Agenda - Day 2

Gain insight into today’s sessions so you can get the most out of your conference experience.

As one of Canada’s largest grant administrators, Global Affairs Canada plays a critical role in advancing national priorities — ranging from economic growth to clean technology and digital inclusion. Develop a blueprint to:

• Build end-to-end visibility into grant applications, approvals, and outcomes through integrated data platforms.
• Use predictive analytics to identify high-impact projects, streamline decision-making, and mitigate funding risk.
• Align digital transformation efforts with public accountability and clear, transparent performance reporting.

Optimize every stage of the grants process to ensure taxpayer dollars deliver the greatest possible value.

As AI continues to evolve, so must the teams responsible for building and governing it. Delivering ethical AI at scale requires more than just technical expertise, it demands diverse perspectives, clear accountability, and a culture of continuous reflection. Master the success factors to:

• Assemble cross-functional teams that combine data science, ethics, policy, and subject matter expertise.
• Define roles and responsibilities to ensure transparency, fairness, and effective governance across AI initiatives.
• Embed ethical considerations into daily decisions through targeted training, thoughtful incentives, and leadership alignment.

Transform your team’s structure to meet growing expectations for responsible AI — and ensure your technology works for people, not just performance.

Creating policy for the rapidly evolving communications sector is one of the most complex and rewarding responsibilities in the public service. It also presents a significant opportunity to harness data analytics. Walk away with an action plan on:

• Strengthening performance and measurement frameworks.
• Improving outcomes for Canadians by refining statistical policy monitoring reports.
• More clearly communicating how the markets you oversee are meeting the needs of Canadians.

Advance citizen outcomes by delivering policy shaped by meaningful analysis.

The City of Vancouver is leading a bold initiative to modernize urban mobility through AI-powered traffic control systems. Achieve a step-by-step action plan to:

• Leverage real-time data from IoT devices, transit systems, and public infrastructure to optimize traffic flow.
• Deploy machine learning models that proactively adjust traffic signals and anticipate congestion.
• Coordinate cross-agency collaboration to support scalability, transparency, and responsible AI use in public spaces

Improve urban mobility by making city infrastructure more efficient, adaptive, and citizen focused.

As economic pressures intensify in Canada and shifting political landscapes impact federal spending, public sector data leaders must find creative ways to deliver value with fewer resources. Source practical tips to:

• Leverage automation and AI to streamline analytics processes and reduce operational costs.
• Prioritize high-impact analytics projects that support core business and policy priorities.
• Encourage cross-functional collaboration to maximize existing data assets and internal expertise.

Optimize analytics delivery in a resource-constrained environment to ensure resilience and long-term impact.

As AI and data initiatives accelerate across sectors, the demand for governance that is both robust and responsive continues to grow. Key to this agility is embedding governance into data pipelines, models, and workflows — without hindering innovation. Adopt best practices to:

• Implement policy-as-code frameworks to automatically uphold data standards, privacy protections, and compliance requirements.
• Leverage AI to monitor model drift, data lineage, and risk thresholds in real time.
• Design adaptive controls that align with evolving regulatory requirements and internal governance priorities.

Bolster governance maturity by embedding intelligent controls that balance accountability and innovation to future-proof your data practices

Canada’s federated system offers a unique opportunity to lead globally in data and analytics collaboration across jurisdictions. With the right vision and coordination, Canada can move from isolated data efforts to a connected public sector capable of tackling complex national challenges — from climate to health to economic resilience. Take away specific solutions to:

• Build common data standards and governance approaches that support cross-jurisdictional sharing.
• Design interoperable platforms to facilitate secure collaboration and joint analytics.
• Strengthen intergovernmental partnerships that promote citizen-centric, data-driven innovation.

Optimize outcomes for Canadian citizens through interagency collaboration.

In many data initiatives, the focus is on collecting, securing, modelling, and cleansing data, but the final step of designing charts and dashboards to communicate that data to decision-makers tends to get less time and attention. Create a roadmap to:

• Troubleshoot your current approach to visualization and determine why you may not be getting the results you were hoping for.
• Optimize your data visualization strategy and techniques.
• Upgrade your resource library with tools to develop your team’s data visualization and dashboard design competencies.

Achieve compelling, insightful visualizations and dashboards to advance your data-driven decision-making.

The unconference provides a unique opportunity for data leaders of all experience levels and backgrounds to share their insights from the summit, discuss, reflect, and propose new problems to be solved.

• Free and open to all
• Participant-driven
• Focused on experience rather than expertise

Advance your data leadership skills by actively engaging in collaborative discussions and driving innovation.

Review the key solutions and takeaways from the conference. Source a summary of action points to implement in your work.