested in learning more about Research Impact? You can view a video here or sign up for a live demonstration during one of the bi-weekly Demo Days that the Profound Impact team will be presenting throughout 2024.

I was pleased to share my insights on building Profound Impact’s team and our successful and healthy small business culture in the Grow a Small Business podcast. Profound Impact and my work were also featured in an edition of Women’s Biz podcast, where I talked about my journey in information security, my role in commercializing Elliptic Curve Cryptography, and the inspiration behind founding Profound Impact.

In August of 2023, Profound Impact announced the successful close of a $3.125 million pre-seed funding round of nearly all female investors, including many first-time angel investors. Inspired by this achievement, I joined forces with Profound Impact board chair Deborah Rosati and Lara Zink, VP of Client Service and Development at Delaney Capital Management, to create Women Funding Women Inc. (WFW). This collective, which challenges the status quo in the venture capital world and with first-time female angel investors by breaking barriers and building bridges for a more inclusive investment community, will launch in Toronto on February 7. You can read more about how WFW plans to change the VC landscape in Disruption Magazine’s recent article.

In this month’s Impact Story, you’ll meet WFW co-founder Lara Zink and learn more about her journey from working as a political aide to a successful career in finance. In our Researcher Spotlight, we profile Dr. Luigi Benedicenti, Professional Engineer, researcher and Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science at the University of New Brunswick, whose career took him from Genoa, Italy to Regina, Saskatchewan to Atlantic Canada.

We hope you enjoy this month’s edition of Profound Connections!

Sherry Shannon-Vanstone

Luigi Benedicenti

Dean, Faculty of Computer Science
University of New Brunswick

Dr. Luigi Benedicenti joined the research community in Canada after receiving his Laurea in Electrical Engineering and Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Genoa in Italy. A Professional Engineer licensed in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick and a licensed Italian Engineer, Luigi joined the University of New Brunswick as Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science, Canada’s original faculty of computer science, in 2017.

Luigi’s interest in software engineering was sparked in high school when he worked on a version of a computer game being developed by Electronic Arts. The game was never released, but his appreciation for making and playing games led him to study computer engineering in his hometown of Genoa. “My father, who was a surgeon, was devastated when I didn’t follow in his career footsteps,” says Luigi. “But he did support me as I followed my passion.”

His journey from Italy to Canada came as a result of his academic supervisor’s move from Genoa to Calgary. Luigi traveled to Calgary to meet with his supervisor while completing his Ph.D. and applied for positions in Canada after graduation. He started his tenure at the University of Regina in 1998 as a lecturer. “When I landed in Regina, I didn’t have the right clothes. I was prepared for the weather in Calgary, but not for Regina’s temperatures of -30 to -50 degrees. The wind was so cold and deep that my eyelids froze the first time I walked to work!”

Luigi describes his 19 years at the University of Regina, where he served as a professor in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science and terms as Associate Dean for Special Projects, Associate Vice-President, Academic, and on the university’s Board of Governors as faculty representative, as an unforgettable experience during which he learned a lot and was afforded many opportunities for growth and innovation. While in Saskatchewan, Luigi developed strong connections with industry through his participation as a board member for SpringBoard West Innovations and SaskInteractive and as a Research Professor at TRLabs, where he conducted research in software engineering, mobile agents and media provision for 11 years.

“Being an academic involves, by definition, a relationship with the public. We are contributing to the common good and there are many ways to do that. Ours is a collective effort that has a significant impact – both via our research findings and through preparation of the next generation of researchers through teaching,” notes Luigi.  “I love teaching and research in more or less equal measure. They provide a nice balance and generate ideas as I move from one to the other. Teaching often provides surprising insights to my research.”

Luigi’s research focuses on Software Agents, Software Process, and New Media Technology and he specializes in program management and technology transfer. His interdisciplinary work has provided opportunities to collaborate with colleagues in Europe, South East Asia and across North America.  Although his role as Dean limits the time he is able to devote to research, Luigi continues to publish regularly, run conferences and symposia in his field, and has been a member of the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) from 2014 to 2021. “Being on a national accreditation board has been an exciting and challenging experience and I am humbled by my colleagues, who always bring contributions of the highest quality,” he says.

