AI/CRV 2026

Canadian Conference on AI, Robots & Vision (AI/CRV) 2026

Program at a Glance

Overview Canadian AI Robots and Vision Nectar Track Demos Student Symposium Social Events Workshops

Program

The AI/CRV 2026 program brings together Monday workshops, the Canadian AI Conference, the Conference on Robots & Vision, the Responsible AI track, the Industry Track, student programming, posters, and social events.

This schedule is tentative and subject to change. For the most detailed track information, see the Canadian AI program, the CRV program, and the Responsible AI program.

Schedule at a Glance

Each day is organized by time and room, with event links to the relevant AI, CRV, Responsible AI, Industry Track, workshop, student symposium, or social event page.

Workshop Invited talk / keynote Oral session Poster session Demo Panel Break Meal Remarks / meeting

Monday, May 25

Pre-conference workshops

Registration Desk: AQ North Corridor

Time Halpern Centre 126 Halpern Centre 114 SUB 4200 Blusson Hall 10011 Big Data Hub (ASB 10900) Shared / Dining
8:00am-9:00am Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Breakfast Halpern Centre Lobby Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Breakfast Halpern Centre Lobby Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Breakfast Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Breakfast Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Breakfast -
9:00am-10:30am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Admin AI for Science and Sustainability Opening Remarks 9:00am-9:10am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Multimodal learning using DNA barcodes for biodiversity monitoring Angel Chang, Simon Fraser University; 9:10am-9:40am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Developing Machine Learning Tools for Earth Systems Science Kelsey Doerksen, Arizona State University and University of Cape Town; 9:40am-10:10am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Admin AI in Banking and Financial Services Opening Remarks 9:00am-9:10am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Invited [Keynote] Challenges and opportunities of AI for central banking and financial stability Thibaut Duprey, Bank of Canada; 9:10am-9:45am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral [Contributed Talk] The Evolution of Market Efficiency: Evidence from Disaggregated Social Media Discussions Harika Tuzcuoglu, Carleton University; 9:46am-10:04am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral [Contributed Talk] Strategic Interactions of AI Agents in Payment Systems Janet Jiang, Bank of Canada; 10:04am-10:22am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral [Contributed Talk] Towards Agentic Fraud Defense: Adversarial Red-Blue Team Simulation with LLM-Driven Agents Erfan Pirmorad, The Vanguard Group; 10:22am-10:40am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Admin Data and Model Protection Opening Remarks Yiwei Lu, University of Ottawa; 9:00am-9:05am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Data/Model Protection in Financial AI Jekaterina Novikova & Yangyi Liu, Vanguard Group; 9:05am-9:55am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Efficient and Safe LLM Adaptation: Advances in Training, Surprises in Safety Sirisha Rambhatla, University of Waterloo; 9:55am-10:20am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Admin AI and Biology Opening Remarks 9:00am-9:10am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Towards generative design of DNA to direct tissue-specific gene expression for gene therapy Wyeth Wasserman, University of British Columbia; 9:10am-9:55am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Learning Interpretable Representations in Neural Signals with Sparse Autoencoders Bahareh Tolooshams, University of Alberta and Amii; 9:55am-10:30am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Admin AI Policy Forum Welcome Remarks 9:00am-9:10am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Invited [Keynote] The Evolving Nature of a National AI Strategy: A Personal Perspective Arvind Gupta, Member of the Government of Canada's AI Strategy Task Force; 9:10am-9:50am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Invited The Future of Research, Learning, and Innovation in the Era of AI Sethuraman Panchanathan, former Director of the U.S. National Science Foundation; 9:50am-10:30am -
10:30am-11:00am Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break 10:10am-10:30am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited From the Subsurface to the Data Center Lindsey Heagy, University of British Columbia; 10:30am-11:00am Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break -
