ALUMNI SPEAKER SERIES “How engineers can advance Canada’s health care through technology”

Innovations in technology have advanced every aspect of our human lives — often with engineers at the helm. One such example is the intersection of health care and technology, as showcased by the University of Waterloo’s Global Futures framework which highlights the importance of health tech in our future world. 

There are many urgent and exciting opportunities for engineers to step in and help redesign health care systems, innovate solutions and develop new ways of solving problems for the good of society.

Join this live event in Toronto with a panel of engineers, researchers and health tech entrepreneurs who will discuss how — in our rapidly changing world, challenged by rising costs and lack of access — engineering can help advance health care through technology.

The conversation will focus on how engineers can work towards solutions for optimal health care, showcase innovative research, discuss strategies for retaining health tech startups in Canada, identify challenges, explore opportunities and propose actionable solutions to foster an innovative and thriving health tech ecosystem in the country. 

Thank you to PointClickCare for generously hosting this event. Appetizers and refreshments will be provided and are included in the registration fee.

Please note that alumni and guests will be asked to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) when registering for the event.

Emcee:

Professor Mary A. Wells
Dean, Faculty of Engineering
University of Waterloo

Mary Wells is Dean of Engineering at the University of Waterloo (since July 1, 2020), the ninth dean since the Faculty was founded in 1957. From 2017-2020, she was Dean of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Guelph.

Prior to her time in Guelph, Wells was a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo for 10 years. She received awards for graduate supervision from both the Faculty and the University in 2017.

An accomplished materials engineer, Wells also served as the Associate Dean of Outreach for Waterloo Engineering between 2008 and 2017, and chaired its Women in Engineering committee for many years. She chaired the Ontario Network of Women in Engineering from 2013 to 2018.

Wells began her academic career as a professor in materials engineering at the University of British Columbia from 1996 to 2007, and has worked in the steel industry in Canada and internationally.

The co-author of two books including one on Canadian women innovators and the second on Canadian women in materials, her research focuses on the relationship between processing, structure and properties for advanced metallic alloys used in the transportation sector.

Connect with Mary Wells on LinkedIn. 
 

Moderator: 

Armen Bakirtzian
BASc 2008, Mechatronics Engineering
Co-Founder and CEO
Intellijoint Surgical

Biography:
Armen Bakirtzian is the co-founder and CEO of Intellijoint Surgical, a Kitchener based medical device company focusing on improving patient outcomes in joint replacement surgery. Intellijoint Surgical is a spinoff of an engineering design project Armen and his co-founders completed as part of their Bachelor degrees in mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo. Upon graduation, Armen completed his Masters in biomedical engineering from the University of Toronto. 

Intellijoint Surgical was then founded in 2010 to commercialize their technology, called intellijoint HIP™. Intellijoint Surgical now offers a suite of products to assist orthopedic surgeons and was awarded the #1 fastest growing tech company in Canada by Deloitte’s 2020 Technology Fast 50™ Companies List. Armen has been selected to represent Canada at G20 Young Entrepreneur Alliance Summits and further, he was awarded with a Future Entrepreneurial Leader of Canada (FuEL) award. Armen also spearheaded the creation of MIX, Medical Innovation Xchange, Canada’s first industry-led innovative hub dedicated to helping medtech companies scale within Canada. 

Connect with Armen Bakirtzian on LinkedIn.
 

Panel Speakers:

Elliot Fung
Executive Director
Medical Innovation Xchange (MIX)

Biography:
Elliot is a passionate supporter of the local technology ecosystem, and an experienced community leader. Over the past 20 years, Elliot has held various executive roles helping to advance the local ecosystem. He was Vice President, Innovation and Strategic Partnerships at Ontario Health and also held various strategic positions at BlackBerry, helping to adopt and commercialize enterprise-level technology to some of BlackBerry’s largest global partners. Elliot has also served two terms on municipal council in the Township of Wilmot and one term as the Vice Chairperson of the Waterloo Regional School Board. Currently, Elliot is also a sessional instructor at the University of Waterloo in the Bio Medical Engineering program and serves on the Board of Directors for Intellectual Property Ontario (IPON). Elliot studied Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Connect with Elliot Fung on LinkedIn.

Michael Phillips
BASc 2017, Mechanical Engineering
Co-Founder and CEO
Vena Medical

Biography:
Michael Phillips graduated from University of Waterloo with a Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc) focused in Mechanical Engineering with an Entrepreneurship Option. Michael co-founded Vena Medical during the final year of his undergraduate degree and went full-time immediately after graduating. He attended  the TMCx Accelerator and Y Combinator in the year following. He's a published author in the Journal of Neuro-Interventional Surgery, American Journal of Neuroradiology and Stroke: Vascular and Interventional Neurology. He's the inventor on 5 granted patents and winner of numerous awards related to business and entrepreneurship while bringing two novel devices to the clinical setting.

Connect with Michael Phillips on LinkedIn.
 

Hamed Shahsavan, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering
University of Waterloo

Biography:
Hamed Shahsavan is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo. He obtained his PhD in chemical engineering and nanotechnology from the University of Waterloo in 2017. In his graduate studies, Dr. Shahsavan's research was focused on the fabrication and characterization of bioinspired micro/nanostructured surfaces and their implications in fundamental studies of contact mechanics, and interfacial phenomena, such as adhesion, friction, and wetting. Fascinated by the rapidly growing fields of soft robotics and smart materials, he moved to Stuttgart in Germany, to embark on his postdoctoral research as an NSERC postdoctoral fellow at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. In this period, he mainly focused on the synthesis of different types of liquid crystalline elastomers, networks and gels to deploy them as shape-change programmable materials in soft robots and devices at millimeter to micrometer scale. During his PhD studies, Dr. Shahsavan was a visiting scholar in the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State University, OH, USA. He was also a visiting scientist in the Smart Photonic Materials (SPM) research group at the University of Tampere in Finland. His current research interests revolve around the development of a variety of soft, stimuli-responsive, and programmable materials, and different fabrication methods for the manufacturing of small-scale mobile robots and devices.

Connect with Hamed Shahsavan on LinkedIn.

Registration: There are no physical tickets for this event. Once your online registration is completed, you will be sent a registration confirmation by email and your name will be added to the event guest list. Please check in at the door when you arrive at the event.

Please note: This session will not be recorded. Past sessions of this series were virtual and have been posted to view on the Alumni Speaker Playlist on the Waterloo Engineering YouTube Channel. Event participants do not have permission to record the session. 
 

Here are resources to learn more about Canadian and global health problems and how engineers are addressing them: