Meeting Recording
This was an in-person meeting and not recorded.
President's Comments
President Adrian was delighted to welcome everyone to this, our first regular in-person, club meeting in over 14 months and the first for Adrian as president. This was the 58th week of our 18 month anniversary recognition.
As we begin our new Rotary year, President Adrian noted four keys strengths of our club that position us extremely well for moving forward:
- Our meeting programs continue to be quite outstanding. They are varied, topical, interesting and feature excellent presenters.
- We have a well-developed Strategic Plan that has just been revised and updated and will be distributed to all members in the near future
- All of our committees have chairpersons in place.
- All members have indicated their choices for serving on the various committees.
Guests
Bruce Stahlbaum, guest of Hubert Singh
Andrea Guth, guest of the club
Hana Karim, guest of Karim Karim
Bell Ringer(s)
President Adrian thanked Darren Sweeney for organizing our very successful recent golf outing and named him our Bell Ringer of the week.
Happy Jar
Louise Gardiner is happy that she and Graham will be travelling to Calgary next week to visit their son and family.
Paul Rostrup was happy that he and Paula were able to attend Art Courses in Haliburton recently. He was pleased to see fellow club member Betty Bax there as well and to also attend a local Rotary Club meeting.
Carl Zehr was happy to see the Kitchener Blues Festival back in operation and that his 15 year old grandson put on a great show for kids on the Friday afternoon.
President Adrian was pleased to report that he and Cathie celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last week.
Darren Sweeney was happy that he and Rose participated in their Golf Club’s annual tournament recently and that Rose placed first with the ladies (Darren didn’t do quite so well on the men’s side).
Special Recognitions / Presentations
Past President Louise was pleased to thank President Adrian for his work as president last year and to express great appreciation that he is continuing in the role this year! He was presented with our Silver Cup full of BBQ goodies for him and Cathie along with a book of all of our social media posts from last year.
Announcements
Catch the Ace is into week 39 and the Jackpot is over $20,000. Only 14 cards left in the deck to choose from.
Deadline for tickets this week is Wednesday August 10th at 11:59 PM.
Program Highlights
Our program today was from our own member Professor Karim S. Karim speaking on the latest in portable X-Ray equipment as part of our Futures series. Karim was introduced by Louise Gardiner.
Dr. Karim S Karim (PhD, PEng, MBA) is the Associate Vice President for Commercialization and Entrepreneurship and a Professor in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo. He has raised more than $15M in research grant funding, trained over 40 PhD and MASc students, has co-authored 250+ publications and 80+ patents. He is also a founder and Chief Technology Officer of
KA Imaging, a University of Waterloo spinoff that makes innovative X-ray detectors and systems for medical, veterinary, scientific and industrial markets. Karim has developed novel X-ray imaging devices and systems since 1998 and has both supported and founded multiple start-ups in the past two decades. One of his “color” X-ray innovations is now starting to replace black and white medical X-ray globally while another is used in ultrasonic fingerprint sensors in mobile phones and tablets.
Dr. Karim began by explaining that X-Ray technology has really not changed much since it was first developed and is limited on tissue differentiation. Techniques for improving the technology were developed many years ago but remained extremely difficult and expensive to become practical.
With additional research at the University of Waterloo techniques to make this technology useful and affordable have now been developed and Dr. Karim’s company is in the process of making advanced and portable X-ray technology commercially viable.
His company has three products:
- BrillianSe – A High Resolution X-ray Camera
- inCiTe – Micro Computed Tomography, and
- Reveal 35C – A portable, flat Panel Detector
Dr. Karim focused the remained of his presentation on the Reveal 35C, noting that:
- It produces three images with each signal X-ray taken – A Standard X-ray, an enhanced Soft Tissue image and an enhancer Bone image
- As a result better diagnoses is possible with better patient outcomes
- It is a highly affordable solution that is universally compatible and can upgrade any X-ray system
- It has both medical and industrial applications
- It is portable and can be used at a bed side or on a work site
The future for this device is quite extraordinary and has the potential to revolutionize X-ray usage. A reference from Dr. Steiger, Chief of Radiology, Lake Health (part of University Hospitals in Cleveland, OH, USA, states – “Reveal 35C can quickly enhance the efficacy and operations of any imaging department. I saw the direct positive impact on a patient’s care. It allowed me to make a more confident, accurate diagnosis, saving the patient time and avoiding additional radiation from unnecessary testing.”
Closing Remarks & Reminders
President Adrian reminded members that the next meeting will be Monday August 15th and will be on Zoom.
