Handol Kim
Chief Executive Officer Variational AI
Handol is Co-Founder & CEO of Variational AI, an AI for drug discovery start-up based in Vancouver. Variational AI is applying its state-of-the-art generative AI to generate novel drug-like small molecules that are efficacious, safe, and synthesizable in months versus years. Handol brings over 20 years of executive management experience and leadership from venture-backed start-ups and publicly-listed technology companies in cloud, mobile/embedded, and telecommunications software in Silicon Valley, Canada, and Asia Pacific.
Handol serves on the boards of AI Network of British Columbia (AInBC), the Digital Technology Supercluster, and the United Way British Columbia.
Seminars
Friday 20th March 2026
Quality Over Quantity: Rethinking AI-Driven Drug Discovery
10:00 am
- Highlight the data fallacy in AI drug discovery and why the common belief that “more data means better models” can actually mislead R&D efforts in pharmaceutical AI
- Elevate how the power of model design and well-designed AI architectures can efficiently learn from smaller, high-quality datasets to enable meaningful insights without massive data volumes
- Demonstrate a path towards smarter discovery and how shifting focus from data quantity to data quality and model integrity leads to more reliable predictions, faster iterations, and ultimately better drug candidates