He is proud of the research excellence within the Faculty of Computer Science. “The Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity is one of the top three such research institutes in Canada,” notes Luigi. The outstanding young researchers within the institute balance between pure and applied research and provide immediate technology transfer to industry members through graduates who join those companies.

Spectral, UNB’s spatial computing training and research lab, combines virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality to bring together the digital and physical. Under the leadership of Dr. Scott Bateman, the lab conducts research with applications in areas including aerospace, health training, therapy and rehabilitation. “It’s one of the best User Interface/Human Computing research labs in North America,” says Luigi. 

One of the faculty’s newest research ventures, the Research Institute in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (RIDSAI), was developed in response to New Brunswick’s needs in the areas of AI and data science. “RIDSAI does more than conduct pure research,” says Luigi. “The institute is developing algorithms, applications and literacy in machine learning and data science to graduate students who will have the tools to succeed in a world that relies on these technologies.”  RIDSAI researchers from a range of disciplines work to develop solutions for community and industry partners in areas ranging from policy and planning to entertainment, agriculture and health. 

Luigi is deeply committed to excellence in the classroom and collaborative decision-making and is appreciative of the flexibility, interest and engagement of the members of the Faculty of Computer Science at the University of New Brunswick. “We can do something great and everyone can contribute in their own way,” he says. “Our collaborative culture leads to the good of the faculty as we work together on the mission and targets identified in the vision document we developed almost four years ago.”

A self-described passionate computer geek who loves programming, software engineering, computers, video games, and everything IT, Luigi also enjoys playing and creating music, traveling, and e-biking and is a pizza aficionado. As for his future plans, he says: “There are three stages to a career. I am exiting the middle and starting to prepare for the final stage. For me, retirement is about choice. I plan to work on research that has been postponed, experiment with pizza dough and enjoy hiking, skiing and life in general.”

Do you have an impact story to share? Let us know at connections@profoundimpact.com for a chance to be featured in an upcoming newsletter!

Lara Zink

Lara Zink
Co-Founder, Women Funding Women

It was serendipity that brought Lara Zink from Vancouver to the University of Western Ontario (now Western University) and the keen interest she developed in politics in grades 11 and 12 led her to study political science. “I visited a great aunt in London while in high school and thought the Western campus was amazing,” says Lara. 

Lara’s journey, from graduating with an Honours BA degree in political science to working as part of the federal government team that negotiated the NAFTA agreement to a long and successful career in finance, was a non-traditional one. Her experience makes her a role model dedicated to helping women overcome barriers to entry and to ensure that leadership, representation, and gender equity exist within the finance industry.  

Lara’s degree in political science and experience working with the Young Conservatives as a teenager led to a role as political assistant to federal Member of Parliament Michael Wilson, then Minister of International Trade and Industry Canada. “I loved my two years working in Ottawa,” says Lara. “I was able to speak with members of Parliament and their staff about the benefits of NAFTA to Canada and traveled to Washington for the final stages of negotiation of the agreement.”

After two years on Parliament Hill, Lara wrote the GMAT exam and applied to business schools, including the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto where she ultimately earned her MBA. Although she had hoped to return to Vancouver after graduation, job opportunities were more plentiful in Toronto. After considering options in marketing and private wealth, Lara chose to enter a corporate lending training program with RBC in Toronto. She started in business banking and moved to another lending group in RBC’s financial institutions group before embarking on a 20-year career in global equity sales and trading on the trading floor at RBC Capital Markets.

When she left RBC in 2019, Lara paused and considered her next career move. “While exploring job opportunities during the pandemic lockdown, I threw my name in the hat for the position of President and Chief Executive Officer of Women in Capital Markets,” says Lara. She joined WCM, the largest network of women in finance whose mission is to accelerate equity, diversity and inclusion in finance, in 2021. Lara led WCM in developing programs to unite the finance industry in supporting EDI in capital markets and delivering research, programming and strategic value to the organization’s sponsors, members and stakeholders. 

Lara left WCM in September of 2023 to join a woman-led asset management company, Delaney Capital Management, where she currently serves as Vice President of Client Service and Development.

