![Ian Goodfellow giving his speech during Techaide.](/sites/default/files/styles/fixed_width_480/public/news/9394/adsc02835-scaled-en.jpg.webp?itok=mKtBpvEh)
On April 12, 2024, Mila hosted its annual Mila TechAide charity event, bringing together hundreds of participants within the Montreal technology community. The fundraising event was a resounding success, gathering $107,636 to support Centraide du Grand Montréal’s mission to fight poverty and social exclusion.
The event featured talks by Ian Goodfellow (Google DeepMind), Bruce Schneier (Harvard’s Kennedy School, Inrupt, Inc.), Hsiu-Chin Lin (McGill University), Sara Sabour (Google DeepMind), and Ryan Lowe (ex-OpenAI), as well as an insightful panel discussion between Ian Goodfellow and Mila members Yoshua Bengio and Doina Precup.
The speakers covered a wide array of topics, ranging from AI alignment and trust to machine learning in nuclear fusion, 3D rendering and safe motion planning.
Among the event’s sponsors, Google DeepMind and Microsoft each contributed $5,000 as gold sponsors, HydroQuébec, Kinetic Solutions, OVHcloud and IVADO contributed $2,000 each as silver sponsors, while ServiceNow, Linearis and Meta contributed $500 each as bronze sponsors.
Additionally, to increase our impact, Hugo Larochelle generously pledged to match the first $25,000 of donations, while Ian Goodfellow and Yann N. Dauphin each matched the next $25,000!
A warm thank you to the organizing committee that made this event possible: Yann Dauphin (Google), Laurent Charlin (Mila), Hugo Larochelle (Google – Mila), Nadine Khairallah (Mila), and Desiree Goldwater (Mila).
Many thanks to everyone who contributed to the success of this fundraising day, and see you next year!