NXNEi Presenters June 14 – 16

Kevin Airgid

Kevin Airgid is an interactive designer, author and speaker who runs an interactive studio developing creative projects for clients such as ABC, Amnesty, ESPN, CBC, MTV and One.org. His work has been featured in magazines, books and on TV, and he has spoken regularly at FITC in Toronto. He has a very awesome BA in Visual Arts from the University of Western Ontario.

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Ujwal Arkalgud

Ujwal Arkalgud is a marketer, a musician and a budding entrepreneur. His passion for marketing is deeply rooted in his interest in cultural anthropology.

In the past, Ujwal has been involved in ethnography projects that ranged from studying the culture of amateur wildlife photographers in eco-tourism resorts, to studying the behaviour and culture of ‘cyberpunks’ on social networking sites. Ujwal strongly attributes his strength as a marketer to these experiences. Currently, he focuses his free time on studying and understanding digital cultures and blogs at marketingtoculture.com.

Ujwal has an MBA from the Schulich School of Business, Toronto, and is currently working as a Marketing Manager at Asigra Inc. He is also one half of the principal at Story Guitars Inc.

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Andrew Baron

Andrew Baron is CEO of the online video network “Rocketboom,” including the daily Rocketboom News program, Rocketboom Tech, Humanwire and Know Your Meme, which has spun into the Internet Meme Database. In addition to production, Baron’s company recently released the video platform Magma, a video aggregator for discovering, collecting, and sharing videos across multiple platforms. Although he has traditionally had little interest in television (and did not own a TV set during the past decade), Baron has always been inspired by the implications of the democratization of media.

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Scott Belsky

Scott Belsky believes that the greatest breakthroughs across all industries are a result of creative people and productive teams. As such, Scott has committed his professional life to helping organize creative individuals, teams, and networks. Scott is the founder and CEO of Behance, a company that develops products and services to organize the creative world. Scott is also the author of Making Ideas Happen (Portfolio Imprint, Penguin Books, April, 2010).

Scott’s education is in design, environmental economics, and business. He attended Cornell University as an undergraduate and received his MBA from Harvard Business School. Scott also hopes to increase “productive creativity” in the nonprofit world through his involvement on various nonprofit and foundation boards. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of Reboot and is a Director for the Kaplan Foundation. Scott lives and works in New York City.

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Martin Best

Martin is a video game production expert whose unique background and expertise has allowed him to help game developers reap the benefits of strategic planning and effective project management. Through his consulting practice (Outset Consulting), Martin is currently working with Sparkplay Media serving as their VP Production where he oversees the development of their flagship product, Earth Eternal (www.eartheternal.com) a 3D MMORPG playable in a web browser.

Martin’s past projects include launching Sulake’s online game, Habbo Hotel, in Canada, working with Xenophile media as the Technical Director on the ReGenesis Extended Reality projects (a game tie-in to a live action drama that has won the Interactive Emmy for Best Interactive Program twice), overseeing development of the casual games MLB: Play Ball! and one of the the top selling Sudoku games in North America and Europe – Ultimate Sudoku.

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Mike Beltzner

Mike Beltzner is responsible for coordinating the efforts of a talented cast of thousands of people to ensure each thrilling Firefox release is made with quality and love. He is a cognitive scientist and teacher by education, usability specialist and product manager by training, and an optimist and compromise-seeker by nationality. He lives in Toronto, Canada with his wife and his cat.

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Duane Brown

Gamer – snowboarder – marketer: those three words sum up Duane Brown. Duane has a background in public relations and marketing working with organizations such as GamerCamp, TELUS, Research In Motion, CIBC, H&M, DreamCatcher Interactive, and the City of Toronto. He uses his knowledge and passion to help launch digital marketing campaigns on 5 of 7 continents for these clients; he has also run search-engine marketing campaigns for Research In Motion all over North America.

Duane graduated from Humber’s Public Relations Diploma Program in 2005 and has certificates in business management and marketing management from Ryerson University. He is the founder of Creative Traction, and runs www.GameIndex.ca, a list of gaming companies across Canada.

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Erin Bury

After cutting her teeth managing public relations for tech companies, Erin joined Sprouter to better utilize her passion for networking, community-building & Web 2.0 technologies. As Community Manager, Erin is the voice of the Sprouter community of entrepreneurs – the connector between Sprouter and the world at large; providing ongoing communication in both directions. Erin is also a tech writer at BlogTO. She can be found on Twitter or on her blog, Confessions of a Serial Communicator.

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DL Byron

Byron is the Principal of Textura Design. He lived the dotcoms, dotcom crashes, invented Clip-n-Seal, speaks at conferences, and is the co-author of Publish & Prosper: Blogging for Your Business, a Peachpit Press book.

With more than thirteen years of experience, Byron is an expert blogger, designer and developer. An entrepreneur and an inventor, he consults with Textura Design’s clients, develops creative social strategies; and publishes Bike Hugger, a blog about bike culture.

Byron lives in Seattle with his wife Pam, two children, and a pug named Cap’n. When he’s not blogging, he races his bicycle with the Union Bay Cycling Club and ride his bike wherever he travels.

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Thane Calder

After high school Thane Calder hit the tea hills of India for a year to teach English, math and attempt to learn sitar. He has two university degrees in Arts (philosophy) and Sciences (evolutionary biology). Following a brief stint in France organizing bike tours for Butterfield & Robinson, Thane returned to Québec to work with new wireless start-up Fido. Later he joined technology startup Jazz Media Network and then Cossette Communication Group before convincing his future partner, Jean-Sébastien Monty, to form digital branding agency CloudRaker on Valentines Day 2000.

At CloudRaker, Thane has helped steer the agency over the past decade to become one of the top independent shops in Canada by obsessing over the creation of clever stuff for the digital age. Thane’s mantra at the agency, and life in general, is to continuously dare to make the world a better place.

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Amrita Chandra

Amrita Chandra is the Director of Marketing Programs at Asigra, a Toronto-based cloud backup software company. Prior to Asigra, Amrita held marketing roles in Canada, the US and Europe, developing strategy and tactical programs for companies to create and grow brand awareness, launch products, acquire new customers, & cultivate strong customer relationships. Amrita founded tinku gallery, selected as one of Toronto’s Best New Contemporary Art Galleries by BlogTO & continues to be an art advocate working with artists and art organizations across North America.

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Perry Chen

Perry Chen is co-founder and CEO of Kickstarter, a new website for funding creative ideas and endeavors. Kickstarter allows people to offer products, experiences and other unique (and frequently, whimsical) benefits to inspire funding from their friends, fans and the public at-large.

Prior to Kickstarter, Perry has worked as an audio engineer, preschool teacher, day-trader and waiter. He also co-founded the Southfirst art gallery in Brooklyn, NY, and has been published by Hachette and The New York Times.