Lara’s commitment to embracing equity and helping women succeed, both in the finance sector and as company founders, is reflected in her role as a member of the board of Canadian Women’s Network, where she will work to help Canadian female founders grow and secure funding. She recently joined Sherry Shannon-Vanstone and Deborah Rosati to create Women Funding Women (WFW), a collective aimed at addressing the persistent funding gap faced by women founders in North America. 

WFW, which will launch on February 7 in Toronto, brings together organizations and resources committed to empowering women, offering gender equality, and catalyzing economic growth by increasing access to seed funding for women-led ventures. Lara’s vast experience in capital markets and her passion for driving change and ensuring women’s success is key to the work that WFW will do to increase access to funding for women founders. 

Lara’s professional success in the finance sector, her belief that strategy and culture differentiate organizations, and her work as a leader and mentor for women – as entrepreneurs, funders and investors – have made her an influential champion for equity, diversity and inclusion, and a powerful initiator of change for women’s access to venture funding.

Do you have an impact story to share? Let us know at connections@profoundimpact.com for a chance to be featured in an upcoming newsletter!

PARTNERSHIP TO TRANSFORM COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH FUNDING IN CANADA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A recent partnership between CS-Can|Info-Can and tech startup Profound Impact creates the potential for Computer Science researchers to access new sources of funding.

WATERLOO, ON | JANUARY 23, 2024 — Profound Impact™ Corporation, a technology company based in the Toronto-Waterloo corridor, is excited to announce its partnership with CS-Can|Info-Can, an organization with over 60 member Computer Science departments across Canada that aims to foster excellence in Computer Science research and higher education. 

As part of this partnership, Profound Impact will provide CS-Can|Info-Can member Computer Science departments and researchers with free evaluations of Research Impact, Profound Impact’s AI-driven researcher to funding matching tool. Research Impact uses proprietary AI-powered algorithms to match industry and academic researchers with the over $300-billion available in funding opportunities worldwide.

“We are thrilled to embark on this transformative partnership with Profound Impact™ Corporation, as it signifies a significant stride forward for our CS-Can|Info-Can members. Profound Impact’s commitment to providing free evaluations of Research Impact, their cutting-edge AI-driven researcher-to-funding matching tool, aligns perfectly with our mission to foster excellence in Computer Science research and higher education across Canada. This collaboration opens doors for our member Computer Science departments and researchers, addressing the funding challenges that often hinder the expansion of vital research initiatives. We believe this partnership marks the beginning of a fruitful series of collaborations, empowering our members to achieve their funding goals and contribute to the advancement of Computer Science research in Canada.” says Gina van Dalen, Executive Director CS-Can|Info-Can.

This partnership with CS-Can|Info-Can is the first of a series of collaborations with researchers across Canada as Profound Impact works with industry leaders and researchers to initiate new research funding connections to help Canadian research institutions and their partners meet their funding goals.

“Computer Science research drives technological innovation. Yet many researchers and departments struggle to find funding to continue and expand their research,” says Profound Impact President & CEO, Dr. Sherry Shannon-Vanstone. “We are excited to offer this solution to the CS-Can|Info-Can membership. We all succeed when researchers get the funding they need to continue to innovate.”

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ABOUT PROFOUND IMPACT™ CORPORATION 

Based in the Toronto-Waterloo technology corridor, Profound Impact’s AI-powered tool – Research Impact – helps academic and industry researchers find the perfect funding match. With over $300 Billion in research funding opportunities, 100,000s industry partners and 8.8 Million researchers globally, finding the optimal grant for academic and industry innovators is often overwhelming and unnecessarily time-consuming.  More than just a search engine, Research Impact offers automatic, targeted and timely matching.  Profound Impact’s customers include top North American research institutions, universities and industry partners.  CEO and Founder Sherry Shannon-Vanstone is a serial technology entrepreneur with an unparalleled track record.  She has had five successful start-ups and exits in Silicon Valley and Canada, including two IPOs and acquisitions.    

About CS-Can|Info-Can

CS-Can|Info-Can counts among its members more than 60 Canadian organizations active in computing research: academic departments of computer science and computer engineering; laboratories and centres in industry, government, and academia; and affiliated professional societies. CS-Can|Info-Can works with these organizations to represent the computing research community and to effect change that benefits both computing research and society at large.

