Eileen Jurczak, BESc’97, was midway through “a excellent round of golf” when she started slicing the ball.
Jurczak, a lifelong participant with a handicap of 10 (underneath the regular handicap for golfers), was discouraged.
“I stored tinkering, seeking to take care of it and absolutely nothing I was executing was aiding,” she said. “I try to remember pondering if I just experienced a caddie up coming to me who realized my swing and could give me a suggestion, I would quit having difficulties and get on with my activity.”
Obtaining on with issues – and getting things performed – has been a hallmark of Jurczak’s profession, initial as an engineer, then in organization, where by she formulated an desire in artificial intelligence (AI) and technological innovation.
Her background, coupled with a powerful entrepreneurial spirit, led her to build the iTQ golfing app as CEO of Xonic Golf, a short while ago named a person of the world’s top 10 most innovative companies in athletics for 2023.
Much more pleasurable, less disappointment
Eileen Jurczak (Xonic Golf photograph)
“I just want golfers to have a lot more fun and significantly less annoyance,” reported Jurczak, who’s been enjoying the activity and taking classes considering the fact that she was 5 many years outdated. She expended her initial days on the back links as a toddler alongside her grandmother.
“She and her golfing buddy Betty would adhere me in among the two of them in the golf cart,” Jurczak claimed. “There were rules. I was not allowed to leave the cart till we obtained to the environmentally friendly. I could enjoy in the sand entice, but they taught me to rake it when I was finished, so I figured out course administration early.”
With a seven handicap at the peak of her activity, she briefly deemed a occupation in golf.
Rather, she chose engineering soon after attending a Western open residence and hearing the late biochemical engineering professor Argyrios Margaritis discuss.
“He talked about the central function biochemical engineers played in the synthesis of modern-working day penicillin and I knew that was what I desired to do.”
Jurczak landed a position in pharmaceutical analysis and improvement straight out of Western, a job she relished for ten a long time.
When it was time for a transform, she pursued her MBA and certification as a Chartered Economical Analyst. She was immediately recruited to the investing ground at BMO, the place she won the 2016 Women of all ages in Funds Markets Increasing Star Award.
In 2018, she was recognized as a person of Canada’s Top 25 Gals of Influence for founding Bay Road Deconstructed, a non-gain corporation giving students workshops on the economic companies sector, addressing a gap Jurczak saw missing in the significant school curriculum.
Award-successful, AI-powered application
That similar capacity to travel an idea into a reality noticed her start Canada’s to start with woman-founded golfing tech start up, and the to start with ever AI-run “quick suggestion caddie app.”
“The iTQ is like possessing a caddie in your pocket,” Jurczak stated. “I say ‘caddie,’ and not ‘golf professional,’ simply because like a caddie, it is not instructing or coaching, it is giving rapid fixes so persons can have a nicer video game. The quick fixes are the ‘how not to do’s.’ For example, ‘How do I stop slicing the ball?’ The rapid tips are the ‘how to do’s,’ as in ‘How do I hit a shot out of a deep tough?’”
The a few-to-five second fixes and recommendations are composed by a workforce of PGA teaching professionals and based mostly on the AI investigation of two uploaded gradual-motion films of the golfer’s swing (deal with on and down-the-line). 1 of the app’s algorithms employs computer vision (the identical technologies applied in driverless cars) to review the player’s swing to supply tailored ideas and fixes.
“These are modest adjustments to assist you quickly in the instant,” Jurczak claimed. “And the more you use it, the improved the app will get at giving advice.”
The Xonic iTQ has been properly received by players and professionals alike, successful titles together with ScoreGolf’s Canadian Golf Product or service of the Calendar year for 2022 and the quantity 1 golfing app by Australian Golf Digest.
Last period, PGA Ontario named the iTQ as its official AI Brief Tip Caddie App, contacting it “a pivotal instrument in the golfing industry’s initiatives to help push golfer retention and participation prices.”
Jurczak has also secured partnerships with the PGA of British Columbia, the PGA of North Florida, the Pacific Northwest PGA and the PGA of Southern California.
Primary a workforce of 15, she not long ago oversaw the implementation of a new interface and other attributes, with the application now available in six languages: English, French, Spanish, Japanese, Korean and Mandarin. She’s at this time targeted on a advertising marketing campaign, with an eye to produce a shorter recreation model of the app up coming year.
“I’m really happy of my team and what we’ve completed,” Jurczak said. She also credits her undergraduate research for arming her with the “foundation of skills” she drew on to support build the application, file an worldwide patent and get her solution to market place.
“I couldn’t have completed all that without having my engineering diploma,” she stated. “It taught me how to feel, how to challenge-address and how to do the job challenging. I am a large touter of an schooling in engineering. It opens a good deal of doors.”