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Archives for October 2018

Dr. Wendy Watson-Wright: Ocean School

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“All life on earth depends on the ocean.  And all people, no matter where they live, are connected to the ocean in fundamental ways.”
Dr. Wendy Watson-Wright, Chief Executive Officer, Ocean Frontier Institute

Dr. Wendy Watson-Wright, Chief Executive Officer, Ocean Frontier Institute

Photos from YouTube Video: Advancing ocean literacy through Ocean School, Dalhousie University.

The Ocean Frontier Institute (OFI) was established in September 2016 through a partnership led by Dalhousie University, Memorial University of Newfoundland and the University of Prince Edward Island.

An international hub for ocean research, OFI brings together experts from both sides of the North Atlantic to explore the vast potential of the ocean.

In a recent YouTube video presentation, Dr. Wendy Watson-Wright, Chief Executive Officer, Ocean Frontier Institute highlighted the need for continued research focused on the harnessing the vast potential of the world’s ocean in a safe and sustainable manner.

Ocean School

Dr. Wendy Watson-Wright, Chief Executive Officer, Ocean Frontier Institute:

“Ocean School is an innovative initiative of Dalhousie University, The National Film Board of Canada and OFI.  It combines leading edge audiovisual teaching technologies with forward thinking approaches to create compelling experiences for learners inside and outside the classroom. It’s educational, its fun and it’s important work.  That’s because the lessons learned at Ocean School develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills that are key to generating positive change. Since time began, the ocean has affected our lives and how we live them.  It has shaped our culture and our heritage. And it will impact our collective future.

Ocean literacy helps us understand our connections with the sea.  As this understanding advances so too will the leadership required to responsibly develop our ocean resources while we also protect marine eco-systems, reduce pollution and combat climate change. A sustainable future depends upon a healthy ocean. And it requires an ocean-literate public that understands and values the vital importance of the ocean to all life on earth.

We can all play a role in advancing ocean literacy by sharing what we know, seeking new knowledge and always advocating for the safe and sustainable use of our one and only global ocean.” Dr. Wendy Watson-Wright

 

Scotiabank Ethical Leadership Award Celebration November 22, 2018

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2018 Ethics In Action Dinner Gala

2018 Ethics In Action Dinner Gala

The 2018 Ethics in Action Dinner Gala, which honours the Scotiabank Ethical Leadership Award recipient, is scheduled for November 22, 2018.  This annual celebration is a profound validation of Dalhousie’s commitment to the highest standards of excellence in ethical behaviour.  Tickets will go on sale in October 2018. For those in the Halifax area, this will be an exciting must-attend event. For those of us who live elsewhere, highlights will be available on Dalhousie’s Ethics in Action website.

The 2018 recipient of the Scotiabank Ethical Leadership award  is Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire.

The 2017 recipient of the Scotiabank Ethical Leadership award was The Honourable Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella.

“The Scotiabank Ethical Leadership Award recognizes ethical leaders who, through their actions and decisions, have demonstrated character, courage and adherence to ethical principles. Leaders from any sector—public, private or not-for-profit—are eligible to be nominated. The winners will serve as an inspiration to other practitioners and to today’s business students.”

Ethics in Action Website

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Dr. Sylvain Charlebois: Grocers – Get ready to join the blockchain party

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Grocers: Get ready to join the blockchain party

File 20181015 165905 pbcwzh.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
Five people died and more than 200 got sick during a 2018 E. coli outbreak, the largest in more than a decade. The bacteria was traced to contaminated romaine lettuce.
(Shutterstock)

Sylvain Charlebois, Dalhousie University

In the wake of this year’s large E. coli outbreak, Walmart notified its leafy green suppliers that they must be using blockchain technology to trace their products before the end of 2019.

Walmart, one of the world’s largest retailers, has been piloting blockchain projects with IBM for the past 18 months. It is banking on this relationship to put pressure on the entire sector to give consumers what they want from the food industry: more transparency.

In Europe, Carrefour also recently began using blockchain to track food products on several of its product lines.



Read more:
Everything you need to know about fresh produce and E. coli

The whole idea is to better manage food recalls, farm to fork and back, and also to tackle the intricate issue of food fraud, which is receiving an increasing amount of attention.

Meanwhile, many others are wondering if the investment is worth it. Consumers tend to want many things from the food industry without paying for them.

The power of blockchain

Blockchain is about data, but it is mostly about accountability through enhanced digitalized transparency. With blockchain everyone knows what’s happening all at once.

