Ontario Business Concerns, Leadership, and the Economics of AI – Toronto News
Toronto‘s finest business schools have provided valuable marketplace insight to their communities this week. We’ve outlined some of the high points below.
Ontario Business Bankruptcies Up 39 Per Cent – CBC News
Corporate bankruptcy is on the rise in Ontario. According to Madhu Kalimipalli, Professor of Finance at the Wilfrid Laurier University’s Lazaridis School of Business and Economics, the higher cost of borrowing for corporations could be to blame.
“A lot of these businesses … are the ones who had a tough time servicing their bank loans,” Kalimipalli says in a recent CBC News interview. Kalimipalli posits that the pending NAFTA agreement between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico (CUSMA), as well as the real estate slowdown in the GTA may have also been factors in the corporate bankruptcy rise.
Kalimipalli does not believe the increase in bankruptcies are necessarily cause for alarm. It is possible that the pending U.S. approval of the NAFTA agreement could reverse the bankruptcy trends, as long as government attempts to alter it do not have unintended consequences down the line.
You can learn more about Ontario business bankruptcy here.
Don’t Just Be a Leader, Become a Global Inspiration; Almas Jiwani Delivers a Riveting Keynote Address at Ryerson University – Global Newswire
Almas Jiwani, President of Emeritus UN Women National Committee Canada, recently delivered the keynote speech for the Women in Information Technology Management (WITM) at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management at the Emerging Leaders Project (ELP). Jiwani spoke about utilizing technological advances to achieve more “sustainable and inclusive” societies around the globe.
In the speech, Jiwani says:
“We have come a long way with technology, and it has changed our world. It has not only changed the way we work, live, and conduct business, but has also helped create a bridge that connects us to millions across the globe. The age of social media has made it possible for today’s leaders to create a bigger impact, and has empowered them with the ability to reach out to people in different and remote parts of the world and be an inspiration to them to learn, dream bigger, and achieve more.”
Jiwani is also CEO of the Almas Jiwani Foundation, which seeks to “empower women, girls and marginalized communities through focused projects that directly address disparities in equality, education, entrepreneurship and energy rights.”
Learn more about Jiwani’s speech and ELP here.
Joshua Gans Weighs In On Marketing Disruption – Forbes
Forbes recently published a comprehensive interview with Joshua Gans, Chair of Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship Professor of Strategic Management at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, revisiting some of the themes in his 2016 book The Disruption Dilemma. In particular, Gans speaks about disruption in marketing.
He addresses the future of marketing with advances in AI, saying, “AI can do only a limited range of what we might call cognitive functions,” Gans said, “What it can’t do is exercise judgment and understand what the trade-offs are in decisions.”
According to Gans, exercising judgment in this way is, “an essential part of any creative process.”
Gans is also the Chief Economist at Rotman’s Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), a seed-stage program for tech-based companies. CDL is dedicated to helping innovators grow their ideas and attain the funding necessary to bring their ideas to the marketplace.
You can read more from the full Joshua Gans interview with Forbes‘ Paul Talbot here, and watch Gans’ discuss AI at Rotman below.
