Nearly 30 high school students gathered October 19-22 in Ottawa for the 2025 Adventures in High Tech Program sponsored by the Rotary Club of Nepean-Canada. Highlights were: running a flight simulator at the NAV Canada centre, visiting OC Transpo's LRT control centre, learning about autonomous vehicle research, dialogue with experts at a cybersecurity company, discussing the benefits and potential undesirable consequences of AI, and visiting a Virtual Reality centre. The two students our club sponsored spoke highly of the campus visits to Carleton University and Algonquin College and returned with eyes open to new study and career opportunities, both in high tech and in other fields.
Participants came from across Canada and Northern New York State, and included Rotary Youth Exchange students from India and Germany. They were accommodated in a hotel where they enjoyed a hearty buffet breakfast and had evening time to visit with one another and discuss their experiences. They also enjoyed fun time for bowling and experiencing video games at the VR Adventure Zone.
Guest speakers were leaders in high tech. The talk about cybersecurity was given by a representative of Trend Micro. The talk about the Canadian Automated Vehicle Initiative was given by its president, Barrie Kirk. The AI talk was given by Bob Hillier, a Project Manager at Sierra Systems and a member of the sponsoring Rotary Club of Nepean-Kanata. He spoke about how AI will present new opportunities.
At the air traffic control tower at the NavCanada centre, students talked with controllers and learned about their careers, including how they handle emergencies. They got to tried simulators they use to train air traffic controllers, using an AI-voice-based system. They learned about developments of remote air traffic control with data from satellites, including testing being done in Kingston. They were also told of simulation of storm situations.
At OC Transpo, they learned about control systems for ground travel and also got to try simulators used to train people to use traffic control systems. They also saw an electric bus.
At the cybersecurity company they visited, they got a sense of how employees worked including physical arrangement of cubicles and their conference room, and the importance of team work. They learned of the many companies they served, all with a focus on cyber-security.
The Algonquin College tour was “very cool,” with a great lab setup for biology and links to Health Canada, where they got to look at e-coli. They were impressed by the huge gym and the tech area.
The two students we sponsored shared something of their own interests. One is a Navy Cadet with a strong interest in motorcycles. He enjoyed visiting with his roommate, from Germany. He became known at the hotel for leaving his key in his room nine times! He doesn't like AI much, but learned that it generates text by predicting the most likely sequence to words it puts out. He was very interested in hearing a Carleton University professor speak about AI use in game programming to develop language-based models for teaching traditional languages in the Yukon.
The other student was particularly interested in the extensive baking program at Algonquin and really enjoyed the lunch cooked by their students. He is considering both work in hospitality and in nursing. At Pathways in Kingston, he appreciates the support he gets with his homework, especially from one staff member who is a teacher and also loves science. He’s on his school’s Junior Basketball, on which he plays shooting guard.
When the two students visited our club, a good deal of the conversation centred on AI, which was a them of the Adventures in High Tech program, figuring in most of what they saw. Concerns included the generation of sensible-sounding nonsense and the generation of fake videos, shedding doubt on what is real. We agreed that AI would bring both good and bad into our societies.
Both students said they would welcome other opportunities to participate in Rotary events.