INTERVIEW SERIES
BoldMinds
Three Questions for Ahmed Hasan, Moin Iqbal and Shehbaz Patel: AI. Robotics. And the People Making It Real at Trench.
Trench Group is growing fast – and growth needs people who think ahead. The NOVA team, an internal AI and robotics team, is Trench Canada’s answer to one of the Group’s most important strategic ambitions: growing faster, smarter, and without ever compromising on quality, safety, or expertise. Their work spans the entire value chain – from developing AI-driven automation of business processes to supporting the rollout of Project OLYMPUS, Trench’s global initiative to bring robotics to factory floors worldwide.
Their latest milestone, Zeus – a robot dog patrolling the high-voltage test lab 24/7 – is proof of what the team is capable of. But it’s only the beginning.
We sat down with the three colleagues who brought Zeus to life: R&D Mechanical Engineer and technical co-lead of the NOVA team Ahmed Hasan, Business Strategy Specialist and co-lead Moin Iqbal, and AI/Machine Learning Engineer Shehbaz Patel.
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In this series, we shine a spotlight on our employees who bring the motto “Big Energy Powered by Bold People” to life every day.
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What is your role within the NOVA team?
Moin: Ahmed and I are both team leads within NOVA alongside our regular roles. My focus is on the business side: legal aspects, cross-functional processes, making sure our projects fit within the organization. Ahmed brings the technical depth from the factory floor, and Shehbaz turns our ideas and expertise into working technology.
Ahmed: In my day job I design equipment and support day-to-day engineering, and that’s exactly the knowledge I bring into NOVA. I know the factory processes, the test lab procedures, and what we actually need to automate. I translate that into something Shehbaz can build.
Shehbaz: For Zeus, I built the computer vision model from scratch, trained on Trench-specific equipment and procedures. Data that didn’t exist before. We had to create it ourselves.
What is special about the work the NOVA team is doing?
Moin: With the NOVA team at Trench Canada, we’re at the forefront of AI technology in high-voltage production. Ours was the first initiative of this kind within the company, starting in 2025. Now there are several AI teams active across Trench’s global factories – all sharing knowledge and learning from each other. Together, we are part of Project OLYMPUS. Being in the thick of that is genuinely exciting.
Shehbaz: For me, it’s also about seeing AI move from the screen into the physical world. With Zeus, the model isn’t running on a monitor. It’s acting in real space and time.
Ahmed: At the end of the day, we help making sure that people don’t have to put themselves at unnecessary risk. Zeus patrols the high-voltage test lab around the clock, monitoring procedures and flagging anything that’s off. Looking ahead, we want to expand Zeus’s role. And beyond that, we think about autonomous vehicles that pick up products and move them between stations. We operate with the freedom to experiment. That’s what makes our work so special.
What does working in the NOVA team give you that you wouldn't find elsewhere?
Hamed: AI is here to assist and to give our colleagues more time to do the work, that really needs human expertise. It is also not a generational thing. People who’ve spent decades at the company want it to succeed and to continue to grow. That buy-in tells you you’re building something real. For me personally, going from R&D engineer to co-leading an AI team and presenting to executives every week: that kind of growth doesn’t happen everywhere.
Moin: At team NOVA, we hire talented interns, give them real ownership, and let them build from scratch. Shehbaz is a great example of that approach. He joined as an intern, built an app that made a real impact, and is now a full-time member of the team. That’s how we bring young talent into Trench for the long term.
Shehbaz: I came from software and IT, so working in a manufacturing environment was entirely new to me. Building a full AI tech stack for an industrial setting from scratch, learning as you go, and then seeing it make a real difference on the shop floor: that’s an experience you don’t get everywhere. And that’s what keeps me going.