To use a simple analogy, think of blockchain as a hockey rink. All the data is on the ice, protected by the boards so that it can’t be altered. Everyone participating in a blockchain is in the stands. The activity on the ice lets everyone else know who is buying from whom, when, at what price and volumes.

As a result, a recalled product can be traced back in seconds instead of taking days. It took investigators days to trace the source of an E. coli outbreak to contaminated romaine lettuce. They had to look through documents to find the source and the potential causes, all the way up the food chain. It would have been managed quite differently with blockchain.

Food safety is an obvious driver for blockchain, but food fraud appears to be what is moving the blockchain agenda much faster these days.

Why pay extra?

Blockchain technologies have been used in other sectors, but they have only recently entered the food sector.

In this June 7, 2011 photo, an employee throws away tomatoes in Werder, Germany, during an E. coli outbreak. Authorities had trouble identifying the source of the outbreak, causing major losses for farmers in the European Union.
(AP Photo/dapd/ Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert, File)

Food safety was never going to be enough for consumers to embrace blockchain. Consumers expect safety and don’t want to pay more for it. Why pay extra for a safety belt when buying a car? Food safety may have never had market currency, but food authenticity does.

Fraudulent products can compromise brands and the viability of a company in a heartbeat. We have seen many cases already around the world.

Food fraud is difficult to measure, but it has arguably kept food prices lower, allowing some companies to cut costs and offer lower price points.

Economically motivated adulteration is a growth killer, something Walmart and Carrefour both know. To increase sales, companies must eliminate fraudulent food products from their shelves, and blockchain technologies can provide the perfect antidote.

Jumping on the blockchain bandwagon

How better to deal with food fraud than by making the whole system more transparent?

Transparency in the context of blockchain, however, is neither absolute nor unconditional. Each solution will offer a different level of transparency depending on how the system is set up. This is likely why grocers are jumping on the blockchain bandwagon, to exercise their power with the supply chain and generate their own rules of engagement.

It is also likely making everyone else less comfortable, including processors and producers.



Read more:
How technology will help fight food fraud

If food fraud is properly addressed, growth in the food sector can be expanded. Over the next decade or so, we should not be surprised to see the disruptive nature of blockchain technologies generate tensions among grocers, processors and producers as they try to cope with grocers’ impositions.

Other sectors made traceability a priority decades ago. Drugs, car parts, minerals and so on can be tracked to their sources in seconds. Consumers know the technology exists and are putting the pressure on grocers. It’s time for the food industry to catch up.

Sylvain Charlebois, Professor in Food Distribution and Policy, Dalhousie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

John Waldron: Want a Workplace Learning Culture? Create Frictionless Learning

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John Waldron, MBA (FS) Class of ‘08

John Waldron, MBA (FS) Class of ‘08

Within four years, 42% of your core workplace skills will be obsolete, according to the Future of Jobs Report 2018, recently published by the World Economic Forum. One way to close the skills gap is to retrain existing employees, but among the 313 organizations surveyed worldwide, that solution ranked only third behind automating work tasks and hiring new permanent staff already possessing the relevant skills. This is a wakeup call to all employees for more skills training.

It is no longer necessary to make a case for learning in the workplace. But to be certain, the report estimates that an extra 101 days of training will be required in order for employees to close the skills gap by 2022. Unless organizations begin aggressively replacing staff or fully automating workflows, employers need to support a culture of learning in the workplace. The best way to do that is to make learning frictionless.

Learning in the workplace needs to be a lot of things: relevant, contextual and purposeful; but what often gets neglected is the learning experience, which is every bit as important as the content itself.

Frictionless learning means having learning that is on-demand and available for when employees need it; having content that is quick and easy to access. A learner shouldn’t have to go through extraneous steps or spend excessive amounts of time just to reach the content. This creates an unnecessary cognitive load, which only encourages the individual to look elsewhere for a solution, or not bothering to even look.

People are busy. And there is only so much mental energy to expend on work and life demands each and every day. How can someone embrace learning that creates so much extra friction and unnecessary cognitive demand?

If, instead, workplace learning is more accessible, then it becomes more immersive. Not in the “virtual reality” sense – immersive in that employees will engage more frequently with the content. When you have an immersive learning experience, education is pulled by the employee rather than pushed onto the employee. They will learn because the want to and not because they have to. Create a culture of learning in your workplace. Make it frictionless.

John Waldron, MBA (FS) Class of 2008
Founder of Learnedly and purveyor of accessible education for financial professionals.

CEGE Connection is delighted to advise that John Waldron has graciously agreed to be a repeat contributor on CEGE Connection.

