My name is Shawn Desaulniers. I am Métis people from (name) region in northwestern Ontario. I study math for both pleasure and as my job. Everything is governed by high mathematics or at least it helps us to understand how things work. Our ancestors were fantastic at math, especially geometry, art, building engineering structures that, that were appropriate for the time in Europe. Tipis are really a fascinating thing. Like they can generally be in the shape of a cone. This is great for wind resistance, ease of assembly, ease of disassembly, transfer of heat, trap in moisture or, or letting moisture escape. I still think like an igloo is fascinating. To build a house out of snow, structurally sound, to build it, it’s, it’s remarkable. Building a canoe, this is a fantastic feat. Depending how you build your canoe, it can either go fast or it can be more stable. wanna build it, what, what are you putting in there? What, what are you making it out of? To, to be able to travel across water, that’s amazing.

I think it’s important for, for people when they’re considering to learn math to really realize it’s not about being right or wrong. It’s about trying and being willing to make mistakes. Mathematicians make probably more mistakes than anyone else in the world, but they’re mindful mistakes so we make a mistake, we reflect on it, we learn from it, we try to see how we can improve and then we try again. If you’re doing math and you make some mistakes, don’t feel bad, feel proud. Algorithms are fantastic so it’s a list of rules to follow in order which is very simple. So simple that we could have a computer do it. The computer doesn’t think, it has a list of rules and it, it just does them in order. 100% if you follow those rules, you get the outcome you want. Better algorithms improve our life.
The founders of Google did this right? They come up with an algorithm to rank pages. It wasn’t necessarily searching for the information you wanted, but it was more searching for what pages may contain that information. One of the most impressive algorithms I think is that computers can now detect cancer in MRIs in seconds. This used to take world class neuroscientists hours. Now, a computer can follow an algorithm to find the cancer in seconds. That’s amazing.

Algorithms are an important part of our life, even when you’re, you’re making food, you’re doing stuff in a certain order right? When you’re building something, there’s steps to follow. That’s knowledge, it was passed on by our ancestors. That’s an algorithm. Math is absolutely everywhere. When you’re looking, try to be creative and just imagine the math in there, whether it’s the shape, the geometry, the structure, the breakdown, the future, the past. Algorithms are an important part of our life, even when you’re, you’re making food, you’re doing stuff in a certain order right? When you’re building something, there’s steps to follow. That’s knowledge, it was passed on by our ancestors. That’s an algorithm. Math is absolutely everywhere. When you’re looking, try to be creative and just imagine the math in there, whether it’s the shape, the geometry, the structure, the breakdown, the future, the past. The math is absolutely everywhere.