Visit us at www.profoundimpact.com

Connect with us at 

Facebook: @aprofoundimpact

Instagram: @aprofoundimpact 

LinkedIn: Profound Impact Corporation

Twitter: @aprofoundimpact

YouTube: @profoundimpactcorporation

For media inquiries, please contact:

Durrell Communications

media@profoundimpact.com 

CEO Message

Happy 2024!

Profound Impact is excited to start the new year with the announcement of a new partnership with CS-Can|Info-Can, a professional organization representing more than 60 Computer Science departments and faculties across Canada.

CS-Can|Info-Can and Profound Impact worked together in 2023 to produce two webinars on researcher and industry collaboration. Recordings of those webinars are available for viewing here.

This new partnership provides an exciting benefit to the CS-Can|Info-Can members – a free evaluation of Research Impact, which uses advanced AI to match researchers with the best research funding opportunities in their field and helps find industry partners to support successful grant applications.

Would you like to see Research Impact in action? You can view a video here or sign up for a live demonstration during one of the bi-weekly Demo Days that the Profound Impact team will be presenting throughout 2024.

This month, we’re proud to present profiles of two 2023 Impactful Action Award finalists. These finalists exemplify what it means to make a profound impact in the world, and we are honoured to share their stories. You’ll meet Leigh Zachary Bursey, an activist, journalist, former three-term politician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and author, and Lynn Smith, a proud member of the Peavine Métis Settlement who is leading her northern community through a significant change to take control over monitoring the impact of climate change on their land and waterways.

The Profound Impact team is excited about our plans for 2024 and looks forward to sharing those with you. Enjoy this month’s edition of Profound Connections and best wishes for a productive and happy new year!

Sherry Shannon-Vanstone

Leigh Zachary Bursey

Leigh Zachary Bursey
Community Advocate
Young Leader Impactful Actions Award Finalist

International best-selling author, loss prevention officer, research consultant, supportive housing program coordinator, community organizer and journalist. Through these roles, Leigh Zachary Bursey has engaged with vulnerable people and worked to amplify their voices to produce social change.

Leigh has never shied away from tackling challenging social topics such as homelessness, mental health, harm reduction and allied support for the LGBTQIA – and for him, this work is personal. “My mother and I dealt with homelessness while I was in high school, giving me an early education in trauma and desperation,” notes Leigh. “As a result, I understood early on that I wanted to help people.”

It was while standing calf-deep in snow at a bus stop in Brockville, Ontario and realizing that this was a daily experience for many people that Leigh decided to run for city council. “I used my punk rock ethos, music background and big mouth to go out and make a difference,” says Leigh.

During his three terms as Brockville city councillor, Leigh participated in important discussions about social justice issues including gender equity, homelessness, mental health, harm reduction and affordable housing. “I was tagged as the punk rock councillor and was called by people in crisis to help. That experience provided powerful, hands-on experience in dealing with the circumstances and traumas of others,” he said.

Leigh’s passion for community development and helping those who are often marginalized and in need of support is reflected in his work. In addition to his role as a city councillor, Leigh has served as Vice-President of the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association, and as a Child Protection Support Worker for Family and Children Services of Lanark, Leeds and Grenville, and for Cornerstone Landing Youth Services in Lanark County. He has worked in youth homeless shelters and adult warming centres, advocating for naloxone training and increased harm reduction supports, and has been a vocal supporter of increased public transit hours and of adding operating dollars to local library budgets.

A highlight of Leigh’s career was speaking at the International Journal on Homelessness Symposium in Chicago in 2023. “I presented case studies that told the stories of rough sleepers – putting a name and a face to homelessness.  Some of the rough sleepers I’ve worked with are the most incredible people I’ve known. I have come to understand that my lived experience is trivial in comparison,” says Leigh.

Leigh has shared his research findings as a frequent presenter at national conferences including the Canadian Rural and Remote Housing and Homelessness Symposium, the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness Conference, the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention National Conference and the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association National Congress.

The focus of Leigh’s work has been to represent marginalized people in order to communicate their challenges and share their ideas for change to develop scalable solutions that can be replicated across borders. He has challenged stigmas and amplified the voices of the people he works with through outreach and engagement. “When asked what I do, I often say that I love people who are sometimes hard to love,” says Leigh. “I encourage people to make better decisions.”