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Katerina Cizek

Katerina Cizek, a documentary and multi-media maker, was the National Film Board of Canada’s Filmmaker-in-Residence at an inner-city hospital for five years.The multi-media project won many international awards, including a 2008 Webby Award (”The Internet’s Oscars”) . Continuing in the Filmmaker-in-Residence philosophy of interventionist many media, with her new project, called HIGHRISE [highrise.nfb.ca], Cizek is collaborating with local and global communities in vertical suburbs around the world.

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Trevor Coleman

Trevor Coleman is Chief Operating Officer of InteraXon, Canada’s leading thought-controlled computing company. Specializing in designing and creating brainwave-controlled products and experiences, InteraXon was a featured presenter at the Ontario Premier’s Innovation Awards in both 2009 & 2010. Most recently they created an installation during the 2010 Winter Olympics that allowed users in Vancouver to control the lights on the CN Tower, the Parliament Buildings and Niagara Falls using only their thoughts. Their work has been featured in media in more than a dozen countries including CNN, Discovery, CTV, CBC, The Globe and Mail, WIRED.com, and PopularScience.com.

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Simon Conlin

Simon is a Digital Sherpa. Currently acting as Strategic Development Consultant. Having worked on both sides of the Atlantic and being involved in interactive initiatives as far apart as cutting edge ad campaigns, web applications, mobile campaigns to Video/Audio content. As an Ambassador of FITC, Simon was also extremely instrumental in progressing FITO to become the world’s largest Adobe (formerly Macromedia) user group and FITC to become a globally recognized industry event and award show. Simon provides High-end rich media + Advanced Interactive + Mobile Strategies in relation to marketing programs and consumer trends / data acquisition to agencies and global brands on “Integrated Media” campaigns. His goal is now to help interactive media to overtake traditional media by proving its worth and versatility and by also changing the antediluvian mindset of brands / advertising agencies / media moguls despite consumers already proving they prefer digital media advertising. His specialities essentially evolve around cultivating relationships by connecting developers, designers, agencies and establishing alliances to build the interactive community. With experience in conceptualizing new strategic interactive and integrated media campaigns to bring results to clients.

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Alan Cross

Alan Cross is the Senior Program Director for Corus Interactive and Integrated Solutions, the online arm of the radio division of Corus Entertainment. Between 2004 and 2008, he was program director of 102.1 the Edge/Toronto, the second-biggest contemporary rock station in North America. He was named Program Director of the Year at Canadian Music Week in 2005, 2006 and 2008.

Alan is also the host of the acclaimed music documentary program, The Ongoing History of New Music, which debuted in February 1993. His current project is ExploreMusic and ExploreMusic.com, a radio-and-web initiative dedicated to music discovery and music recommendation. There’s a daily half-hour radio show carried by the biggest rock stations across in Canada, a weekly national TV show on Aux-TV, a variety of podcasts, and a weekly national column in Metro newspapers.

Along the way, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock: U2, Pearl Jam, Depeche Mode, Foo Fighters, Beastie Boys, Killers, Kings of Leon, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Joe Strummer, Green Day, David Bowie, Elvis Costello, the Cure, Beck, Blur, Oasis, Trent Reznor, Courtney Love, Morrissey, New Order, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures, Green Day and countless others.

Alan has also written four reference books on music and recorded four best-selling audio books for HarperCollins. He appears as a music analyst on national and international TV, contributes to newspapers and magazines, writes a weekly national music column for the Metro commuter papers, and speaks at universities and colleges as well as for agencies and corporate business gatherings.

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Lee Dale

With a history of building Brand Communities as Founder and President of Smack Inc, and as VP of Communications for Sweeney Dale Interior Design Inc, Lee brings just the right balance of passion and insight to Say Yeah! Participating in a variety of events and organizations, Lee is an active leader and contributor to Toronto’s community of entrepreneurs and design stewards. Often seen immersed in some sort of reading material, Lee’s insight and acumen are derived from such diverse interests as culture, sociology, marketing, business, the environment, history, photography, music, and politics.

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Loc Dao

Loc Dao is the Creative Technologist, Digital Content and Strategy, English Program, at the National Film Board of Canada, overseeing the production of all English program digital and mobile projects, including most recently the award-winning site Waterlife.nfb.ca. His work has been recognized with multiple Webby Awards, Canadian New Media Awards, and SXSW awards, including an Art Directors Club World Gold Medal for the acclaimed online magazine CBC Radio 3. Loc has also acted as Technical Director on several citizen journalism, publishing and user-generated projects, including most recently for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

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Michael Dolan

Michael Dolan is a geeky strategist and pr flack who invents fun ways for companies to get the word out. He’s been behind the scenes running the online show for a lot of companies you’ve heard of, since a dial up modem was required to access something called ‘the internet’. His social media games and wacky hi-jinks have been extensively written about by the tech and mainstream press. He’s a loudmouth jerk that calls Brooklyn, New York home.

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April Dunford

April Dunford is a seasoned technology marketing professional that has held executive positions at Nortel, IBM and Siebel Systems. She has also been the head of marketing at a number of successful startups including Janna Systems, DataMirror and Infobright. April is the founder and principle consultant at Rocket Launch Marketing a boutique consultancy that helps startups bring new offerings to market. She’s a contributor to TheMarkNews.com and is the author of RocketWatcher.com, an award-winning blog on startup marketing.

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James Eberhardt

James is a founding partner of Echo Mobile and a Technical Director with over 13 years of experience of leading convergent media projects. He works with production companies to deliver content and stories to audiences through any available screen – particularly the ubiquitous screens of mobile devices.

James has been the Technical Director on award winning websites such as theborder.ca, thisisdanielcook.com, thisisemilyyeung.com, shortsinmotion.com, and burnttoastopera.com. It is through projects such as these that he has brought games, video, contests and other content to cell phone users. In 2007 shortsinmotion.com won the “Best Made for Mobile Video Service” at the Global Mobile Awards, and the “Mobile Program Enhancement Award” at the Banff World Television Awards. In 2008, theborder.ca launched the first nationwide mobile contest to use QR Codes, a mobile technology that is quickly gaining popularity around the world.

In 2006 James was invited to teach Flash Lite for mobile devices at China’s foremost university for design, the Central Academy of Fine Arts; and returned in 2007 for another teaching engagement. He currently teaches at George Brown College in Toronto. James is an advisory board member for Seneca College’s Digital Media Arts program. He has spoken on the topic of mobile technologies at colleges and universities, as well as conferences such as FITC and Doc:IT!. In 2006 he was the recipient of the “Programmer of the Year” award at the Canadian New Media Awards.

Previously James was Technical Director for marblemedia, Lead Architect for Infinet Communications, and Team Lead for extendMedia. He graduated from Ryerson University with a Bachelor of Applied Arts in New Media.

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Erica Ehm

Erica is one of Canada’s most recognized personalities, having started her career in the mid-80’s as the voice of her generation on MuchMusic. Her multimedia resume includes acting, award winning songwriter, playwright, author, journalist and most importantly, The Yummy Mummy Club.

