Tony Lacavera is putting his money where his mouth is.
The former Wind Mobile CEO sits on the board of startup-funding charity Next Canada, whose venture capital firm Globalive Communications Corp. is one of its leading financial backers of Artificial Intelligence. Lacavera’s initiative is called NextAI.
Lacavera framed the new artificial intelligence startup funding program, which so far has received $5.15 million in financial support from a series of high-profile donors including Royal Bank of Canada, auto-parts giant Magna International Inc., and Scotiabank, as the private sector’s contribution to such AI-friendly government — and education — backed organizations as the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), which he said had provided Canada with a “small but fleeting competitive advantage” in the field.
“Despite excelling on the research front, in recent years the AI brain drain has become more and more profound, as so much of our top talent leaves for Silicon Valley and beyond,” Lacavera said
