Solve for X: Innovations to Change the World

Episode summary: The head-spinning ascent of AI is a story of scientific innovation, but it’s also, fundamentally, a story about money. Between 2013 and 2024, AI netted about U.S.$1.6 trillion of global corporate and private investment; it’s estimated that by the end of this year that number will reach U.S.$2.5 trillion. How this massive investment is transforming — and will transform — the way we live and work is a matter of fierce debate and great uncertainty. One person at the centre of this technological and economic maelstrom is Pillar VC’s Leah Morris. She’s the executive director of Pillar’s Encode: AI for Science fellowship, which provides AI researchers the time, freedom and resources to build meaningful, game-changing solutions. In this bonus episode, she discusses how new technologies are exacerbating economic inequality, the enduring value of human judgment and how the AI investment landscape is too often, in her words, “bullshit in a bull ring.”

Featured in this episode:

Leah Morris is executive director of the Encode: AI for Science fellowship at Pillar VC. She was previously a senior director at Radical Ventures, where she oversaw the firm’s responsible AI strategy and managed research partnerships. Her background includes economic AI research at the University of Toronto and experience in global health and security with the United Nations and through nonprofit work in Jamaica and South Africa.

Further reading:

The next great divergence: Why AI may widen inequality between countries

The man behind AlphaGo thinks AI is taking the wrong path

How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital

Universal basic income, the utopia idea resurging in Silicon Valley

How AI is transforming scientific discovery while keeping humans at the centre

Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com.

Thanks largely to advances in AI, robots are now capable of things never before possible: picking delicate vegetables, moving heavy goods deftly around a warehouse, making pizzas. But there are still limitations to even the most sophisticated and expensive machines. Replicating human dexterity, for example, remains a surprisingly fiendish challenge. While some experts talk about an imminent “ChatGPT moment” for robotics — one that has the potential to completely transform society — it’s not quite clear when this moment will arrive, or what it will mean when it does. In this episode, we explore how new robot technology is reshaping society, the economy and our understanding of what it means to be human. 

Featured in this episode:

Stefan Glibetic is the founder and CEO of Mycionics, which builds robotic harvesting solutions for the global mushroom industry.

Robert Brooks is the founder and CEO of ForceN, which manufactures joints, fingers, wrists and ankles for surgical, industrial and defence/aerospace robots.

Tarek Rahim is the co-founder and CEO of Mirsee Robotics, which specializes in building humanoid robots for various commercial sectors.

Nick Dechev is an associate professor in the faculty of engineering at the University of Victoria. He is also the founder of and chief technology officer at the Victoria Hand Project, a non-profit providing affordable prosthetic devices around the world.

Jason Millar is an associate professor in the faculty of engineering at the University of Ottawa. He is also the Canada Research Chair in ethical engineering of artificial intelligence and robotics and director of the Canadian Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Ethical Design Lab (CRAiEDL).

Further reading:

New research suggests consistency, not complexity, is the key to teaching robots dexterity

The $6 billion Chinese startup trying to build hands for every robot

How physical AI is reshaping robotics today — and what comes next

Ten ways humanoid robots are about to change everyday life

Beyond bionics: How the future of prosthetics is redefining humanity

Subscribe to Solve for X: Innovations to Change the World here. And below, find a transcript to “Degrees of freedom.”

Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com.

The housing crisis is fundamentally a health problem. Decades of research show that people experiencing homelessness spend twice as long in the hospital, cost the healthcare system double and have a life expectancy half that of the average Canadian. In this special episode of Solve for X: Innovations to Change the World, recorded live at a MaRS Morning event, host Manjula Selvarajah sits down with primary care physician Dr. Andrew Boozary to discuss a radical shift in Canadian medicine: treating housing not just as a social service, but as a critical medical intervention. As founding executive director of UHN’s Gattuso Centre for Social Medicine, Boozary shares data-driven insights from his initiatives there: prescribing nutritious food boxes, the launch of Ontario’s first hospital-based homelessness and eviction program and, most famously, the establishment of Dunn House, a permanent supportive housing model that’s proven to be both effective and scalable. Together, Selvarajah and Boozary explore what it takes to dismantle bureaucratic sludge, cut through systematic fragmentation and build a healthcare system rooted in human dignity.