It was her difficult transition from career woman to new mother that inspired Erica to create an online destination for women with children. Thousands of women have become devoted members of the Yummy Mummy Club, and Erica has become the passionate voice of a whole new generation – Yummy Mummies.

Marketing to today’s modern woman has become one of Erica’s strengths. Advertisers and marketers often use Erica as a resource to connect with mothers. Erica sits on the MomWise Marketing Panel.

Erica’s career in television spans two decades. She was co-creator, writer and host of Yummy Mummy, a parenting show for the music video generation. Other shows include Baby and You – Rogers Television, Popstars: The One – Global, Real Life with Erica Ehm – Life Network, Power Play – Discovery Channel, and The Company – TVO.

Currently, Erica is the host of the ongoing television specials Live at the Concert Hall broadcast on Bravo.

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Justin Erdman

Self-taught web nerd. Self-taught drumming nerd. Full-time metal fan. Occasional politician. Combine the preceding like Voltron and you’ll have Justin Erdman.

While a student in Ryerson’s Radio & Television Arts program, Justin routinely barraged MuchMusic.com with complaints about the lack of a dedicated section on the site for heavy metal – an omission rectified when he was invited to consult on the creation of a section for the then-fledgling LOUD show.

In 2002, he began work for MuchMusic.com as a content coordinator, rising to the position of Editor-In-Chief responsible for executing major web projects including, among other things, multiple MMVA sites, multiple Virgin Festival sites and the site for MuchMusic’s 2007 VJ Search reality show.

Against the grain (given the state of the music business), Justin moved to Universal Music Canada in late 2007 as Digital Marketing Manager, responsible for the digital components of marketing plans for albums by Protest The Hero, Lady Gaga, k-os, The Trews, Eminem, Shiloh and many more.

In 2008, he ran for federal office as a candidate for the Green Party Of Canada in the St.Paul’s riding in mid-town Toronto. It was intense.

In 2009, he became Universal Music Canada’s first Digital Marketing Strategy Manager – responsible for digital product development, direct to consumer strategy and e-commerce initiatives. He also acts as a digital evangelist, providing support and consulting to Universal’s two artist marketing groups on special projects.

His future plans include a large yacht on a quiet bay, preferably attached to a private island. His favourite colour is clear.

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Joshua Errett

Joshua Errett currently edits NOW Magazine online (nowtoronto.com), one of Toronto’s most trafficked sites, and before that co-founded and edited the city’s first group blog, Torontoist (torontoist.com). He writes a weekly column in NOW magazine about online on-goings, and has spoken about the Internet on CBC, CP24, in the Globe & Mail, National Post and on a variety of panels. He likes romantic comedies from the 1980s and keeping people on their toes.

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Mark Evans

Mark Evans is a digital marketing and social media consultant who helps companies create and deliver compelling stories to capture the attention of customers, business partners, employees, investors, bloggers and the media. Mark’s experience includes more than 10 years as a high-tech newspaper reporter, as well as three Internet start-ups – Blanketware (a natural language search service that he co-founded), b5media (one of the world’s largest blog networks) and PlanetEye (online travel planning).

One of Canada’s leading social media experts, Mark writes several blogs, including Mark Evans Tech and Twitterrati, as well as a regular column for the Globe & Mail. He’s also one of the organizers of mesh, one of Canada’s leading Web conferences, and its sister events, meshU and meshmarketing

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Ze Frank

Ever since his “How to Dance Properly” viral video — born as a party invitation for 17 friends — hit the Web in 2001, Ze Frank has been pushing the boundaries of online entertainment. His web site, zefrank.com, is a mess of addictive videos, toys, essays and games, and has been a testing ground for a dizzying array of viral hits (and some spectacular failures.) In 2006 Ze launched a year-long daily video blog called “The Show.” which Slate.com referred to as ” the best sustained comedy run in the history of the Web.” His rapid-fire delivery and absurd explorations in audience participation (e.g. Earth Sandwich) has influenced a generation of digital native youtubers. In 2008, along with Erik Kastner, Ze launched Colowars, the first massively multiplayer game in Twitter, which featured two months of sponsored online events and competitions. Recently Ze has worked with his audience to create a series of projects based on shared emotions such as pain, fear and the pang of nostalgia – one of which the UK paper the Metro called “vampiric”. Ze works as a consultant to range of industries on audience engagement and is a public speaker on the subject of the virtual life.

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Dan Gedman

Dan Gedman (Partner) serves as an in-house Director/Creative Director for Liquid 9. Immediately before he joined “the nine” he was a creative at Bernstein Rein Advertising in Kansas City, where he worked on clients like Bayer Animal Health, Hostess, Farmland and Sunbeam. Prior to his stint at BR, he worked at several large agencies in Chicago and Denver, and has contributed to the growth of brands like Ford, E-Trade, Culligan, Roto Rooter, MTV, The Speed Channel and Ulta. His background in large-scale advertising allows him to bring disciplined thinking to projects of any scale.
Liquid 9 is a Kansas City based creative shop, specializing in graphics, production and editorial for entertainment based clients as well as commercial production for national advertising agencies. Clients include Warner Music, Atlantic Records, Strange Music and AUX television. Liquid 9 recently won an MTVU “Woodie” award for their 2009 work with Tech N9ne.

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Kate Raynes-Goldie

Kate is an internet researcher, teacher and community builder. Enamored with the potential of fun as a facilitator of positive change she co-founded Atmosphere Industries, a cross media and pervasive gaming collective aimed at building community and celebrating public space. Her collective’s latest project, Gentrification: The Game! is debuting at the Come Out and Play Festival in New York this June. Balancing fun with seriousness, Kate is heading up the organization of PrivacyCampTO, an upcoming community unconference about privacy in the age of social media ubiquity. Kate is also a Research Associate at Ryerson’s new Experiential Design and Gaming Environment and a PhD candidate at Curtin University of Technology’s internet studies program in Australia. Her thesis is on Facebook and what it means for privacy, identity and sociality.

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Ira Haberman

Ira Haberman has been deeply involved in Canadian music for a long time. His early years as a producer for one of the leading radio stations on the Corus network, his key contributions in launching Canada’s pre-eminent new music website, Exploremusic.com, and his experience and knowledge of the shifting electronic landscape and how it impacts new artists’ music combine to make Ira a respected authority on where the industry has been and where it’s headed.

As Creative/Content Director for Corus Interactive and Integrated Solutions, Ira oversees three nationally syndicated music radio properties. He coordinates talent, writers and production staff for The Legends Of Classic Rock, The Ongoing History of New Music, and ExploreMusic. Whether it’s building interactive and social media strategies, sourcing podcasting content or developing mobile strategies, Ira’s fresh take on the electronic age guides his work. As Alan Cross – host of The Ongoing History of New Music – puts it, “Ira is a ‘big ideas’ person capable of coming up with new and innovative ways of approaching a variety of projects.”

