荔枝视频

Professional photographer Brad Wrobleski fell in love with adventure when he was four years old and followed a rabbit down the street to a nearby creek.

鈥淓ver since then, I鈥檝e been chasing rabbits,鈥� says Wrobleski with a smile. He discovered early on that photography is a great way to express that spirit of adventure, and capture the beauty he sees in the world鈥檚 wild places.

• Above: Brad Wrobleski studied a Master of Science in computational media design at the 荔枝视频. 

More recently, Wrobleski, an acclaimed Banff-based adventure photographer and photography instructor, has gone down the artificial intelligence rabbit hole by returning to the 荔枝视频 as a mature student, working on a Master of Science degree in computational media design, a program that combines the disciplines of computer science, art and design.

Wrobleski 鈥� who already holds an honours degree in communications studies from the 荔枝视频 and a professional writing diploma from Mount Royal University 鈥� returned to U荔枝视频 because he wanted to help people learn better, by developing new ways to use technology to help photography students learn outside of the classroom.

鈥淚t鈥檚 going to redefine a whole new trajectory for me,鈥� says Wrobleski, whose research is at the cutting edge of academia, industry and technology, integrating artificial intelligence, augmented reality, computer vision, machine learning and natural language processing. He is developing an app called Lucida, a chat bot assistant 鈥� similar to Apple鈥檚 Siri or Amazon鈥檚 Alexa 鈥� to serve as a mobile virtual instructor helping photography students practise outside of the classroom in real time. 

鈥淓ssentially, if we could use technology to replace me in the field, they could have an instructor with them on their phone,鈥� says Wrobleski, who recently defended his research and plans to convocate in June 2019. 鈥淚t can really help when there isn鈥檛 a human available, because Wikipedia and Google don鈥檛 really answer those things, nor does a camera manual.鈥�

Wrobleski describes Lucida as a bot assistant that can talk, see and think. 鈥淪he becomes a human-like instructor that can do things even better than I can. She can see the scene, and read your face and your emotions at the same time. She can remind you about what to do to master your camera. She becomes a stand-in instructor.鈥�

Derek Hassay, RBC Teaching Professor of Entrepreneurial Thinking in the 荔枝视频鈥檚 Haskayne School of Business, calls Wrobleski鈥檚 work in augmented reality 鈥渁 game-changer.鈥�

鈥淢ore importantly, Brad is a pragmatist and his interest is in making the lives of the people he interacts with better, through this compelling and very rapidly evolving technology of augmented reality,鈥� says Hassay. He taught Wrobleski Venture Development, which is part of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation program in the Haskayne School of Business.

鈥淭hat is the tip of the iceberg for Brad. He is developing a platform product that will have multiple applications and multiple market opportunities as he moves forward. It鈥檚 very exciting. I think he will do great things.鈥�

As just one example, Wrobleski plans to take what he has developed in his research, to create digital mobile tools to help people suffering from anxiety and depression.