Dr. Ellie Ardakani is an award-wining energy-tech entrepreneur and a published geoscientist, passionate and committed to the incorporation of digital technologies to increase the return on investment of both data and human capital in the energy sector and beyond.

Ardakani cofounded Meta Innovation Technologies in 2017, a tech company dedicated to empowering the energy and mining industries with web-based technologies for immersive staff training and AI-augmented data analytics. Prior to Meta, she excelled in various roles at energy and associated service companies such as IOOC, Athabasca Oil Corporation and ESG Solutions.

Ardakani holds a PhD in exploration geophysics from the University of Alberta. She is the SEG JEDI executive committee member, past chair of SEG Women’s Network, Women in AI – Ottawa city lead, Mentor for AGU Mentoring365 program, and an active member of APEGA and many more societies and communities. In 2019, Ardakani was a recipient of the “Immigrant Entrepreneur” award from the city of Ottawa. In 2020, she was recognized as the Ottawa “Founder of the Year” by the Bootstrap Award committee.