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Patrick Haney

Patrick Haney is not a sausage. He’s a designer/developer at a little design studio just north of Boston called Hanerino and an adjunct instructor at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts, a certificate program backed by Boston University, where he teaches classes in both the Graphic and Web Design & Web Development departments. He also runs Refresh Boston, a monthly meetup of web folk in the Boston area that gather to discuss design, development, standards and accessibility, among other topics related to the web.

Before starting his own venture, Patrick spent 4 years working as a UI Designer at Harvard University, helping to build and improve websites within the university using accessible HTML & CSS as a starting point. Prior to moving to Boston, he worked as a designer for his alma mater, the Rochester Institute of Technology, as well as Kodak and Xerox.

In his spare time, Patrick enjoys traveling to far off places and speaking at conferences. When he’s not doing that, he’s probably playing kickball or keeping his dog Milo busy with a game of fetch.

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Jennifer Hollett

Jennifer Hollett is the cross-platform experience. Her work as a broadcast journalist has taken her around the world, winning awards for a documentary on youth in Afghanistan and a report on Israeli conscientious objectors.

Jenn is best known as a MuchMusic VJ, where she interviewed hundreds of celebrities, including prime ministers, royalty and pop stars. Prior to Much, Jenn was a chatterbox on the highly interactive current affairs show the chatroom (TalkTV/CTV).

In new media, she has marketed websites for Celine Dion and Sony Music, and recently managed online content and social media for Plan, an international development charity. Jenn has been online since 1994, and created her first website in 1995. At present, she is excited to be both online and on-air on Connect with Mark Kelley as a cross-platform contributor.

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Tara Hunt

Tara ‘missrogue’ Hunt, named as one of the most influential women in technology by Fast Company Magazine, has spent the past fifteen years living her life online. From riding the first wave of online marketing as it emerged in the late 90’s while she was in Canada, to pioneering new marketing in Silicon Valley in 2005, to leading the wave into Web 2.0: the participatory web, Tara has been involved all the way.

Tara understands how the participatory web is changing all of our relationships: B2C, B2B and C2C. She doesn’t believe in pushing messages or creating strong brands, only in the power of building relationships. After spending 4 years in San Francisco, she moved to Montreal to write her next book (working title ‘Happiness as Your Business Model’) in August 2009.

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Steve Hulford

Steve has founded, developed and launched numerous Internet products and a few companies over the last dozen years. Steve co-founded Filemobile in 2006 a social rich media platform company that specializes in user generated content. In his current role he serves as chief creative officer and is responsible for product development and social media marketing. Steve has a passion for blending creative and technical solutions that generate value. Previously, he was a co-owner of PoolExpert.com, which was purchased by Rogers Communications in 2008. Steve has served as the vice-president of sports products for TSN and RDS where he managed the product development and P&L for these popular Canadian sports websites. Steve was once on the Canadian National Swim Team, and has produced and directed a documentary film called “Real Travels: 60 Days in Indonesia” that aired on the Travel Channel and Outdoor Life Network. Steve has travelled extensively to over forty countries. He lives in Toronto’s High Park area with his wife Kerry and two kids: Jack and Kate.

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Elliott Hurst

As CEO of Supernova, Elliott strategizes and oversees Supernova’s direction for both online and offline operations. He has spent over 17 years in music promotion, concert production, and technological innovation for new artists. In 1999, he co-founded the World University Consortium and the Online World Library, an online distance learning co-operative and an aggregator of library resources. He also created and managed partnerships with the United Nations, University of Waterloo, and Lloyd’s of London. For three years, Elliott ran the Casino Club of Canada, a charity fundraising company, to help raise funds for several charities such as Epilepsy Canada, Senior Care, Big Brothers of Canada, and Israel Cancer Research Fund. In 2009, Elliott co-hosted the popular SXSW Interactive panel Music 2.0 = Music Discovery Chaos? Elliott holds an MBA from Schulich School of Business, York University, with a diploma in Arts and Media Management and a BFA in Film and Video from York University. He is passionate about the arts, especially film, theatre and music.

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Alex Kennberg

Alex is the technical lead on the Google Buzz for mobile team. Since joining Google in 2007, Alex has worked on pushing the limits of mobile HTML5 web browsers. He was a key contributor to the launch of the iPhone and Android edition of gmail.com and then went on to lead the team that launched Google Buzz for mobile. Alex holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science with honours from the University of Waterloo. In his spare time he enjoys photography and launching high-altitude balloons.

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Justin Kozuch

Justin Kozuch is the founder of Refresh Events, and works behind the scenes bringing together the most engaging and influential minds in Toronto’s vibrant digital media industry. He is currently working on Sarah Thomson’s mayoral campaign, utilizing social media to get the word out about her platform and raise awareness. In a previous lifetime, he spent his 9-5 as an Interactive Developer at Sapient, and worked with large brands such as RIM, the Wall Street Journal, and Virgin Charter.

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Tamera Kremer

Tamera Kremer is a seasoned marketing, social media and digital communications strategist – as well as a blogger, thought leader, and public speaker. She has almost 15 years’ experience in interactive creative and strategic planning and execution, integrated launch campaigns, and in developing customer lifecycle relationship building strategies with Tier 1 brands in both Canada and the United States. Prior to joining Teehan+Lax as Partner – Strategic Consulting, Tamera ran a boutique strategic marketing consultancy that focused on helping brands develop well-rounded marketing strategies, and integrating social media in the DNA of their business. At Teehan+Lax, Tamera helps clients develop innovative and integrated digital marketing and social media strategies that drive business and communications results.

In addition to her passion for all things digital, Tamera is actively involved in the social change arena, founding SustainabilityCamp in Toronto, an open workshop for sharing ideas and collaborating on linking online and offline social change activities to build a sustainable future. She also volunteers her time and skills to a variety of other social causes within the Toronto tech community.

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Sam Ladner

Sam Ladner is a sociologist who specializes in social aspects of technology. She has been a speaker at industry and academic conferences including MESH, Toronto Tech Week, and the Information Architecture Summit. She has published academic studies on the technological, organizational and social aspects of time tracking among design agency workers. She currently runs her own design research company, Copernicus Consulting. She helps firms and design agencies improve digital product design, manage organizational change, and understand the social aspects of technological innovation. She has consulted companies including Citibank, Moneris,Smith Barney, Nokia, Dell, VeriSign, Roche Pharmaceuticals and Genentech. She holds an MA in Communication from Simon Fraser University and a PhD in sociology from York University.

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Andrew Lane

Andrew Lane is an entrepreneur, a strategist, a marketer and a business person focused in the digital content space. In his role at Weber Shandwick, Andrew works to develop digital and social media content to integrate with strategic communications programs for key Canadian corporate and consumer brands. At the same time, he also supports the North American Inline team on digital strategy and production initiatives for global brand clients. Key focuses include branded content creation, mobile production, strategic partnerships and content and social media strategy.

