The Pulse: Feb. 16, 2022

The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) is hoping to attract companies and individuals working in artificial intelligence to Edmonton this spring for its inaugural AI Week by offering "global talent bursaries" that will cover travel and accommodation for up to 500 people.

"We really want to leverage the week to be able to show off the great things that are going on here," CEO Cam Linke told Taproot.

"Without that first visit, it's tough to know everything that's going on. The goal is to introduce them to the province, make connections to great people, researchers, companies, and then let things grow from there."

The aim is to encourage entrepreneurs to set up a new or existing company here, or move to the city and join one of the businesses looking for AI or machine learning talent. The first $100,000 available has been advertised, with over 30 bursaries awarded so far.

Amii is currently seeing a need for AI professionals at every level, but that mid-career to senior talent is harder to find. Linke explained that it's a challenge every region in the world is facing.

"Demand is outstripping supply. There are a lot of AI companies ... but there's also a ton of traditional industry companies that are realizing that AI is a core piece to what they're doing going forward. So they're also hiring and need to grow their teams," he said.

Linke said he has talked to Alberta-based companies that say they want to eventually bring on people earlier in their careers, but currently need employees who can supervise and lead teams.

"Often that can be the bottleneck to a lot more growth ... for the province and for companies here," Linke said.

• The Edmonton Police Service has confirmed it purchased a Cessna 182Q airplane in 1993 and said it is used for a variety of purposes, including locating missing people and working on joint operations with law enforcement partners. The plane's existence was brought up at a city council committee meeting on Nov. 8, 2021, wrote The Progress Report. Brian Kisilevich, executive director of supply services with EPS, said at the meeting that "we are just in the process of acquiring another plane."
• City council's urban planning committee has unanimously endorsed restoring the planned Metro Line LRT extension to Castle Downs to the first phase of the city's 15-year mass transit strategy. The committee also asked administration to look at options for accelerating the construction of 408 kilometres of cycling infrastructure by 2026.
• Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said Edmonton isn't ready to ditch its mask mandate, despite not pursuing its own vaccine passport. The news comes on the heels of Calgary city council voting 13-2 to repeal its mask bylaw. "Moving too fast and too quick on removing COVID protections is risky. We have utilized the mask bylaw very effectively to keep Edmontonians safe," Sohi told CTV News.
• Edmonton police used the Air One helicopter to rescue hikers who found themselves lost in Elk Island National Park. "As it was dark, the temperature was dropping and the children involved were very young, our Air One crew was understandably concerned when they heard the call and went into action right away," EPS Sgt. Paul Shafer told Postmedia.
• Covenant Health has unveiled plans for a $250 million wellness community at the former MacEwan University South Campus location in Mill Woods. Demolition of the existing structures will begin this year, with the first phase of the new Covenant Wellness Community slated to open in 2025. Later phases will add approximately 300 residential units and 250 supportive living and long-term care suites.
• The Edmonton Mountain Bike Alliance is concerned that the City of Edmonton's River Valley Planning Modernization Project could exclude mountain biking, even though many of the trails were built and maintained by mountain bikers. "We think that cyclists can co-exist with walkers and hikers," Joseph Yurkovich, president of the group, told Cycling Magazine, "just so long as everyone is courteous."
• The Edmonton Zone Medical Staff Association is holding a contest for students aged 14 to 18 to submit a video, written piece, or work of art about a part of the opioid crisis that is important to them — the contest has two categories, each with a $100 prize. The goal is to raise awareness about the ongoing drug poisoning crisis among youth.
• Since June 2020, when changes were introduced to make registrations easier online, more than 350,000 transactions have been completed online for a variety of services, according to the province. More than 83% of all birth registrations and about 75% of first birth certificate orders have been completed online.

On this day in 1956, ideas were flying about for Edmonton's proposed international airport. The "free port" proposal was one of the many ideas floated. While the plan to make Edmonton a kind of duty-free zone never took off, it indicated the excitement surrounding the potential of the new airfield.

Edmontonians already had a fascination with aviation; the city was a vital air link to Canada's north. And during WWII, Blatchford Field was the world's busiest airport, serving as a training ground for Allied pilots and part of the aerial network that shuttled supplies to the Soviet Union.

As aviation technology progressed, the limitations of Blatchford became clear. In the '50s, commercial air travel evolved from small propeller planes to large jet airliners. The central airport's runways were too small to handle many of the larger aircraft, and its terminals couldn't handle a large number of passengers. And since the city surrounded Blatchford, expansion wasn't feasible. So in 1955, Transport Canada bought 7,600 acres of land south of Edmonton for the future international airport.

Turning the parcel of land into an international flight hub wasn't easy. Problems included rough terrain, thick patches of weeds, livestock wandering on runways, and a stubborn clan of beavers. Still, the airport eventually opened for passenger travel in November 1960. A single hangar served as a temporary terminal for three years until the construction of a proper facility (which still stands as EIA's north terminal).

The following two decades were a period of rapid growth for both the city and the airport. In 1962, just shy of 395,000 passengers went through the EIA. By 1974, it was 1.1 million. That number doubled by 1980. However, the city's air traffic was still split between the international and central airports. Long-haul flights would land at the southern airport, while Blatchford handled short hops. This caused more than a few headaches: passengers often had to travel the 35 kilometres between the two airports to make connecting flights.

In 1992, Edmontonians voted to keep the central airport open to all air traffic. In a second plebiscite three years later, 77% of voters decided instead to consolidate commercial air traffic at the international airport. The central airport lived on with less and less traffic until its closure in 2013.

The international airport saw another surge of growth in the 2000s, with the construction of a new terminal to house international flights, a new central hall, and an expansion of cargo facilities. By 2018, it remained one of the fastest-growing airports in Canada, with more than 8 million passengers. The pandemic has been hard on airports, of course, but the federal government announced $18.5 million in funding for the EIA to upgrade its cargo operations. And a new round of support announced last week sets aside $10.4 million for an overhaul of the airport's security screening as well as COVID-19 testing.

This is based on a clipping found on Vintage Edmonton, a daily look at Edmonton's history from armchair archivist @revRecluse — follow @VintageEdmonton for daily ephemera via Twitter.