2022 Automotive News Canada All-Stars

A five-year research project between Magna International and the University of Waterloo has paid dividends beyond the work done using artificial intelligence to study driver behaviour and learn better ways of implementing driver assistance technology.

As important as that work was, it also demonstrated new ways to attack technological problems in the automotive sector, said Jim Quesenberry, director of research and development at Magna. By widening the scope of the research beyond staff and students with automotive inclinations, “we use these interactions and really prompt the thinking of students and faculty who don’t have an automotive heritage or any of our past hang-ups, and they inject new ways of thinking into this,” said Quesenberry, 43.

“It can set us off in a new direction that we hadn’t considered yet.”