Dr. Martine Durier-Copp & The Honourable Lena Metlege Diab

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I was thrilled to meet with Minister Diab, a Dalhousie MPA graduate. Minister Diab was a co-panelist at our closing IOG/FOM Inter-Jurisdictional Executive Leadership presentation evening Spring, 2018. She exemplifies the leadership necessary to thrive within a new and evolving inter-jurisdictional, inter-sectoral and interdependent world.” Dr. Martine Durier-Copp.

The Honourable Lena Metlege Diab & Dr. Martine Durier-Copp

The Honourable Lena Metlege Diab & Dr. Martine Durier-Copp

Photo Credit Anthony Zibara, Executive Assistant 

Dr. Martine Durier-Copp was honoured to be welcomed to the Nova Scotia Legislature by the Minister for Immigration and La Francophonie, Hon. Lena Metlege Diab, MPA.

Hon. LENA METLEGE DIAB: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to applaud the accomplishments of Dr. Martine Durier-Copp

Martine began her career in international development in Montreal, relocating to Nova Scotia to take on challenging roles in the health care domain, serving as executive director of the Nova Scotia Royal Commission on Health Care and as the founding executive director of the Nova Scotia Provincial Health Council. Over the years, she has managed a number of international health projects and has, for over 20 years, served as a professor of the Dalhousie School of Public Administration.

Not only has Dr. Durier-Copp led the Social Science and Humanities Research Council-funded research into virtual teams, e-learning, and e-leadership, she is a skilled dancer and choreographer, bringing authentic flamenco to Atlantic Canada through Halifax’s Flamenco en Rouge group.  I ask all members to join me in applauding Dr. Durier-Copp and thank her for helping shape the leaders of tomorrow, body, and mind.”

Hon. LENA METLEGE DIAB

Dr. Sachin Seth & The Great Canadian Baking Show

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Sachin Seth & The Great Canadian Baking Show

The Great Canadian Baking Show, Season Two returned on September 19, 2018. Ten passionate amateur bakers were selected to participate in a series of daunting challenges, all competing for the enviable title of Great Canadian Baking Show.  Congratulations to Dr. Sachin Seth, assistant professor and the Director of Group Practice at the Faculty of Dentistry, Dalhousie University, who is one of the chosen ten contestants.

Sachin Seth & The Great Canadian Baking Show

Sachin Seth Dentist | Educator | Food lover | Contestant on the Great Canadian Baking Show.

 Photos from Dalhousie University YouTube Channel – Sachin Seth’s Chocolate Chip Mug Cake Recipe

Dalhousie University’s YouTube channel features Sachin Seth’s Chocolate Chip Mug Cake recipe that promises to be fast, easy and exceptionally delicious. It’s a winning combination.

Sachin Seth & The Great Canadian Baking Show

Our best wishes for a great season on the Great Canadian Baking Show.

 

The Intensive Season 2018

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Dalhousie-Edit

 

Summers at the Centre for Executive and Graduate Education are eventful.  It is the “Intensive Season,” a much-anticipated end-of term culmination of the blended/online learning courses offered by Dalhousie’s Centre for Executive and Graduate Education (CEGE).

Blended/online learning has the advantage of asynchronous education resources including readings, videos, discussion posts, blogs and audio files. In the months leading up to the Intensives, students share and connect with colleagues and professors via Live Classroom, tutorials, Collaborate, Adobe Connect and Skype sessions. The high point occurs when students meet for a three-to-five-day intensive review session at the end of each term.

The final course of CEGE programs, the capstone, brings participants to Halifax, Nova Scotia.  These courses are held during a week-long summer session on Dalhousie’s historic campus.

In a recent telephone discussion, Michelle Hunter highlighted the excitement generated during the Intensive Season, Summer 2018.  Approximately 230 students participated in courses offered through the Centre for Graduate and Executive Education programs: MBA Financial Services / Leadership, Master of Public Administration (Management) and Master of Information Management. Courses ranged from Corporate Social Responsibility, Marketing, Strategic Leadership & Change, Intergovernmental Relations, to Managerial Economics, Human Resources Management, Knowledge Management and Collaboration.

The Centre for Executive and Graduate Education is recognized as a Centre of Excellence for delivering blended/online programs designed to enhance the learning experience for professionals.  The ability to learn from wherever you are, flexible program options, and a robust support team have positioned CEGE as an innovator in knowledge transfer and exchange.

Achieving the sought-after MBA(L&FS)/MPB(M)/MIM designations, is not the final destination for CEGE graduates.  Their influence, as strategic thinkers in the knowledge economy, is a confirmation that continuous learning leads to success and increased productivity.  This is the legacy of Centre for Executive and Graduate Education’s commitment to excellence.

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