InnoFusion Speaker List
Keynote Speaker
Myrna Bittner
Myrna Bittner is the CEO and Founder of RUNWITHIT Synthetics, an advanced synthetic data and generative AI modelling platform company working to inform global population futures, including health, equity, housing, economics, sustainability, and resilience. RUNWITHIT is Myrna’s 3rd technology venture, incorporating the foundational technology from her previous neural net and 3D visualization research company. Under Myrna’s leadership, RUNWITHIT has won awards including the United Nations’ Global Call, Taiwan’s Top Technology Gold Medal, ASTech Innovation of the Year and AI/ML in Simulation, serving clients including US National Labs, international governments, and diverse leaders seeking to answer some of the most challenging questions with augmented intelligence. Most recently, RUNWITHIT won the READI (Rapidly Enabling and Advancing Disruptive Innovation) Award at the Alberta Aviation Aerospace and Defence Summit. Myrna is passionate about connecting today's technology, policy, and service choices to analytics that feature impacts and outcomes for our planet and its people. RUNWITHIT is pioneering the field of synthetic data and populations since 2014, including launching the new SWIFT (Synthetic Waterloo Intelligent Futures Technology) Hub at the University of Waterloo.
Panelists
Karlie Puchala
Karlie Puchala is a Human Capital Generalist with MNP in Lethbridge, with more than a decade of experience helping team members thrive in their careers and workplaces. She currently supports recruitment, talent development, and employee relations across Southern Alberta, B.C., and Manitoba.
Karlie is passionate about helping the next generation of aspiring professionals succeed. She has led MNP’s Take Your Kids to Work Day initiatives across Western Canada, played a key role in campus recruitment, and has achieved a 97% student offer acceptance rate.
A strong advocate for mental health, wellness, and psychological safety, Karlie has completed extensive training in gut-brain health, environmental impacts on health, workplace accommodation, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Community involvement is also an important part of Karlie’s life. This past summer, she served on the Golf Committee for the Chinook Regional Hospital’s Bring Hearts Home Campaign, helping raise $222,750. In February, she and her Lethbridge regional team raised more than $10,000 for the Special Olympics Polar Plunge. She also actively volunteers with the Lethbridge Soup Kitchen, supports the Aurora Centre initiatives, and other community organizations through her role at MNP.
Beyond MNP, Karlie has been involved with the Chinook Autism Society and served as a board member for the Southern Alberta Self Help Association.
Karlie is honoured to join this year’s InnoFusion panel to discuss current talent challenges related to AI in the workplace.
Kevin Grant
Kevin Grant is the founder of Grant Scientific, a Lethbridge firm that builds machine learning and AI systems for clients, with a particular focus in agriculture. He earned his PhD in artificial intelligence at the University of Saskatchewan and spent seven years as a computer science professor at the University of Lethbridge. He went on to serve as Chief Technology Officer at Farmers Edge, and in senior development roles at Cerebra Health and GrainFox.
Simon Onabanjo
Simon Onabanjo is the Founder of NumVault, an app that gives people permanently-owned, platform-specific phone numbers across 2,300+ services — so they can protect their personal number while running businesses, projects, and client work without renting or resubscribing. He built NumVault to solve a problem he saw firsthand: the friction and privacy risk of handing out one personal number across every platform, service, and side venture. Simon is based in Lethbridge, Alberta.
Stephen Graham
Stephen Graham has been Computer Information Instructor at Lethbridge Polytechnic for 14 years. He holds a M.Sc. in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh and is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Lethbridge where he studies AI and Computational Humour.