Camp UXCO - Product Design Workshop

Level: Beginner +

In this introductory workshop, we will go over the product design process, and cover topics such as UX writing, visual design and prototyping, and UX research. (*UX Stands for User Experience).

Note: Students in this workshop will have to sign up for free accounts for two common UX tools. An email will be required for this.

Workshop Leaders

The UX Collective is the first-ever design club at the University of Saskatchewan. We educate and connect students in product design through networking, mentorship, and educational and social events.

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Cyber Security Workshop

Level: Beginner/Intermediate

In this workshop U of S Cyber Security Team will explore different points of weakness that programs (especially websites) may have. This workshop targets one of the most common weak links in a security chain, that is also the most accessible to those with little to no experience in information security: the employees of a fictional company. Those who attend will learn introductory aspects of open source intelligence along with reading and interpreting HTML and simple ciphers.

Workshop Leaders

The University of Saskatchewan Cyber Security Team is a student run group of Network and Computer Security enthusiasts aimed at sharing their knowledge with other members of the USASK community, as well as competing in various security related competitions. For more information, please email CST@cs.usask.ca.

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Game Development

Level: Intermediate

In this workshop you will learn how to navigate the Unreal Engine editor while building a game. Unreal Engine is a powerful tool used for many different industries from automotive development to video games and moves. You will learn how to add collision to objects, add them to the world and allow the player to interact with them.

Workshop Leader

This workshop will be lead by USask undergraduate student Cuba Giesbrecht is a 25-year-old computer science student with a passion for technology and innovation. He is also an experienced Esports coach and analyst, known for his insights and expertise in the competitive scene. With his deep understanding of computer science concepts and programming, Cuba is a dedicated to making a difference in the rapidly-evolving field of computer science.

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Introduction to Machine Learning

Level: Intermediate/Advanced

Learn how to use data to predict outcomes with real-life data. This workshop will teach you how to create a classifier, from cleaning and exploring your data to training models and understanding the results.

Workshop Leaders

Jordan Ubbens is a Research Associate at the Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) in Saskatoon. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Saskatchewan and specializes in machine learning applications in genetics and computer vision.

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Coding with Arduino

Level: Beginner

In this hands-on interactive session, students will learn the basics of Arduino microcontroller boards! They will get the opportunity to build circuits using sensors, lights, motors, and other components and code them to create prototypes for autonomous, interactive projects.

Workshop Leaders

Bill Fahlman, B Ed. has been teaching for over 28 years, 17 of which have been with the Greater Saskatoon Catholic School Division primarily as a Practical and Applied Arts Learning Leader and the last 6 as an instructional technology facilitator with SaskCode. During his tenure with SaskCode, Bill has worked with teachers and students alike on the integration of coding, robotics, and experiential learning into the classroom.

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Introduction to Cryptography

Level: Advanced

In this workshop students will be introduced to the core concepts of Cryptography and get to take a shot at putting them into practice. This workshop will explore different approaches, applications, and limitations of Cryptography though both theoretical and practical examples.

Workshop Leaders

Sam Hillis is an Undergraduate at the University of Saskatchewan and is currently interning at Vecima Networks, helping to develop next-generation internet infrastructure. He is passionate about a variety of topics from low-level hardware design to the mathematics of code.

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The Future of Tech is Right Here in Saskatchewan

There are as many people “Saskatoon” and “Regina” sized cities in the world as in “New York” and “San Francisco” size cities, and the perspective of those in medium sized urban areas is often different from larger centres. The growing tech sector in Saskatchewan is uniquely positioned to take advantage of our size and unique challenges to develop the next generation of tech better suited to how people around the world in similar cities live.

Speaker Biography

Jon Lovering moved to Saskatoon when he was 7 years old and grew up in the city. He attended the University of Saskatchewan graduating with a B.Sc in Computer Science and a B.Sc in Electrical Engineering. After graduation, Jon relocated to Silicon Valley where he worked for several companies making up the ‘AAG’ of FAANG, as well as for a small startup making cameras. In 2018, he returned to Saskatoon and found a growing tech sector. After spending a few years working adjacent to tech, he returned to the startup world with Precision AI, where he develops low level software driving our precision agriculture technology.

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Perfit: The Future of Online Shopping

Wouldn’t it be cool if there was virtual clothing? Kind of like video game skins, except you could also know about the fit. It would be the ultimate try-before-you-buy. Being able to try clothes on virtually also solves a bunch of other problems, like reducing the number of returns from on-line shopping (which reduces environmental harm due to unnecessary shipping and landfill) and simply not being able (think pandemic lockdown) or willing (think too shy or too busy) to go into a store. The really cool thing is that being able to try clothing on virtually is possible, thanks to a magical combination of physics, mathematics, and computer science. In this talk, I will let you in on some of the secrets behind the magic.

Speaker Biography

Raymond Spiteri is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan. He obtained a Ph.D. from UBC in Mathematics (Institute of Applied Mathematics) in 1997. He obtained a B.Sc. (Hons.) in Applied Mathematics (Theoretical Physics) from UWO in 1990. His areas of research are numerical analysis, scientific computing, and high-performance computing.

Prof. Spiteri served as President of the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society from 2015 to 2017 and was awarded the CAIMS Arthur Beaumont Distinguished Service Award in 2020 and the CAIMS-Fields Industrial Mathematics Prize in 2022. He served as co-chair for the NSERC Evaluation Group 1508 (Applied Mathematics) from 2016-2019 and currently serves as Group Chair. He served on the Canadian Council of the Academies Expert Panel on Artificial Intelligence in 2021-2022.

Prior to joining the U of S in 2004, Prof. Spiteri held faculty positions at Dalhousie University and Acadia University and was a post-doctoral fellow at McGill University. Prof. Spiteri has supervised 20 B.Sc. theses or projects, 30 completed M.Sc. theses, 5 completed Ph.D. theses, and 16 Post-doctoral fellows. He has published over 120 articles in peer-reviewed journals and has over 2600 citations (ISI Web of Science).

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Lifelong Learning in Tech

Speaker Biography

Dale Hopkins is Vendasta’s Chief Technology Officer, reporting to CEO, Brendan King. Over the past 10+ years Dale has been responsible for guiding the processes, technologies, and tools that make up the Vendasta ecosystem. Through his leadership Vendasta has scaled to over 20 Agile software teams with over 100 developers supporting millions of users in the platform.

Prior to Vendasta, Dale founded a software consulting company that specialized in digital video diagnostics and processing. Customers included Time Warner Cable and his previous employer Vecima Networks. Dale earned a bachelor degree in Engineering Physics from the University of Saskatchewan in 2005 with a dual degree in Computer Science.

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Level up! The power of games, and those who play them.

In this talk, we discuss games research: what it is, why it matters, and the impact of videogames more broadly. In particular, we investigate the incredible rise of esports (games played professionally, by expert players) - and how research in this space is taking shape.

Speaker Biography

Dr. Madison Klarkowski is an Assistant Professor with the Computer Science Department at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. She specialises in games user research and player experience evaluation, and has been a dedicated player of competitive games since childhood. To this end, it was perhaps inevitable that one of her first initiatives as an academic was to develop a program of research investigating esports.

Madison has weaponised her research background in video game challenge, player experience, and player wellbeing to assess and support expertise in esports, inform understanding of esports communities, and to explore the translational ability of advanced gameplay.

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How AI and Social Media change human minds and behaviours

For computer sciences there are many grand challenges now: how to deploy AI tools productively to help feed the world's population, to solve environmental problems, enable safe cities and develop cures for diseases. Can we design AI technologies that help us learn better, live healthier, and socialize in a safe, enjoyable and healthy way?

Studies show that continuous interaction with social media changes not only our behaviours, but also our brains: what information we remember, our sense of physical orientation, and even what makes us happy. We enjoy connecting with friends instantaneously, finding facts with one click, the endless stream of information in our phones, the games and funny videos. Yet we have also seen the negative effects of social media on individuals and society: loss of privacy, cybercrime, digital addiction, fake news and misinformation, filter bubbles and polarization, which create a threat to democracy.

With recent popular AI-chat tools becoming available for free, such as ChatGPT, Bard, Stable Diffusion, Dall-E, and Replica, the difference between real and artificial (fake) is disappearing. How will our human minds adapt to this change? What can we trust? What behaviours do we need to develop and what new skills do we need to learn to get jobs? Can we use AI to relieve us of the tedious tasks, but not take away our jobs? Can AI help us learn how to be creative, develop critical thinking and problem-solving abilities? Can AI be used to warn us about fakes and being lied to or manipulated? How can we use AI to be productive, purposeful and happy? These are open questions, which we need to tackle; they require young human minds - not AI - to solve them.

Speaker Biography

Dr. Julita Vassileva is a Professor and a leading researcher in the area of human-centered AI. Her research has evolved from student and pedagogical modeling in intelligent tutoring systems, to user modelling and personalization in interactive systems, to multi-agent systems, trust and reputation mechanisms, and their application social computing systems, to adaptive incentive mechanisms for participation and personalized persuasive technology and behaviour change. She has authored over 250 peer reviewed publications in these areas, many of which are well cited. She is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Frontiers in AI - Supporting Human Learning and Behaviour Change. She is among the top 2% most cited scholars in the world and has been awarded Distinguished Researcher Award (2021) and Distinguished Graduate Supervisor Award (2014) by the University of Saskatchewan. Dr. Vassileva held the NSERC/Cameco Chair for Women in Science and Engineering for the Prairie provinces and started a successful science outreach program for indigenous youth in the North, called “Science Ambassadors”. For her leadership and mentorship, she received the Saskatoon YWCA “Women of Distinction Award (Science and Research)” in 2015.

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