Leigh’s dedication to advocating for the most vulnerable in the community is exemplified by his philosophy in life: “Kindness is free and a very underutilized form of currency that we should all exhaust.” Profound Impact is honoured to share the story of Leigh’s work and its impact and to recognize his accomplishments as an Impactful Action Awards finalist in the Young Leader Category.

You can see more about Leigh’s career and impact in the visualization below.

Do you have an impact story to share? Let us know at connections@profoundimpact.com for a chance to be featured in an upcoming newsletter!

Lynn Smith

Lynn Smith
Regional Planning Coordinator
Lifetime Achievement Impactful Actions Award Finalist

Lynn Smith has fond memories of walking through the jack pine forest of the Peavine Métis Settlement in northern Alberta, of which she is a proud member, with her grandmother to pick blueberries and of camping with her family in those same forests. In her current role as Regional Planning Coordinator within the Consultation Department in the Settlement, developed in partnership with NAIT (the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology), she is leading her community through a significant change to take control of monitoring the impact of climate change on their land and waterways. 

“Indigenous people have been stewards of the forests and waterways for generations,” notes Lynn. “I am now in a position to make changes to bring things back, as closely as possible, to the way they were when I was a child, when my cousins and I could drink directly from the river and streams in our community.”

Lynn works with compassion and perseverance in collaboration with community members to build knowledge and achieve data sovereignty in order to better hold industry and all levels of government accountable for how their actions impact Indigenous lands. She has developed an environmental monitoring program managed by a team of community-based environmental monitors and data technicians that deliver real benefits to the Settlement. This mentoring model ensures that the skills of those monitors and technicians are retained within the community.

Lynn regularly initiates, enables and sustains collaborations with a broad range of stakeholders, including Elders, traditional hunters and fishers, NAIT staff and students, all levels of government, and companies from the energy, forestry, and environmental consulting sectors. She reaches out to people and organizations with different experiences and expertise and enables her team to weigh in on decisions to achieve her community’s goals – all while demonstrating her compassion and strong interpersonal connections.

Although Indigenous peoples own, occupy, or use about a quarter of the world’s surface, they safeguard 80% of the world’s biodiversity. Attempts in the past by those communities to set up environmental monitoring programs have suffered from a lack of knowledge, thereby hindering the development, sustainability, quality and viability of the programs. Lynn has developed innovative partnerships between the Indigenous community and Western scientists, to teach Indigenous ways of knowing and to share Western-based methods of doing science with professionals who create environmental monitoring programs in her community. Lynn is also breaking new ground by communicating her learnings in setting up environmental monitoring programs to the scientific community by participating in the upcoming Chemical Society of Canada conference – a first for a non-traditionally trained scientist.

The sharing of knowledge and learnings with other Indigenous communities suffering from similar environmental challenges is a vital element of Lynn’s work. She works with communities to build competencies in their consultation teams to autonomously monitor their land, generate and interpret data, and implement management programs. 

Lynn has been recognized for her achievements by being asked to represent her community on the Board of Directors of the Lesser Slave Lake Watershed Council, which works to improve and maintain a healthy watershed through education, planning and implementation of shared initiatives supporting communities and ecosystems throughout the region.

Lynn is mother to three young adult children and, when not working for the Settlement, owns and operates, along with her husband, Jesse Smith, three businesses: P’J’s Eavestroughing, Lynn and Jesse Grain Farm and D’Vine Trap Range. The trap range evolved from her love of the sport of trap shooting, where she was named the 2019 Canadian Ladies Champion. She is currently and has been, for the last 5 years, the reigning Alberta Provincial Ladies Champion.

“I’ve never thought of myself as a pioneer,” says Lynn about her work. “This is the best job I’ve ever had!” 

Profound Impact is delighted to showcase Lynn’s important work and its incredible impact on the Peavine Métis Settlement and across Indigenous communities.

You can see more about Lynn’s career and impact in the visualization below.

Do you have an impact story to share? Let us know at connections@profoundimpact.com for a chance to be featured in an upcoming newsletter!