Lorelei Ratushniak

   

Director, Mining Relations
Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator (MICA)

BIO

Lorelei Ratushniak is a global business development leader with 10 years of experience specializing in strategic partnerships and integrating high-value, cross-industry start-ups into the mining sector. She has helped cutting-edge companies enter and scale within mining, including bringing Pronto AI — a world-class autonomous tech firm — into the industry by securing Tier 1 customers and multi-million-dollar commercial deals.

She has also supported ventures like Spartan Radar in adapting next-generation automotive radar for industrial use and has worked closely with multinationals to bridge the gap between innovation and operational implementation. Lorelei is an alumni of “How to Change the World Canada 2020,” a sustainability and engineering program run in partnership with the Canadian and Ontario Societies of Professional Engineers, leveraging the UN SDGs, and she is a founding member of The Artemis Project, which connects women entrepreneurs to mining companies to advance responsible innovation. Lorelei is the Director of Mining Relations at the Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator - a Pan- Canadian initiatives designed to address the capital-intensive resources required to mature TRL 6+ technologies in mining.

Session 7
22 October 2025 / 14:00 - 15:00 | Lagoas hall

Mining’s Digital Inflection Point: AI, Vendor Data Centralization & the Future of Technology Adoption

- AI is Inevitable - Where Mining Needs to Enable AI Implementation
- Barriers to AI and Tech Adoption in Mining
- Data Centralization - Challenges with vendor data and decision making

This presentation explores the critical juncture mining faces in adopting AI-driven technologies, with a focus on vendor data centralization as a foundation for innovation. It unpacks barriers to adoption, cultural, regulatory, and IT-related, and highlights how AI is reshaping workflows, enabling small teams to outperform legacy operations. Drawing on real-world mining and cross-industry examples, it emphasizes the shift from gatekeeping to guided experimentation, where workforce accessibility to AI tools is key. Central to this transformation is the creation of digital libraries to structure internal knowledge, support faster decision-making, and accelerate tech integration. The session offers frameworks for responsible AI deployment, explores “shadow IT” risks, and highlights leadership’s evolving role in enabling iterative change. Designed for mining professionals, tech evaluators, and innovation leaders, this talk encourages a leapfrogging mindset, enabling mining to adopt AI now, rather than wait for perfection.