Andrew been featured on panels with notable organizations such as Achilles Media, the Canadian Marketing Association, the Women in Film and Television, the Canadian Hockey League and Interactive Ontario. He serves as an Industry Advisor for both the Bell Fund as well as the Ontario Media Development Corporation and is a member of the Interactive Ontario Social Media Committee. He is also a Professor in the Interactive Digital Media Graduate program at Centennial College, a regular guest lecturer at Humber College.

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Jon Lax

Jon has been working in digital media since 1994. He started at Shift Magazine in 1994, where he helped develop the first ad-supported site in Canada. In 1995 he received a National Magazine Award Nomination for his writing in the magazine. Jon went on to Grey Interactive in 1996, where he became Senior Copywriter. As Creative Director at Modem Media Canada from 1998 to 2002, Jon worked for many Fortune 500 clients, helping them develop applications, marketing initiatives and strategies in the digital channel. His clients include Air Miles, John Hancock, AOL, CNW Group, TELUS Mobility, IBM, Coca-Cola and JP Morgan Chase. He has won Cannes Lions, CMA RSVP Awards, Marketing Magazine and Advertising & Design Club of Canada Awards for his work. He has sat as a judge for Marketing Magazine, CMA RSVPs, London International Advertising Awards and Applied Arts Awards. In 2002 Jon was named one of “30 to Watch: Marketing’s Next Generation” by Marketing Magazine.

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Dave Lazar

Dave Lazar creates disruptive properties on the Internet that exploit the powers of the medium.

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Elizabeth Leahy

Elizabeth Leahy is one of the founders of Section 101, a New York based interactive company that develops new ways for artists and brands to market, promote and leverage their product. She is a recognized expert in the field of interactive marketing and client services. Along with speaking on many panels, Liz moderated Getting a Digital Ass-Kicking? at this year’s SXSW conference and is a founding member of the E-marketing Best Practices Council. She also serves as a Mentor to students at Columbia Business School.

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Kevin Lee

Kevin Lee is the East Coast Marketing Director for Yelp where he manages a team of local Community Managers, overseeing them in a wide range of marketing efforts across nine cities in the US and Canada. Based in New York, Kevin leads the charge on grassroots marketing efforts to foster and support passionate and vibrant local communities of consumers and business owners throughout the eastern seaboard.

Prior to joining Yelp, Kevin worked for Booz Allen Hamilton where he provided CRM technology consulting to federal and state-and-local agencies. Former client projects include an implementation of Oracle BI integrated with a Siebel enterprise case management system, and a customer segmentation strategy for a major NYC utility. Before entering management consulting, Kevin was a business intelligence program manager for AOL’s Access division’s business planning and reporting unit.

Kevin holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences from Northwestern University.

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Zachary Lieberman

For most of us, synesthesia—the attachment of colors to sounds and other such cross-sensory cognition—is more concept than lived experience. But “nerd artist researcher hacker” Zachary Lieberman could change that. His work uses technology in a playful way to break down the fragile boundary between the visible and the invisible.

Augmenting the body’s ability to communicate has always been at the core of Lieberman’s work. Working with collaborator Golan Levin, he created installations—”Remark” and “Hidden Worlds”—that presented interpretations of what the voice might look like if we could see our own speech. Similarly, the concert performance “Messa Di Voce” (Italian for “placing the voice”) illustrated the abstract songs and shouts of two vocalists by interactive visualization software. Lieberman’s installation “Drawn,” in which painted forms appear to come to life, recently won awards in the Ars Electronica and CYNETart competitions. Lieberman has held residencies at Ars Electronica Futurelab, Eyebeam, Dance Theater Workshop, and the Hangar Center for the Arts in Barcelona. He is currently developing a suite of software for disabled students that transforms their movements into an audio-visual response, collaborating on an open source toolkit for c++ creative coding and graphics, and helping graffiti artist Tempt, who has Lou Gehrig’s disease, write graffiti again using his eye.

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Amber MacArthur

Amber MacArthur is a new media consultant, speaker, and journalist. As co-founder of the agency MGImedia.ca, she’s assembled a team that has managed social media initiatives for clients such as Tony Robbins, Canada Goose, Rogers, and the American Dental Association. She is an exclusive speaker with The Lavin Agency, where she keynotes at dozens of conferences across North America every year. As a new media journalist, she currently hosts Webnation on CP24, commandN.tv, and net@night with tech guru Leo Laporte. Amber’s book, “Power Friending: Social Media Strategies to Grow Your Business,” will be in stores June 2010.

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Rafe Malach

Rafe Malach is the owner and creator of the Youtube Channel “Friends of Rafe.” Friends of Rafe primarily features singer-songwriters from around the world playing acoustic songs to a webcam in their bedrooms. Videos on Rafe’s channel have been viewed over 16 million times and are viewed an additional one million times every month. The channel is the 13th most viewed musician channel in Canada and the 71st most viewed Canadian Youtube Channel ever. Rafe is now managing Lynzie Kent, whose videos account for over 8 of those 16 million views. The audio files from those videos have are currently outselling 99% of the albums sold on CDBaby.

Rafe also performs under the alias Trick of Disaster. Trick of Disaster has appeared on Much Music’s “disband” and will be appearing on an upcoming episode of Master Tracks on Aux TV. The Trick of Disaster song Little Bit of Wisdom was featured on explore music with Alan Cross. Rafe has recently completed his first year at Osgoode Hall Law School.

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Lucia Mancuso

Lucia is the president and lead strategist at The Blog Studio (www.theblogstudio.com), and has been successfully running her pioneering web firm for the last 6 years. She specializes in developing and executing strategy for brands of all sizes to increase their profile, user base, community and revenue streams. Luciaʼs experience includes deep knowledge of both the technical and creative side of the social media world. Because she is just as comfortable leading developers, educating clients on website usability, writing blog posts, expanding a community or explaining ideas to the press. She incorporates her love of design, social media and marketing into all of her projects. Lucia is as comfortable with the business side of the job as she is imagining creative designs from scratch.

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Steven James May

Steven James May is a PhD student in Communication and Culture at Ryerson and York Universities. His diverse research interests include user-generated content, privacy, cybertorts, multiplatform media production and digital television. Steven holds a B.A. (Honours) in Administrative Studies from Trent University and a B.A (Honours) in Radio & Television Arts from Ryerson University. His M.A. in Media Production from Ryerson University yielded the Web 2.0 media literacy platform, “Weekend Pictures” (www.weekendpictures.ca). Steven is also an accomplished documentary filmmaker and has had his work broadcast on CBC and CTV. May is currently a Research Associate working on the open source documentary project, “Preempting Dissent: Open Sourcing Secrecy” at the Infoscape Research Lab in association with Ryerson University and Florida State University.

