Creative AI Hub

Developing partnerships between academia, industry, and government

Spinning off projects into startups, advancing students to the Zone network, and supporting AI entrepreneurs

Advancing the Creative AI Supercourse, developing  AI micromodules/courses, and training 20 highly qualified personnel (HQP) per year

Applied research in AI, publication in peer-reviewed journals, and securing patents

Securing research grants & enabling affiliate faculty grants

Dr. Hossein Rahnama is a Professor at the MIT Media Lab and Toronto Metropolitan University. He is also the Founder and CEO of Flybits, an AI/ Data Science company. His research is focused on the design of Human-AI Systems , data governance for generative AI, human-computer interaction, and the “system of systems” design of data-driven applications. He has published more than 40 papers and holds 23 patents in computer and data science.

He previously served as a council member at NSERC (National Science and Research Engineering Council of Canada) and is currently on the board of directors of Home Capital Group and Canadian Science Publishing. He is a founding fellow at the MIT Connection Science Group and one of the Global Directors of MIT Media Lab’s City Science Group. He Was on MIT Technology Review Global TR35 list (2012) and Canada's Top 40 under 40 (2017).

Dr. Afsoon Soudi (opens in new window)   is an Assistant Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University and the Associate Director of the Creative AI Hub (opens in new window)  at The Creative School. Prior to TMU, she led machine intelligence teams to develop an audience analytics platform and recommender systems enabling discoverability and personalization in digital media products. In addition to her academic experience, Dr. Soudi is a tech-based entrepreneur. As a co-founder and VP of R&D of an award winning software company (which was later acquired), she led a multidisciplinary team of researchers and developers on technology commercialization and developing ML products for B2B applications. Dr. Soudi completed her Ph.D. in Physics at Washington State University. She holds multiple patents and published numerous peer-reviewed papers in high-impact journals. Her current research interests intersect Responsible AI, climate change and media analytics.