Mike McLean is the Chief Executive Officer of the Innovation Asset Collective, the not-for-profit funded by the federal government to help Canadian small and medium-sized businesses build intellectual property strategies that let them compete in global markets. He is a talented intellectual property and data commercialization expert who spent 25 years at TechInsights, the Ottawa-based semiconductor analysis firm, where the data the business generated became licensable products in their own right. Mike shared his expert insights with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in July 2026, and we cite those insights in our AI literacy materials.
McLean leads the Innovation Asset Collective, whose mandate is to help Canadian small and medium-sized businesses build IP strategies that let them compete in global markets and improve the freedom to operate they need to reach those markets. He joined in early 2021, shortly after the organization was formed, and he has said the work is to help member companies understand what to do rather than to do it for them.
He is well known for his 25 years at TechInsights, which reverse-engineers and lab-tests semiconductor and electronics products to determine how they are made and what functions they perform. Its work served two markets: competitive benchmarking and gathering evidence of patent infringement for licence negotiations and court cases.
At the Innovation Asset Collective, he argues that Canada’s difficulty commercializing its research is largely an ownership problem. He appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research in March 2023, telling members that Canada remains a poor owner of intellectual property despite being a nation of innovators. He points to universities licensing or selling researchers’ IP to large multinationals because that is the faster route to a larger cheque, and asks what it would take to give that research a Canadian path instead.
McLean appears in Season 1 of our recorded expert insight interviews, in a joint conversation with his colleague Peggy Chooi. He covers how a company moves from collecting data to selling it; how the Innovation Asset Collective teaches intellectual property; where organizations get the balance between data utility and data protection wrong; what data ownership means legally and strategically; and why Canada struggles to commercialize its AI research at home.
“My work is really focused on broader IP strategy for business application and finding ways to help companies make the most of the intellectual property, including data that they’re creating, and find ways to monetize and commercialize that intellectual property.”
“We’re not here to execute on these activities, but we’re here to help them understand what they need to do and how to do that effectively.”
“Ownership basically means control. Do you have the contractual ownership of that data, and can you control what others do with it, right? Either limit or grant access based on your own kind of agency and decisions.”
We are grateful to Mike for sharing his insights on data commercialization, AI sovereignty, and AI strategy.
Diane Gutiw is Vice-President and AI Research Center Lead in CGI’s Global AI Enablement Center of Expertise. She co-chairs the Government of Canada’s Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence, served on the federal AI Strategy Task Force behind AI for All, and holds a doctorate in medical information technology management. Diane shared her expert insights with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in August 2026, and we cite those insights in our AI literacy materials.
Mo Chen is an Associate Professor in the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University, where he is principal investigator of the Multi-Agent Robotic Systems Lab and holds a Canada CIFAR AI Chair hosted at the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute. He is a talented physical AI and robotics expert and co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Ma Robot Responsible AI, which builds navigation software for robots working in healthcare settings. Mo shared his expert insights with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in August 2026, and we cite those insights in our AI literacy materials.
Peggy Chooi is Director, IP Strategy at the Innovation Asset Collective, the federally funded not-for-profit that helps Canadian small and medium-sized businesses build intellectual property strategies. She is a talented data governance and privacy expert who entered the field as an intellectual property lawyer in private practice, advising companies on data protection and privacy through the early years of the e-commerce boom, and now leads the organization’s education work on IP, data, and privacy. Peggy shared her expert insights with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in July 2026, and we cite those insights in our AI literacy materials.
Atif Malik is the founder and Chief AI Officer of Zarori, an AI governance firm in Windsor, Ontario. He is a talented AI governance and security expert, contributing the subject-matter expertise behind a national standard for patient-visible and accountable AI in clinical decision support with the Digital Governance Standards Institute (DGC-DGSI). He has spent more than fifteen years advising healthcare, government, and enterprise clients on high-stakes technology. Atif recorded a Season 1 expert insight interview with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in May 2026.
Keith Jansa is the Chief Executive Officer of the Digital Governance Council, a Canadian organization whose standards guide the nation’s digital technology standards, including AI standards. He works with senior leaders across Canada on how to govern digital systems and ensure a safe, ethical and successful future for AI adoption in Canada and across the globe. Keith shared written expert insights with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in September 2025, and returned to record a Season 1 expert insight interview.
Keenan Beavis is the founder of Longhouse Branding & Marketing, a Langley, British Columbia firm he started in 2017 and has since grown into a nationally recognized agency. He is a Métis entrepreneur, a co-author on search engine optimization, and the creator of AnswerMapping, a framework for getting a business recommended by AI answer engines. Keenan shared written expert insights with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in September 2025, and those insights are cited in our Introduction to Artificial Intelligence course.
Kat Callaghan is a Canadian broadcaster and voice artist who has worked in radio since 2006, and she is the Digital Media Host of the Canadian AI Advancement Institute, where she conducts our Season 1 expert insight interviews. Her voice was used to train one of TikTok‘s text-to-speech models. Kat recorded a Season 1 expert insight interview with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in July 2026.
Jaxson Khan is a Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, where he teaches a master’s course on AI policy and co-directs the AI Competitiveness Project; he is also the founder and chief executive of the strategy firm Aperture AI. He previously served as a senior policy advisor to Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. Jaxson recorded a Season 1 expert insight interview with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in July 2026.
Dr. Greg Lee is Lead Data Scientist at Fundmetric in Halifax, where he builds the machine learning systems behind the company’s charitable giving predictions, and an Associate Professor, currently on leave, in the Jodrey School of Computer Science at Acadia University. He is the lead author on the company’s published research. Greg recorded a Season 1 expert insight interview with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in July 2026.