11:00am-12:30pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Lightning Talks 1 11:00am-11:20am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Poster Poster Session 1 James Douglas Area (AQ 2009.2); 11:20am-12:00pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral [Contributed Talk] An Interpretable Decision-Support Layer for Climate-Aware Financial Services: Property Scorecards and Resilience Recommendations Tianshu Huang, Climative; 11:10am-11:27am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral [Contributed Talk] Communicating Credit Risk with Large Language Models: Evaluating Explanation Layers for Tabular and Network Models Noah Kostesku, Western University; 11:28am-11:45am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Invited [Keynote] Opportunities in Modern AI and Agentic Systems for Financial Services: Leveraging Transactional and Tabular Data Hossein Hajimirsadeghi, RBC Borealis; 11:45am-12:20pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Admin Closing Remarks 12:20pm-12:30pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Understanding and Addressing Fairwashing in Machine Learning Sébastien Gambs, Université du Québec à Montréal; 11:00am-11:25am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Rethinking the Tightness–Efficiency Trade-off in Certified Robustness Reza Samavi, Toronto Metropolitan University (presented by Mohammadreza Maleki); 11:25am-11:50am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Student Lightning Talks 11:50am-12:20pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Talk Amin Emad, McGill University; 11:00am-11:45am Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Talk Qihuang Zhang, McGill University; 11:45am-12:30pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Panel Panel Discussion on Technology Policy and Economic Impact Daniel Schwanen, SVP at C. D. Howe Institute; Jing Yang, Managing Director at the Bank of Canada -
12:30pm-2:00pm - - - - - Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Lunch Dining Commons
2:00pm-3:30pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Hybrid AI/ModSim workflows as a new scientific tool Andrew Shao, AI Research Lab at Hewlett Packard Enterprise; 1:00pm-1:30pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Lightning Talks 2 1:30pm-1:50pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Poster Poster Session 2 1:50pm-2:30pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break 2:30pm-3:00pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited A simple recipe for CREPE: Controlling REPlica-Exchange via neural transports Saifuddin Syed, University of British Columbia; 3:00pm-3:30pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Admin Opening, speaker intros and workshop framing Chaitanya Kaligotla, Simon Fraser University; 2:30pm-2:35pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Invited GenAI Shopping Assistants in E-Commerce Aishwarya Shukla, Simon Fraser University; 2:35pm-3:00pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Invited Algorithmic versus Human Managers Samantha Seto, Simon Fraser University; 3:00pm-3:25pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Admin Q&A from audience; Brief synthesis and transition 3:25pm-3:30pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited AI Governance in Practice Joanna Redden, Western University (joining online); 2:00pm-2:25pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited The Role of Coordination and Collective Action in Trustworthy Machine Learning Elliot Creager, University of Waterloo; 2:25pm-2:50pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Membership Inference for Privacy Audits and Evidence of Training without Model Control Mathias Lécuyer, University of British Columbia; 2:50pm-3:15pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Towards Scientific Evaluation for Code LLMs Linyi Li, Simon Fraser University; 3:15pm-3:40pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Visualizing distortion in dimensionality reduction Michael Hoffman, University of Toronto and UHN; 2:00pm-2:45pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Flow matching for cell dynamics Lazar Atanackovic, University of Alberta and Amii; 2:45pm-3:30pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Panel Panel Discussion on AI Adoption and Commercialization Andrew Donaher, VP at CGI; Guy Dulude, VP at Siemens; Greg Mori, VP at RBC; Justin Watts, Distinguished Engineer at Telus -
3:30pm-4:00pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited The Hidden Footprint of Open-Source AI Iuliia Eyriay, University of Guelph and the Vector Institute; 3:30pm-4:00pm Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break -
4:00pm-4:45pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Panel Panel Discussion incl. Speakers and Chris Rampersad (EarthDaily) 4:00pm-4:45pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Admin Part 2 speaker introduction and framing Chaitanya Kaligotla, Simon Fraser University; 4:00pm-4:05pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Invited Let's Shave Years Off the Productivity Paradox Terri Griffith, Simon Fraser University; 4:05pm-4:30pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Invited AI impact on organizational operating models Blaize Reich, Simon Fraser University; 4:30pm-4:55pm - Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Talk Jiarui Ding, University of British Columbia; 4:00pm-4:45pm - -
4:45pm-5:30pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Workshop Bonus / Overflow Time for Conversation 4:45pm-5:00pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Panel Moderated Q&A and synthesis: research questions, evidence gaps, and implications for AI strategy and governance 4:55pm-5:15pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Break 5:15pm-5:30pm - Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Invited Talk Archer Yang, McGill University; 4:45pm-5:25pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Admin Closing Remarks 5:25pm-5:30pm - -
5:30pm-7:00pm Workshops Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Panel Beyond the Hype: Building AI Strategy for the Future - - - - -

