TOtimes Books: CANADIANS WHO INNOVATE by Roseann O’Reilly Runte

Canadians Who Innovate: The Trailblazers and Ideas That Are Changing the World is released just in time for Canadian Innovation Week happening from May 13th to 17th

Available in bookstores in early May. Copyright © 2024 by Roseann O’Reilly Runte. Published by Simon & Schuster Canada, a division of Simon & Schuster, LLC.

Just in time for Canadian Innovation Week happening from May 13th to 17th comes the release of a new book called Canadians Who Innovate: The Trailblazers and Ideas That Are Changing the World. Written by Dr. Roseann O’Reilly Runte who is President and CEO of the Canadian Foundation for Innovation in Ottawa, her book contains 66 intriguing profiles of inventive Canadians, showcasing their innovations and stories.

The innovator stories include two Nobel laureates, an astronaut, business leaders, artists, inventors, scientists, the godfathers of artificial intelligence, the inventor of a 3-D printer that prints biological tissue and other jaw-dropping stories of remarkable achievements by Canadians.

As head of the Canadian Foundation for Innovations, Dr. Runte was approached by publisher Simon & Schuster as the ideal person to write a book about innovative Canadians.

Took me a lifetime to write this book -Dr. Runte

Runte jokingly says it took her ‘a lifetime’ to write the book.

“I’ve known many people in the book for years and others for a shorter time, and some I met through my work,” says Dr. Runte. “While doing research for the book I contacted other people and asked them for recommendations. I included people in the book who were really inspiring and who inspired me. I also did something that is a bit innovative, and that is when people talk about innovation they quite often just think about engineering and a new arm for a space shuttle, but we can be innovative in everything we do, in every field from medicine, the environment to the arts. We need innovation across the board, so I included people in all fields.”

While Dr. Runte wrote the book with a goal to inspire others to innovate, there’s a deeper meaning behind her inspiration for writing Canadians Who Innovate.

Each one of us can make a difference

“Today we all need hope,” she states. “It’s a time when we read the newspaper or watch the news or turn on the computer and all we see are the problems that face humanity, from climate to health to wars, and it can be depressing. I think the people in this book give us a reason to be hopeful. They show us that each one of us can make a difference and that people that work hard and have some of the problems we all do, manage to create solutions to some of the big challenges that face us on earth. My goal is to give hope to all those who read the book. And I personally hope it will make us think and understand a bit more about the incredible innovations that are going on across the country. I would like to help young people realize that they too can achieve great things in their lives and to encourage us all to strive for the best.”

Well known Canadians who have made a difference

Dr. Runte says we may have a Canadian innovator living down the street and not even know it. While a few of the names of people featured in the book are household names like Roberta Bondar, Canada’s first female astronaut, there are other Canadians who have made incredible achievements that we may not be aware of. Take Geoffrey Hinton for example. From Toronto, he’s known as “the Godfather of artificial intelligence” and is the recipient of the A.M. Turing Award, also known as the Nobel Prize of Computing. Hinton, along with computer scientists Yoshua Bengio from Canada and Yann LeCun from France, is one of the three godfathers of artificial intelligence, or deep learning. Hinton works on artificial neural networks which are designed by combining computer science and statistics to simulate the behaviour of the human brain in problem solving.

“Artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing are new fields that haven’t been around for that many years, so people didn’t really know the potential for good, and for bad, of artificial intelligence until a few years ago,” explains Dr. Runte. “Whereas we knew for a few years that space was out and knew that it was an extraordinary moment when Canada got our first female astronaut (Dr. Roberta Bondar). Those were big moments in history. I think that what has been done in terms of artificial intelligence is a great moment and we haven’t come to terms with all of it and how great that moment is for Geoffrey Hinton and how significant his contribution is in innovation.”

Increase the awareness of brilliant Canadian thinkers

Dr. Runte hopes her book will help increase the awareness of brilliant thinkers like Geoffrey Hinton and others in the book.

“Take Jim Willwerth (from St. Catharines),” adds Dr. Runte. “People were growing grapes in the Niagara Region to make wine and the grapes were freezing in the wintertime because of the change in the air over the surface, not because the ground was freezing. When the cold air mass comes down it freezes the grapes rapidly and with short notice. The solution was to put windmills to move the air and make it warmer, but the windmills were making an enormous racket, and it was costing millions of dollars in electricity to run the windmills all night. Jim said let’s study this and we’ll put sensors in all the fields, and we can tell you exactly when to turn those windmills on and off. He saved millions of dollars in electricity and saved grapes harvests and made an incredible contribution to the future of the wine industry across Canada.”

Sheila Singh from Hamilton engineers cells to help cure cancer

Or Sheila Singh from Hamilton who engineered cells to help cure cancer. Singh shares a story in the book that while she was doing her residency at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, she observed two patients being treated for medulloblastoma tumours in the brain. Both were five years old, and both were named Christopher. Both children had chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery. One survived while the other died. Nobody could understand why. “Sheila Singh told me that it was then she realized that she had to find the way for all patients to survive by discovering a way to kill those tumours. Instead of finishing her degree she stopped and worked specifically on that. She was able to grow the cells outside the brain that were causing the tumours and then figured out the way to treat them.”

Dr. Runte points to a few more examples of innovative people who never gave up on their dream. This includes the developer of a 3-D printer that prints biological tissue, the innovation of driver-less vehicles being used in mines, and an engineer who grew human cells on apples.

3D Printing!

“This is innovation, and we should be so proud of what we have achieved,” adds Dr. Runte. “These are secrets of the universe; saving lives and figuring out how to solve problems whether they are the problems of society or of the universe.”

After interviewing and writing about so many innovators, we asked Dr. Runte if there was a common link between them. What drives these innovators to do what they do?

What drives these innovators

“That’s the topic for my next book!” she chuckles. “Everyone in the book has the drive, the desire and special motivation to solve problems. All of them worked hard and didn’t have things handed to them. They had that drive and belief that they could make a difference. Interestingly, many of the innovators said they were inspired by a teacher. Some were inspired by a space program launch while others were inspired by the idea that they could save lives. One medical person told me their goal was that before they die, nobody will die from cancer. They said, ‘We won’t get rid of cancer, but we’ll make it so it can be cured.’ Those motivations are extraordinary.”

For those people with an innovative idea and want to move it forward, Dr. Runte offers this advice: “The first step is education. Every innovator in the book has the education to hone their skills and knowledge to follow their innovative idea. The second is to have good mentors such as a professor or colleague. And determination. Knowing you are going to do this no matter what.”

A sequel?

Dr. Runte hints that there may be a sequel in the works. “There are really two parts to this,” she states. “Part A is the innovators I didn’t include—what only 66 people? There are so many inspiring and innovative people in this country that I didn’t include so we could do this again if there’s the interest. The second part involves how to do it —secrets that need be shared. This is not one of those books like 10 Secrets to Success. It’s a more personal perspective of the ways innovators succeed. When you get a problem what do you do? Some people told me they talk to others. Some listen to music while another said he goes to a football game. Many innovators said they go for walks to find solutions and one person said while concentrating on a problem, be careful not to walk into a telephone pole! There are many interesting ways that people focus their minds and their energy to find innovative solutions for tomorrow and that could be something more to write about.”

Canadians Who Innovate: The Trailblazers and Ideas That Are Changing the World is available in bookstores in early May. Copyright © 2024 by Roseann O’Reilly Runte. Published by Simon & Schuster Canada, a division of Simon & Schuster, LLC.

by Laurie Wallace-Lynch

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