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Amy Miranda

Amy is passionate about the digital space and whether it’s Creative, Strategic, Conceptual or Technical, she lives and breathes it. Having worked in all facets of the industry Amy offers a unique multidisciplinary perspective, which is met with an equal degree of humor, creativity commitment to quality and results.

She now draws on over 12 years of Interactive, Creative, and Operations experience delivering internationally award-winning digital solutions. Amy’s work has garnered her multiple Gold Cannes Cyber lions, One Show Pencils, and industry recognition for quality and results. Amy has held creative and production positions at companies including CNN, U8TV/Alliance Atlantis, Activate, Henderson Bas and most recently was Director of Production, Interactive at both TAXI and Grip Limited.

In May of 2009 Amy moved forward in executing her unique vision for integrated production made easy with the launch of Lunch. She is also the curator of Canadian industry think tank Inter-Action, which she co-founded with the goal of continuing to innovate, educate and communicate in the field of digital media. Inter-action has become so successful in Toronto that most events are now standing room only.

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Josh Newman

As a consumer, thinker and addict of all things digital, Josh is always plugged in to something, somewhere. His latest endeavours include co-foundingBackfed, an open fan-to-artist payment platform which aims to rewire the analog & digital music economy, and co-organizing OpenMusicMedia Toronto, an event exploring how music, technology and new media collide. A Toronto-native and perpetually-amateur musician, Josh often finds himself creating, discussing or experiencing music.

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Aidan Nulman

Aidan Nulman founded YouPhonics with dreams of a better world — one where music is no longer a one-to-many media, but instead an open love-fest… kind of like Woodstock, but with more computers. And showers.

Born and raised in Montreal, he’s been involved in the music world in one way or another ever since he was a toddler: formerly the drummer in a high school punk rock band, Aidan was an early partner in Wetlabel (a Montreal-based ezine) from 2005-2006, and produced two musicals for a company that counts Wayne & Shuster, Donald Sutherland, and Lorne Michaels as alum.

Last but not least, Messr. Nulman wants to wish you a fine evening, wherever you may be.

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Siobhan O’Flynn

Siobhan O’Flynn advises on the design of digital narratives: transmedia, crossmedia, physical installations, interactive films & recently an interactive graphic novel. She was on the faculty of the Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab in 2001, and has mentored in the Digital Development Lab (CBC/BC Film/ New Media BC) multiple times and in the Melting Silos Program for the Development of Transmedia Content (NFB/SFU Praxis). In 2006/07 she was the narrative design consultant on Late Fragment, a feature film/dvd that premiered at Cannes. She has advised on over interactive 65 digital works, many of which have gone on to win awards in Canada & abroad (Pax Warrior, [murmur], Painting the Myth).

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Guinevere Orvis

Guinevere Orvis is the Executive in Charge of Digital Production at CBC Television. She works on interactive strategy and production for some of the most popular Canadian television programs, including Dragons’ Den and Battle of the Blades. Before moving to CBC, she was in charge of MuchMusic.com and launched CHUM’s social media platform at showmeyours.tv. Prior to CHUM, she worked at Alliance Atlantis on various brands including FoodTV, HGTV and Showcase. She also ran an interactive agency for eight years. Guin is an MBA candidate at Ted Rogers School of Management, studying the business side of technology and innovation.

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Mark O’Sullivan

Mark O’Sullivan is the founder of Vanilla, open-source forum software that powers discussions on over 350,000 sites around the world. Vanilla is the simple way to grow online communities, allowing you to join & manage the discussions taking place around your product, brand, or business.

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Kathleen Philips

Kathleen Phillips is a Toronto writer, actor and character comedian.

Voted NOW! Magazine’s best character comedian two years in a row (2007/2008) Kathleen has performed on comedy stages in Toronto, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and in the U.K. She has appeared in various series for T.V including, Cock’d Gunns, (IFC/Showcase) “Good Morning World,” “House Party,” “Hot Box”(Comedy Network) and “Howie Do It”(NBC/Global.) She is a core member of Laugh Sabbath, (laughsabbath.com) a comedy collective that hosts regular Sunday shows at the Rivoli. Her short fiction has been published in The Pilot Pocket Book (#2 and #6 editions) and featured in Broken Pencil’s 2009 Writers Death Match. She has a series of popular comedy videos and audio recordings featured on YouTube.

Kathleen is also a member of Cow Over Moon, an improv based Children’s Theatre Company.

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Evan Prodromou

Evan Prodromou is the founder and CEO of StatusNet Inc, an Open Source producer based in Montreal and San Francisco. StatusNet is the Open Source microblogging server used by thousands of enterprises and 20,000 public Web sites worldwide. Evan’s previous experience includes building the successful open content travel guide, Wikitravel.

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Mark Reale

Mark is a partner and Web Developer at BNOTIONS, Co-Founder and Program Coordinator at the Yorkville Media Centre, and Professor at Seneca College in the Media Fundamentals, Independent Photography, and Acting for Camera and Voice programs.

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Joe Rideout

Joe is a software engineer at Google’s Canadian engineering headquarters in Waterloo. Since joining Google in 2006 he has been a developer on several mobile web products including the Google Wireless Transcoder and most recently Google Buzz for mobile. Joe is an avid user of many products at the intersection of mobile, social and geo and is a prolific creator of check-ins, buzz, shouts, tips and geo-tagged photos of food. Joe holds a master’s in computer science from the University of Toronto, a bachelor’s degree in honours computer science from the University of Waterloo and a Super Mayor Badge on Foursquare.

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Evan Ratliff

Evan Ratliff is a freelance journalist whose writing appears in Wired magazine, The New Yorker, and many other publications. He is also the founder and co-editor of the The Atavist, a digital journal of nonfiction mysteries launching in the summer of 2010. A longtime contributing editor for Wired, Evan is the co-author of Safe: The Race to Protect Ourselves in a Newly Dangerous World (HarperCollins, 2005), about innovation and counterterrorism, and has reported from around the globe on science and technology, the environment, terrorism, politics, and transnational crime. His December 2009 Wired story, “Vanish,” is a finalist for this year’s National Magazine Award for feature writing in the US. On the side, he serves as the story editor for Pop-Up — the world’s first live magazine — which showcases the work of some of the country’s most interesting writers, documentary filmmakers, photographers, and radio producers.

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Ben Rayner

Ben Rayner has worked as one of the Toronto Star’s music critics since 1998. He’s passionate about Joy Division, The Simpsons, and the writings of Martin Amis. On the rare night he’s actually at home, you’re likely to find him hunched over his turntables mixing techno records for hours on end.

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Jeff Rogers

Jeff Rogers is a true entertainment industry veteran. He is currently the Music Director for AUX TV, where he oversees the production and development of programming for the 24-hour digital music channel. He’s also a partner in Sparks Music, where he manages the band Spiral Beach and is the music producer for Scotty Hard.