Tuesday, May 26

Main conference day 1

Registration Desk: Diamond Family Auditorium

Time Diamond Family Auditorium SUB Ballroom 5000 Halpern Centre 126 James Douglas Area (AQ 2009.2) Meals / Social
8:00am-9:00am Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Breakfast Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Breakfast Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Breakfast Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Breakfast -
9:00am-9:30am Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Admin Joint Opening Remarks - - - -
9:30am-10:30am Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Session 2A: Efficient Deep Learning: Compression and Architecture Canadian AI Oral Session CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Invited CRV Keynote 1: Mac Schwager Responsible AI Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Invited Responsible AI Keynote: Muhammad Abdul-Mageed - -
10:30am-11:00am Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break -
11:00am-11:30am Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Invited Invited Sponsor Talk: Artificial Intelligence Guidance in Mental Health and Substance Use Health Care in Canada Katie Seguin, Mental Health Commission of Canada CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Invited Nils Wilde Symposium Talk Responsible AI Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Poster 3MT Competition and Poster Presentations - -
11:30am-12:30pm Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Invited Canadian AI Keynote: Algorithm Synthesis with Theoretical Guarantees Kevin Leyton-Brown CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Robotics Oral Session 1 Responsible AI Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Poster Responsible AI 3MT Competition and Posters Continue - -
12:30pm-2:00pm - - - - Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Lunch Dining Commons
2:00pm-3:30pm Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Session 2C: Graph Neural Networks Canadian AI Oral Session CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Nandita Vijaykumar Symposium Talk and Vision Oral Session 1 Responsible AI Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Invited Responsible AI Keynote: Hila Gonen - -
3:30pm-4:00pm Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break -
4:00pm-5:30pm Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Session 2D: Computer Vision and Vision Language Models Canadian AI Oral Session CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Poster CRV Lightning Talks and Poster Session Responsible AI Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Panel Responsible AI Panel Discussion Nectar Track Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Poster Nectar Track Poster Session James Douglas Area (AQ 2009.2) -