Frincy Clement is an award-winning AI leader and an advocate for women in technology. She leads Women in AI across North America, has around a decade of experience across telecommunications, IT, and consumer goods, and works in AI governance with Standards Council Canada. Frincy shared written expert insights with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in January 2025, and those insights are cited across many of our courses, including our Introduction to Artificial Intelligence course.
Derek Froese is the founder and President of Koala Technology Ltd., an IT consulting firm in Abbotsford, British Columbia, that has grown from IT support into digital adoption consulting, business automation, and AI. He works with clients across Canada, and much of his practice helps small and medium-sized businesses address their IT and automation needs. Derek shared written expert insights with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in January 2025, and returned to record a Season 1 expert insight interview. In addition, Derek has supported the CAIAI in its ongoing engagements with UFV, including as a judge at the 2026 Community Ideation Jam (Changemaking with AI).
Daryl Hatton is a Vancouver entrepreneur and the CEO of ConnectionPoint, the collaborative funding company behind the FundRazr, Crowdfundr, and CoCoPay platforms. He helped take an enterprise software company to a NASDAQ listing in 1999, rebuilt it after the dot-com crash, and sold it in 2008, the same year he founded FundRazr. Daryl shared written expert insights with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in January 2025, and those insights are cited in our Introduction to Artificial Intelligence course and in our course on AI ethics and security.
Mariami Tkeshelashvili is the Director for Artificial Intelligence Security Policy at the Institute for Security and Technology in Washington, where she leads the AI Risk Reduction Initiative. She brings over a decade of experience in international security and global governance, and has published research on AI compliance failures and on how policymakers might see an AI loss-of-control incident coming. Mariami shared written expert insights with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in September 2025, and we cite those insights across many of our courses, including Introduction to Artificial Intelligence.
Angelica Lim is an Associate Professor Practitioner in the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University, where she directs the ROSIE Lab. Angelica is a Canada CIFAR AI Chair, focusing on robots and AI systems that read and respond to human social behaviour, an initiative she led with the emotion and expressivity teams behind the Pepper humanoid robot in France. Angelica recorded a Season 1 expert insight interview with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in July 2026.
Adina Gray is the founder of PurpleOwl AI, an AI training and consulting practice, and spent twenty years in post-secondary education before it. She taught for about fifteen years in the Bob Gaglardi School of Business and Economics at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, where she served as an AI champion and thought leader, helping to shape and organize its AI summits. She speaks internationally on what AI means for teaching, learning, and work. Adina recorded a Season 1 expert insight interview with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in July 2026.
Tristan Taylor is the founder of the Canadian AI Advancement Institute and the International AI Advancement Institute, which he started to help people learn, adapt and succeed with AI, at home in Canada and internationally. He is based in Langley, British Columbia, and wrote CAIAI’s Introduction to Artificial Intelligence textbook. Tristan recorded a Season 1 expert insight interview with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in May 2026.
Timothy King works with CyberSci, Canada’s national cyber security challenge, which runs regional and national competitions for college and university students across the country. He comes to it from the Information and Communications Technology Council, where, as an Education and Emerging Technologies Specialist, he built cyber and digital skills education nationally, and from the computer technology classroom he taught in from 2007 at Centre Wellington District High School in rural Ontario. Timothy recorded a Season 1 expert insight interview with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in May 2026.
Tiffany MacLennan is a higher education policy researcher at Boreal Education, a Canadian online program management company that helps institutions build distance, hybrid, and online programs. Previously, she was Senior Research Associate and Project Lead at Higher Education Strategy Associates, where she worked on institutional strategy, governance, and student success, and hosted and produced the firm’s higher education podcast. Tiffany recorded a Season 1 expert insight interview with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in June 2026.
Sireesha Chavali is a data engineer and AI safety advocate based in Edinburgh, Scotland, who works on data pipelines and conversational AI using Google BigQuery, Microsoft Azure, and Power Apps. She serves as Partnership Lead on the USA operations team at Women in AI, and teaches practical AI skills to professionals at MIT. Sireesha shared written expert insights with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in September 2025, and we cite those insights in our Introduction to Artificial Intelligence course.
Revan MacQueen is a machine learning engineer at RL Core Technologies in Edmonton, where he builds reinforcement learning agents that control industrial processes. He holds a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Alberta, where he studied under James R. Wright; his research on self-play in multiplayer games was published at NeurIPS, and he has taught machine learning foundations at the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute. Revan shared written expert insights with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in September 2025, and returned to record a Season 1 expert insight interview.
Patrick Tammer leads Strategy and Operations in Google‘s AI and infrastructure group and previously served as a senior investment director at Scale AI, Canada’s AI global innovation cluster, where he invested in more than a hundred companies and AI implementation projects. He edits the Harvard/MIT Journal of Business and Artificial Intelligence and shares insights on his own platforms and in various outlets. Patrick shared written expert insights with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in September 2025, and returned to record a Season 1 expert insight interview.
Matthew da Mota is Research Director, Emerging Technology and National Security at the Canadian Shield Institute, where he works on Canadian economic sovereignty, focusing on AI, defence, and dual-use technology. He previously ran the Global AI Risks Initiative at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. Matthew shared written expert insights with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in October 2025, and we cite them across many of our courses, including Introduction to Artificial Intelligence.
Mark Hobbs is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fundmetric, a Halifax company that builds machine learning and data infrastructure for fundraising in charities and universities. He started it in 2013 and has co-authored peer-reviewed research on predicting donor behaviour with neural networks. Mark shared written expert insights with the Canadian AI Advancement Institute in December 2024, and returned to record a Season 1 expert insight interview in July 2026.
