Strategic Council

Gabriel Goyette-Côté, Director, Service des Partenariats et du Soutien à l’Innovation (SePSI), Vice-Rectorat à la Recherche, à la Création, et à la Diffusion, Université du Québec à Montréal

At UQAM since 2016, Gabriel has held various positions at SePSI related to partnership development, mainly internationally, rising to the position of director in 2023. Before joining UQAM, he held various research coordination and partnership development positions at the Université de Montréal, in various research centres focused on international relations. He holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Political Science from UQAM (with honours), and has completed doctoral studies in Political Science at the Université de Montréal.

Serge Helou, M. Eng, EMBA, Director, Global Product and Technology Strategy, CAE Inc. the world leader in simulation technologies, modelling, training services and critical operations management for airlines, aircraft manufacturers and defence customers. Serge joined CAE in December 2024, where he leads the strategic planning process, oversees the technology and product development roadmap, manages the R&D project portfolio and governs the organization’s performance. Prior to joining CAE, Serge held several key roles at Air Canada (2006-2008), Bombardier (2008 – 2019) and Pratt & Whitney (2019 – 2024) in engineering, product development, operations management, supply chain, strategy and business transformation. He also served as a board member of Le Refuge des Jeunes de Montréal (2017 – 2022), and currently chairs the board of the John Molson MBA International Case Competition, of which he has been a member since 2018. Serge holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering (2008) and a master’s degree in technology project management from École Polytechnique de Montréal (2012). He also holds a post-graduate certificate in product and service innovation from MIT (2017) and an executive MBA from the John Molson School of Business (2022).

Shibl Mourad, M. Sc. Canada Site Lead and Research Engineering Director, DeepMind, Montreal. As Director of Research Programs at DeepMind, Shibl is passionate about applying best engineering practices to the best machine learning ideas to advance our knowledge of AI, and develop innovative and socially useful products. Prior to joining DeepMind, Shibl was the Director of Google Montreal, overseeing its growth and diversification. Prior to joining Google, Shibl founded or managed numerous technology start-ups in the web, wireless and mobile fields. He holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and an M.Sc. in AI from Queen Mary College, London.

Jean Pommier, M. Sc., PayPal-IBM Partnership CTO, IBM, San Jose, CA.

Jean has almost 40 years’ experience in the software industry, having held a variety of technology leadership positions, first at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN, 1988 – 1989), then at ILOG, a provider of optimization and business rules software, first in Paris (1987 – 1998), then in Silicon Valley (since 1999) where he was VP WW Professional Services until ILOG’s acquisition by IBM in 2009. At IBM, he first spent 10 years on the Services side as Distinguished Engineer and CTO, covering aspects of automation and methods, before leading technical teams in customer sales. He holds an engineering degree from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers (Paris, 1986), a Master’s degree in computer science research from CERICS, specializing in software engineering and AI (Sophia Antipolis, 1987), and a certificate from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business (2000).

Zandra Balbinot, Ph.D., co-director of LATECE, external relations manager, and Professor, Department of Marketing, School of Management Sciences, Université du Québec à Montréal.

Zandra’s research focuses on international marketing, collaborative innovation and frugal innovation. Before joining UQAM (2013), she held various teaching positions at Universidade Federal do Paraná (Brazil, 2008-2013), McGill University (2006-2007), Universidade Positivo (Brazil, 2007); and as an international business development consultant for various private and para-public organizations. She holds a B.A. in Business Administration from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, and a PhD in International Business from HEC Montréal.

Ghizlaine El Boussaidi, Ph.D., Full Professor, Department of Software and IT Engineering, École de Technologie Supérieure.

A professor at ETS since 2010, Ghizlaine’s research focuses on various issues in software architecture and design, and model-driven engineering. She has more than a hundred publications to her credit, including several in leading software engineering journals and conferences, and several best paper awards. She also has several industrial collaborations around the development of mission-critical and certifiable software. She holds an engineering degree in embedded systems (Morocco), a Master’s degree in computer science (2004, UQAM) and a PhD in computer science (2009, Université de Montréal).

Yann-Gaël Guéhéneuc, Ph.D., Full Professor, Computer Science, and Canada Research Chair in Empirical Software Engineering for the Internet of Things, Concordia University.

Yann-Gaël conducts most of his research on empirical software engineering applied to various problems related to the development of context-aware software (IoT), and the reengineering of legacy object-oriented software, and has to his credit several hundred publications, including several awards. Before joining Concordia (2017), he was Professor of Computer Engineering at École Polytechnique (2008-2017), and of Computer Science at the Université de Montréal (2003-2008), after a brief foray into industry (Object Technology International (IBM),1998-2000). He holds an engineering degree (1998), and a PhD (2003) from École des Mines de Nantes.

Hamid Mcheick, Ph.D., Professor, Computer Science Department, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi.

Full Professor, Computer Science Department, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, Canada. His research focuses on the design and architecture of context-sensitive, connected and intelligent applications, and he has given numerous speeches and tutorials in this field. He has more than 25 years’ experience in academia and industry. He has supervised numerous post-doctoral, doctoral, master’s and bachelor’s students. He has over 150 publications in leading conferences and journals. He holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science (1997, UQAM) and a PhD in Computer Science from the Université de Montréal (2006).

Koly Rakotonimaro, Ph.D., Senior Advisor, Business Development, Mitacs.

Koly Rakotonimaro has been a Senior Business Development Advisor, Mitacs since 2021. Ms. Rakotonimaro holds a professional Master’s degree in Law, Economics and Management, majoring in Business Economics and Management, from the University of Nancy 2 (France).
She also completed a research master’s degree in Geosciences at the Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine (France), as well as a doctorate in Environmental Sciences at the Université du Québec en Abitibi Temiscamingue (UQAT), specializing in the treatment of contaminated mining water.