Jeff was formerly the Head of Artist Development for Richard Branson’s V2 label in New York, where he worked with a full spectrum of artists including The Black Crowes, Moby, Rinocerose, Stereophonics, and Underworld. While at V2, Jeff produced the highly praised Moby: Play – The DVD and received a Grammy nomination for his stellar work on the project. Throughout the 80s, Jeff worked as a rock band manager, helping guide the careers of Crash Test Dummies, The Pursuit of Happiness, Randy Bachman, Ashley MacIsaac, and many more top acts.

Over the years Jeff has maintained a passion for film production. His latest project is a vampire rock ‘n’ roll film called Suck. The film debuted at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and features cameos by Moby, Alice Cooper, Carol Pope, Henry Rollins, Malcolm McDowell, Alex Lifeson, Iggy Pop, Nicole De Boer, and John Kastner.

Jeff currently resides in Toronto and can be found most nights checking out new acts and sharing his enthusiasm for the scene at any number of local rock venues.

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Alyson Rowe

Alyson Rowe is the Manager of Youth Action for War Child. She has worked with War Child since June of 2008, after having been an avid supporter and fundraiser for years.

As a small non-profit, War Child has had to be innovative in the way it communicates with a young audience and this has increasingly meant digital and social strategies. The Camp Okutta and Help Child Soldiers campaigns won over thirty marketing and communications awards, while their use of social media tools has won plaudits from across the sector.

Alyson has participated in numerous panels, conferences and workshops across Canada, drawing on human rights and the effects of war on children, to educate and stress the urgency of War Child¹s work internationally. She encourages students and individuals alike to get involved and share in War Child’s vision of a world where no child knows war.

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Gordan Savicic

Gordan Savicic (AT/NL) is an artist/designer playing with software algorithms, experimental media and fine art. His works include a wide variety of media – including computer games, hacked electronic devices, software, video, sculpture and performance. As independent developer, he has been involved in various open source hard- and software projects and became CEO (Chief Euthanasia Officer) of the web2.0 suicidemachine in late 2009. As a member of the Ludic Society he co-developed haptic interfaces and game fashion. With ZugZwangZukunft he developed various Arcade Machine Modifications which have been shown internationally. Savicic co-founded an artistic new media lab in Rotterdam called moddr_ in 2007. His works have been shown in several countries, such as Japan (dis-locate), Germany (Transmediale), Spain (Arco Madrid) and the Netherlands (V2_), among others. He lives and works between Berlin, Vienna and Rotterdam.

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Jacquilynne Schlesier

Jacquilynne Schlesier is the Community Manager for the Chowhound forums at CHOW.com. On Chowhound, part of the CBS Interactive network of sites, food-lovers from around the world gather to discuss and review local restaurants. A passionate diner and a not half-bad home cook, Jacquilynne was a regular poster on Chowhound, and then a volunteer moderator, long before her interest in the site became professional. She’s a member of four dining clubs and a virtually uncountable number of online communities, twin obsessions that made the job managing Chowhound a perfect fit. Based in Toronto, she manages the Chowhound Team, a group of dedicated volunteers from around the globe who ensure that the site remains friendly, honest and on-topic.

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Daniel Schutzsmith

Daniel is a rare breed – a hybrid of equal parts business, design, programming, and strategy – ready to change the world. He’s a professor at the School of Visual Arts, a writer on digital strategy with a book scheduled to launch in late 2010, and all around web nerd. Over the past decade he has worked with clients such as: 1% For The Planet, Adobe, BBDO, CosmoGIRL!, Dave Matthews Band, Facebook, Google, Greenpeace, Live Earth, MTV, PBS, Phish, Rachael Ray, Sony Picture Classics, TBS, The Pixies, VH1, and XM Radio.

In his free time he enjoys being a loving husband and father, wandering the streets of NYC, trying obscure fu-fu beers, single malt scotches, and evenings at the drive-in around the corner from his house in rural upstate NY.

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Gregory J. Sinclair

Gregory is currently the Executive Producer and Executive Story Editor of the hit drama series “Afghanada,” soon to be in its fifth season on CBC Radio. As a producer with CBC Radio Arts and Entertainment, Gregory has developed, produced, directed and written drama, comedy and satire for both national and local broadcast. His programs have earned multiple international distinctions including Gabriel Awards, the Special Jury Prize at the Moscow Ostankino and the Armstrong prize for Program Innovation. His programs have won 12 Worldmedals at the New York Festivals, most recently a Gold for Best Radio Drama Special (2007).

As an independent, he has developed, produced and directed a wide variety of projects, from docudramas to films for children and CG animation series. They have been broadcast internationally (CBC, BBC, ZDF, TV5, Nickelodeon) and have received multiple international awards.

His cross-disciplinary work includes creating and developing multi-platform collaborations between radio, television and the web, weaving online interactive programming with more traditional ‘fixed’ media. Two new cross-platform programs are currently in development.

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Donald Smith

Donald is Director of Ecosystem Development for the Eclipse Foundation, an independent not-for-profit foundation supporting the Eclipse open source community. He brings worldwide enterprise software experience, ranging from small “dot-com” through Fortune 500 companies. Donald speaks regularly about open source, community development, business models, business integration and software development politics at conferences and events worldwide. Prior to joining Eclipse, Donald was Director of Technology Evangelism at Oracle.

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Punit Soni

Punit is the lead Product Manager responsible for Google’s Mobile Applications. He joined Google in 2007 and has since launched Google News Archives, Google Magazines and most recently, Google Buzz for mobile. Before Google, Punit worked at Wharton Ventures and at Intel Capital in their wireless group. He managed and developed products in Cadence Design Systems and has years of experience in the semiconductor space. Punit has also worked in the ground floor of an early-stage start-up which used electronic design algorithms in the space of enterprise software. Punit has an MBA in finance and entrepreneurial management from Wharton, as well as bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Kurukshetra Engineering College and the University of Wyoming respectively.

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Scott Stratten

Scott Stratten is the President of Un-Marketing.com. He is an expert in Viral, Social, and Authentic Marketing. Scott calls his process “Un-Marketing”: positioning yourself as a trusted expert in front of your target market, so when the need arises, they choose you. His book “UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging” is due to hit the shelves in the fall of 2010.

Scott currently teaches in the School of Business at Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning. Over 49,000 people follow his daily rantings on Twitter; and he was voted one of the top influencers on the site. His recent Tweet-a-thon raised over $16,000 for child hunger in less than 12 hours.

Scott’s viral marketing videos have been viewed over 60 million times, generating massive profits for his clients. One of the movies was chosen by the Chicago Bears as their biggest motivator towards a recent Super Bowl run, while another video earned the client over $5 million in 7 days.

Scott Stratten has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Mashable.com, ESPN.com, USA Today, CNN.com and Fast Company. That – plus $5 – gets him a coffee anywhere in the world.