Wednesday, May 27

Main conference day 2

Registration Desk: Diamond Family Auditorium

Time Diamond Family Auditorium SUB Ballroom 5000 Big Data Hub (ASB 10900) Meals / Social
8:00am-9:00am Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Breakfast Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Breakfast - -
9:00am-10:30am Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Session 3A: LLM Safety and Robustness Canadian AI Oral Session CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Invited CRV Keynote 2: Ian Stavness 9:30am-10:30am - -
10:30am-11:00am Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break - -
11:00am-12:30pm Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Invited Doctoral Dissertation Award and Canadian AI Keynote Sheila McIlraith CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Xinxin Zuo Symposium Talk and Vision Oral Session 2 - -
12:30pm-2:00pm - - - Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Lunch Dining Commons
2:00pm-3:00pm Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Session 3C: Retrieval-Augmented Generation, Information Retrieval and Evaluation Canadian AI Oral Session, 2:00pm-3:30pm CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Risto Ojala Symposium Talk and Robotics Oral Session 2 2:00pm-3:30pm Industry Track Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Panel Panel 1: Open Model and Open Access in AI -
3:00pm-3:30pm Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Session 3C Continues CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Robotics Oral Session 2 Continues Industry Track Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Invited Industry Keynote: Research from Pixels to Proteins Dr. Karsten Kreis, NVIDIA -
3:30pm-4:00pm Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break -
4:00pm-5:00pm Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Session 3D: Natural Language Processing, Text Analytics and Data Augmentation Canadian AI Oral Session, 4:00pm-5:30pm CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Poster CRV Lightning Talks and Poster Session 4:00pm-5:30pm Industry Track Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Panel Panel 2: Navigating AI Safety Challenges -
5:00pm-5:30pm Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Session 3D Continues CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Poster CRV Poster Session Continues Responsible AI Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Invited Industry Keynote: Confident & Wrong: Why Responsible AI Demands More Than a Checklist Dr. Eric Oosenbrug, Government of British Columbia -
5:30pm-6:30pm Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Admin CAIAC AGM CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Admin CIPPRS AGM - -
Evening - - -

Thursday, May 28

Main conference day 3

Registration Desk: Diamond Family Auditorium

Time Diamond Family Auditorium SUB Ballroom 5000 James Douglas Area (AQ 2009.2) Meals / Social
8:00am-9:00am Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Breakfast Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Breakfast Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Breakfast -
9:00am-10:30am Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Session 4A: AI for Healthcare Canadian AI Oral Session CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Invited Invited Talk and CIPPRS Dissertation Award 9:30am-10:30am Student Symposium Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Poster Graduate Student Symposium Poster Session 9:00am-11:00am Demos Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Demo Demo Track 9:00am-10:30am -
10:30am-11:00am Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Student Symposium Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Poster Graduate Student Symposium Posters Continue Demos Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Demo Demo Track Continues Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break -
11:00am-12:30pm Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Session 4B: Trustworthy, Explainable and Ethical AI Canadian AI Oral Session CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Yani Ioannou Symposium Talk and Vision Oral Session 3 - -
12:30pm-2:00pm - - - Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Lunch Dining Commons
2:00pm-3:00pm Student Symposium Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Graduate Student Symposium Oral Presentations CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Mahdis Bisheban Symposium Talk and Robotics Oral Session 3 2:00pm-3:30pm Nectar Track Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Poster Nectar Track Poster Session 2:00pm-3:30pm -
3:00pm-3:30pm Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Invited Masters Dissertation Award Presentation CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Robotics Oral Session 3 Continues Nectar Track Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Poster Nectar Track Poster Session Continues -
3:30pm-4:00pm Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Poster Canadian AI Short-Paper Poster Session Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break -
4:00pm-5:30pm Nectar Track Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Nectar Track Oral Presentations Nectar Track Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Nectar Track Oral Presentations Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Intermediate Poster Canadian AI Short-Paper Poster Session Continues -
5:30pm-6:00pm - CRV Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Admin CRV Closing Remarks - -
7:00pm-10:00pm - - -

Friday, May 29

Main conference day 4

Registration Desk: Diamond Family Auditorium

Time Diamond Family Auditorium Meals / Breaks
8:00am-9:00am Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Breakfast -
9:00am-10:30am Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Session 5A: Applied AI and Optimization Canadian AI Oral Session -
10:30am-11:00am Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break -
11:00am-12:30pm Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Session 5B: Reinforcement Learning, Agents and Recommendation Systems Canadian AI Oral Session -
12:30pm-2:00pm - Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Meal Lunch Dining Commons
2:00pm-3:30pm Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Session 5C: Machine Learning Theory and Evaluation Canadian AI Oral Session -
3:30pm-4:00pm Conference-wide Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Break Coffee Break -
4:00pm-5:30pm Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Advanced Oral Session 5D: Temporal Modelling, Time-Series and Forecasting Canadian AI Oral Session -
5:30pm-6:00pm Canadian AI Assumed technical proficiency: Basic Admin AI Closing Remarks -

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