Dr. Andrew Boozary is a primary care physician and the founding executive director of the Gattuso Centre for Social Medicine at University of Health Network (UHN). At the forefront of health equity and public policy, his work focuses on integrating social determinants of health — such as housing, income and food security — directly into patient care. Boozary has spearheaded pioneering social medicine models including Toronto’s modular permanent supportive housing project, Dunn House, establishing crucial healthcare interventions that drastically improve health outcomes while reducing healthcare costs. In 2026, he received a Governor General’s Innovation Award for developing Dunn House.

Further reading

Dr. Andrew Boozary on expanding social medicine housing model Dunn House
Pathologies of poverty: The need for housing 
Dunn House gave homeless ER patients a home and saved Toronto hospitals millions. Now they’re building another one
How did social medicine evolve, and where is it heading?

Subscribe to Solve for X: Innovations to Change the World here. 

 

Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com.

There are few neurodegenerative diseases as devastating as Huntington’s. It’s sometimes likened to having Parkinson’s, ALS and Alzheimer’s all at the same time, with symptoms that include progressive motor dysfunction, cognitive decline and behavioural change. It’s also hereditary — if a person has the faulty gene that causes the disease, there’s a 50 percent chance their children will have it, too. In the fall of 2025, however, scientists announced that, for the first time, they could reduce the progression of Huntington symptoms using a new gene therapy. While that clinical breakthrough came with several caveats, it also heralded a possible new paradigm for drug discovery. In this episode, we explore how this innovative therapy works and what it could mean for the treatment of other rare diseases. 

Featured in this episode:

Rachel Harding is an assistant professor in the department of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Toronto and a principal investigator at the Structural Genomics Consortium. Her work on Huntington’s disease has been recognized with major early-career awards, highlighting both scientific excellence and the potential patient impact of her research program.

Further reading:

Research is unravelling the mystery of what causes Huntington’s disease, a devastating brain disease

In a first, a gene therapy seems to slow Huntington disease

“Best news” for Huntington’s disease community comes with unanswered questions

The Huntington’s disease research pipeline

World’s first patient treated with personalized CRISPR gene editing therapy at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have been allowing humans to control objects with their minds for nearly half a century. But in recent years, thanks partly to advances in AI, the technology has evolved dramatically; wearable and implantable devices are now being used to restore speech and movement to stroke survivors, alleviate depression and treat pain. While companies like Elon Musk’s Neuralink grab headlines, a somewhat quieter revolution is happening in Canada, where researchers are using BCI to help a historically underserved population: disabled children. In this episode, we explore BCI’s potential to transform medicine, the knotty ethical questions at its core and how the tech might just bring us closer together.

Featured in this episode:

Dr. Adam Kirton is a professor of pediatrics, radiology and clinical neurosciences at the University of Calgary, where he’s also the director of the BCI4Kids program. He is also the director of the Calgary Pediatric Stroke Program and is a practicing pediatric neurologist at the Alberta Children’s Hospital. He co-founded, and is the CMO, of Possibility Neurotechnologies

Anne Vanhoestenberghe is a professor of active implantable medical devices at King’s College London and director of MAISi, a facility for the manufacture of active implants and surgical instruments, housed at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, England.

Dion Kelly is a clinical neuroscientist and the co-founder and CEO of Possibility Technologies. Dion and Adam launched the company in 2022 to commercialize their brain-controlled technology, which transforms thoughts into actions. 

Stephanie Sonnenberg and her daughter, Claire, live outside of Calgary, Alberta. Claire was one of the first users of Possibility Technologies’ BCI device, Think2Switch.

Further reading:

The past, present and future of brain-computer interfaces

We’ve been connecting brains to computers longer than you’d expect. These three companies are leading the way

Adam Kirton’s Lindenlauer lecture, Columbia University, November, 2024

Altman’s Merge raises $252 million to link brains and computers

What it’s like to have a brain implant for five years

Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com.