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Jason Theodor

Jason Theodor is a Creative Director/Speaker/Consultant who specializes in creative ideation & problem-solving for brands and individuals in the digital space.

[I can see your eyes glazing over, so let me rephrase that.]

Jason Theodor is a creative person who loves coming up with ideas, sharing them with others (preferably for money), and teaching people how to be more creative themselves. He is addicted to the internet and new technologies, always thinking about how people (and companies) can communicate better or in interesting new ways. Jason has lectured at New York University, Rotman’s School of Business, Ontario College of Art & Design (and others) as well as industry conferences in Europe and North America on the topics of digital brand storytelling, brainstorming, chaos, and the fundamental elements of creativity.

Since the mid 90s (pre-millenium) Jason has worked in the advertising industry first as a “new media” designer, Art Director, than Creative Director for a large swath of agencies, clients and brands including Yahoo!, General Motors, CitiBank, IBM, Kraft, Unilever, Nutella, BlackBerry and many more. Jason Theodor is passionate about the generation & application of ideas, and inspiring others to live a more creative life.

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Matt Thompson

Matt Thompson works with Mozilla Drumbeat, a global community dedicated to promoting and building the open web. A former campaign strategist for SavetheInternet.com and FreePress.net, Matt focuses on storytelling and design that helps inspired geeks shape the Internet’s future.

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Tony Tobias

Tony Tobias is President and Owner of Pangaea Media & Music Inc. Pangaea specializes in music publishing, interactive media production and consulting to creative industries. Tony consults to independent artists, media companies and cultural organizations providing creative business, international marketing and digital and social media strategies. Tony is an award winning documentary film and new media producer. He is VP of the Canadian Music Publishers Association (CMPA); VC of the Canadian Music Reproduction Rights Agency (CMRRA) and a founding director (past) of Interactive Ontario. He is a regular speaker on the impact of new technology on cultural industries; cultural training; music publishing; copyright and cultural economics. During the 2008 Olympics he provided cultural and business affairs services to a major cultural project in Beijing, China.

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Jayna Wallace

Jayna Wallace is a Principal User Experience Designer working as a member of Blockbuster’s remote design team. She has over ten years experience in the interactive design field, including 5 years at AOL where she was a member of the Global Messaging division working as Design Lead on projects such as the AIM Instant Messaging Client and Goowy Widget Platform. Jayna currently resides in Columbus, OH, where she can be found avoiding bad fluorescent lighting and stale donuts.

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Tony Walsh

Tony Walsh has been playing, modifying, and developing games for over 30 years. He has helped plan and execute story-driven interactive projects since the early 1990s, including five award-winning extended-television games. A multi-disciplined creative, Walsh has become noted internationally for his work at the intersection of games and culture.
Walsh is the founder and director of Phantom Compass, a Toronto-based game production company. He leads the company in providing products and services to broadcasters and media producers in Canada, the US and UK.

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Meghan Warby

Meghan Warby is a government relations and digital communications senior consultant at Argyle Communications and Vice Chair of the Churchill Society for the Advancement of Parliamentary Democracy. A social media enthusiast, Meghan spent the winter of 2008 traveling across the United States to interview ‘pioneers’ in eAdvocacy to gauge the significant changes in communications between the 2004 and 2008 American federal elections. Blogging and tweeting as “withoutayard” combines her love of music (nurtured by working at the Austin Music Foundation) & politics (expressed during federal & provincial elections on the Election Predictor Blogs).

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Theodore Watson

Theodore Watson is an artist, designer and experimenter whose work is born out of the curiosity and excitement of designing experiences that come alive and invite people to play. Theodore’s work ranges from creating new tools for artistic expression, experimental musical systems, to immersive, interactive environments with full-body interaction. His recent work includes the Eyewriter, an eye-controlled drawing tool, Graffiti Research Lab’s Laser Tag, laser graffiti system and Funky Forest, an immersive interactive ecosystem for young children. Theodore works together with Zachary Lieberman and Arturo Castro on openFrameworks, which is an open source library for writing creative code in C++.

Theodore Watson’s work has been shown at MoMA, Tate Modern, Ars Electronica, The Sundance Film Festival, Res Fest, REMF, Cinekid,Montevideo, OFFF, SHIFT, ICHIM, The Creators Series, Deitch Projects, Eyebeam, Pixel Gallery, Museum N8 Amsterdam. In 2010 the Eyewriter project won the Future Everything award and theDesign of The Year award for the interactive category.

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Norm Wilner

A lifelong Torontonian, Norman Wilner became the senior film writer for NOW Magazine in early 2008. Previously, he had reviewed films for Metro newspapers across Canada, and covered every video format imaginable (yes, even Beta) for the Toronto Star column from 1988 to 2006. His byline has appeared in Cinema Scope, Montage, Marquee and even The Hollywood Reporter that one time. In 2008, he was elected secretary and vice-president of the Toronto Film Critics Association; in 2009, he was a member of the features jury for Canada’s Top Ten. A member of the international film critics’ organization FIPRESCI, he’s sat on festival juries in Toronto, Montreal, London, Vienna and Palm Springs. He lives in Kensington Market, just a short walk from any of fourteen coffee shops.

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Kerry Williams

Kerry Williams is a bilingual new media lawyer practicing in Montréal and Toronto, Canada. A lawyer with a deep appreciation of creativity and the business of producing creative work, Kerry provides legal advice on a wide range of business issues facing new and emerging media and entertainment companies. Kerry’s experience ranges from the protection of intellectual property rights to the negotiation and drafting of commercial transaction agreements. He is also versed in shareholder, partnership and joint venture agreements, employment and privacy law

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Kristy Woudstra

Although she’s old, Kristy Woudstra is World Vision’s official Facebook updater and tweeter. She has earnestly observed social media completely change the landscape of non-profit communications. She believes social media can truly dissolve the “us and them” mentality and achieve a “global we”–one status update at a time.

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Jaime Woo

Jaime Woo is a writer-videographer who has worked on projects for Pride Toronto, Toronto Community Foundation, ChangeCamp, and Holt Renfrew. Jaime created the role of Social Media Editor at top city blog Torontoist; and his writing, focused on technology, finance, and social issues, has also appeared in NOW, Xtra, and Financial Post. His video work has been recognized by the Luminato Arts and Creativity Festival and seen him featured on the popular CBC radio program Here and Now.

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Rachel Young

Rachel is the Co-founder of Camaraderie Coworking Inc, a coworking facility and shared office space for entrepreneurs and freelancers, where community is fostered and collaboration is encouraged. She is also the Owner of Pumpkin Patch Productions, a sole proprietorship of 5yrs specialising in communications and event planning. Her past work experience includes project management and marketing for training and development firms, as well as previous self-employment ventures.

Rachel lives in Toronto and can often be found attending tech or entrepreneurial events and is working through the Instructing Adults certificate program at George Brown College. She welcomes new connections to contact her atrachel@camaraderie.ca.

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