Industry Day – June 1st, 2026
Room: Amphithéâtre Bernard Lamarre (C-631), 6th floor of Pavillon principal, Polytechnique Montréal
Reception: Atrium Lassonde (M-3500), 3rd floor of Pavillons Lassonde, Polytechnique Montréal
Industry Day brings together engineers, researchers, and technical leaders from across the software and AI industry to share hard-won lessons from building and deploying AI systems at scale. From foundation models in financial services to enterprise coding agents, the day’s talks reflect the real challenges of making AI work in production, reliably, responsibly, and cost-effectively. The day closes with a reception and poster session in the Atrium Lassonde, a prime networking opportunity to connect with fellow professionals, meet the speakers, and carry the day’s conversations forward.
| 8:30 – 9:00 |
Coffee and assorted pastries |
| 9:00 – 9:15 |
SEMLA 2026 Opening Session |
| 9:15 – 10:00 |
KeynoteMoving Faster with Less Risk: DRS for Code Freeze and Code Review at Scale
Peter Rigby · Concordia University and Meta |
| 10:00 – 10:30 |
Coffee break |
| 10:30 – 11:00 |
AI Deployment, Governance, and Lakewatch
Vincent Fortier · Databricks |
| 11:00 – 11:30 |
Foundation Models for Financial Services
Nikita Dvornik · RBC Borealis |
| 11:30 – 12:00 |
From Coding Assistants to Enterprise Knowledge Workers
Patrice Béchard · ServiceNow |
| 12:00 – 13:30 |
Lunch break |
| 13:30 – 14:30 |
Panel Discussion: The Future of Software Engineering
Moderator: Maxime Lamothe · Panelists: Peter Rigby, Suhaib Mujahid, Yu Huang |
| 14:30 – 15:00 |
Lessons from Building an Enterprise Coding Agent: Open Questions and Challenges
Gustavo Pinto · Zup Innovation |
| 15:00 – 15:30 |
Coffee break |
| 15:30 – 16:00 |
From Idea to Production: Building an AI Code Reviewer for a Large Codebase
Suhaib Mujahid · Mozilla |
| 16:00 – 16:30 |
The Importance of Trustworthy AI in Heavily Regulated Domains
Lovedeep Gondara · Vanguard |
| 16:30 – 17:00 |
Robot Learning: Making Robots Learn How to Behave from Data
Julen Urain |
| 17:00 – 19:00 |
Reception & Poster Session
Atrium Lassonde (M-3500) |
Research Day – June 2nd, 2026
Room: Amphithéâtre Bernard Lamarre (C-631), 6th floor of Pavillon principal, Polytechnique Montréal
Research Day spans the full breadth of the field, from the social and ethical dimensions of AI in education to the technical challenges of building agents that are trustworthy, efficient, and safe to deploy. Talks and a panel draw on perspectives from academia and industry alike, covering multi-agent testing, reinforcement learning, LLM-based code generation, and AI systems in high-stakes domains.
| 8:30 – 9:00 |
Coffee and assorted pastries |
| 9:00 – 10:00 |
KeynoteSocial Dimensions of AI: Challenges and Opportunities for Software Engineering Education
Tanja Tajmel · Concordia University |
| 10:00 – 10:30 |
Coffee break |
| 10:30 – 11:00 |
Sustainability in AI Systems: Challenges and Opportunities
Tushar Sharma · Dalhousie University |
| 11:00 – 11:30 |
Testing Multi-Agent AI Systems
Nafiseh Kahani · Carleton University |
| 11:30 – 12:00 |
TBD
Thomas Thanou |
| 12:00 – 13:30 |
Lunch break |
| 13:30 – 14:00 |
Beyond Vibe Coding: Towards Agentic Software Engineering
Zhen Ming (Jack) Jiang · York University |
| 14:00 – 14:30 |
Decoding and Encoding Expertise: Toward Human-Centered AI for Software Engineering
Yu Huang · Vanderbilt University |
| 14:30 – 15:00 |
Challenges in Building Voice Agents for the Enterprise
Orlando E. Marquez · ServiceNow |
| 15:00 – 15:30 |
Coffee break |
| 15:30 – 16:00 |
Reliable Generation of Software Artifacts with LLMs: From Ad-Hoc Validation to Semantics-Aware Generation
Boqi (Percy) Chen · University of Ottawa |
| 16:00 – 16:30 |
Engineering Trustworthy AI Decision-Support Systems for Law Enforcement
Dalal Alrajeh |
| 16:30 – 17:00 |
Engineering Trusted Reinforcement Learning Agents
Zhou Yang · University of Alberta |
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SEMTL and Tutorials – June 3rd, 2026
SEMTL Room: M-1010, 1st floor of Pavilions Lassonde, Polytechnique Montreal
Tutorial Rooms: M-2204, L-2708, Pavilions Lassonde, Polytechnique Montreal
SEMTL and Tutorials Day brings SEMLA to a close with a morning dedicated to the SEMTL community, a recurring seminar series connecting software engineering researchers and practitioners across Montréal. After lunch, two in-depth tutorials offer a practitioner’s guide to the engineering challenges that will define the next generation of AI-driven software.
