Speakers

1. 

   Julien Smith

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   Julien Smith is the bestselling author of two books: the first, Trust Agents (with Chris Brogan) was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. His most recent, The Flinch, was published on the Domino Project with over 100,000 copies distributed. Julien has been an author, a professional voice actor + radio broadcaster, a consultant and speaker at some of the largest corporations in the world, including Microsoft, American Express, and more. His work has also appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine, GQ,CNN, and a host of other publications.
2. 

   Saul Colt

   Freshbooks

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   Saul was recently named as one of the iMEDIA 25: Internet Marketing Leaders & Innovatorsand has been called Canada’s best community builders. Chris Brogan once referred to Saul as “exactly who you want representing your company”. In a previous life Saul was the person who launched Zipcar into the Canadian marketplace, is a key person in the growth of FreshBooks.com and even knows what it is like to work for a large corporation from his time at Rogers Communications. Saul loves all people, especially women and is tired of people asking him to remove his shirt. 
3. 

   Dave Carroll

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   Dave Carroll is an award winning singer-songwriter, social media innovator, author, speaker and consumer advocate from Halifax, Canada. With twenty years experience in the music business, when faced with a difficult customer service issue with United Airlines in 2009, Dave used his ability as a master storyteller to share his issue with the world.  The resulting YouTube music video called  “United Breaks Guitars” became an instant viral hit and today over 150 million people have been introduced to his story. David is a highly sought after professional speaker, a published author and he is increasingly being commissioned for songs for other people and organizations.  He is also co-founder of Gripevine.com.
4. 

   Dan Martell

   Clarity.fm

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   Dan Martell is the co-founder of Clarity.fm a stealth startup that enables anyone to get paid for their advice. Previously he co-founded www.Flowtown.com, a social marketing platform for small businesses, that was acquired by DemandForce.com. An award-winning Canadian entrepreneur, at 25, Dan formed his first start-up, Spheric Technologies Inc. Now living in San Francisco, Martell spends the majority of his time looking at ways to build a bridge between Silicon Valley and his home province of New Brunswick, Canada.  As an angel investor, he's invested in over 15 companies, advising them on how to leverage social marketing to acquire customers.
5. 

   Duncan Stewart

   Deloitte Canada

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   Duncan Stewart is the Director of Deloitte Canada Research in the areas of Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT). Duncan has two decades of experience in the TMT industry. As an analyst and portfolio manager, he has provided research or made investments in the entire Canadian technology and telecommunications sector. He has written research on names such as Nortel and Celestica, and been a venture capital investor in Research in Motion and OpenText, among others. 

   Duncan was a co-founder of Tera Capital, Canada’s first high tech and biotech money manager and was the Canadian Technology Fund Manager of the Year in 2003.
6. 

   Brad Ward

   BlueFuego, Inc.

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   Brad J. Ward is the CEO at BlueFuego, Inc., an international higher education consulting firm. He has given keynotes and presentations at nearly 75 conferences such as SXSW, American Marketing Association, EduComm, UCDA, NACAC, and eduWeb. His work has been featured in several magazines and websites such as The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Wired, CNET, New York Times and more. Ward holds an MBA with a concentration in Leadership from Butler University.
7. 

   Jim Brody

   Senior International Sales Manager, Trip Advisor

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   Jim Brody heads up destination marketing outreach efforts for TripAdvisor.  Jim joined the company in 2005, bringing with him over fifteen years experience working with DMOs in the broadcast and internet arenas, and over twenty years experience in media as a whole.  Jim developed the DMO program for TripAdvisor, and before solely focusing on international DMOs, grew their US domestic DMO team from one to six people.  He currently works with hundreds of organizations from all over the world, ranging from small towns to whole countries, and has a uniquely global perspective on destination marketing in the online environment.  Jim specializes in helping his clients navigate the social media terrain and effectively utilize both TripAdvisor and other social and user-generated content sites to market themselves.
8. 

   Darren Hailes

   Westjet

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   Darren Hailes is the Emerging Media Coordinator at WestJet.  He is responsible for sharing WestJet culture with the airline’s online guests. Darren has worked in travel and tourism for more than 14 years. An avid traveller, Darren has lived in Canada, Australia and Europe and has toured Asia and Africa. Although he now calls Calgary home, Darren was born and bred in Australia and sports an iconic accent. Despite being a Ironman triathlete, he has a Coke and cookies whenever he flies.
9. 

   Jennifer Fraser

   Director of Design, Macadamian

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   Jennifer Fraser is the Director of Design at Macadamian, a design and development consultancy based in Gatineau, Quebec. After more than fourteen years working as a User Experience Designer, Jennifer has designed products for many different target markets, including: creative professionals; large government agencies; and owners of small offices and home offices. She has also had the opportunity to work closely with various technology partners, such as Microsoft, Wacom and HP, to understand their requirements and to create designs to meet their needs, as well as the needs of their customers. Jennifer worked as an architect in a former life, which may, or may not, relate to her passion for designing and building cocktails.
10. 

    Heather Anne Ritchie

    Heather Anne Communications

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    Heather Anne Ritchie is a media junkie, startup cheerleader and technology enthusiast. Her boutique PR firm is dedicated to helping early-stage entrepreneurs take new products to market and to re-introducing established products to new audiences through media outreach, strategic partnerships and content marketing. She’s also a mentor for New Brunswick’s PropelICT Launch36 Program, and Guelph, Ontario-based Startupify.me.
11. 

    Jackson Wilkinson

    Founder, WeSprout

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    M. Jackson Wilkinson, Founder of WeSprout in San Francisco, has been designing online products and services for fifteen years. Previously Director of User Experience at Posterous and Design Lead at LinkedIn, Jackson founded the UX group at Viget Labs in Washington, DC, where he worked with dozens of startups and companies to help them deliver great experiences to users and customers alike.
12. 

    Karyn Zuidinga

    Principal, Analytic Design Group

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    Karyn founded Analytic Design Group in 2005, a company dedicated to the idea that great design is driven by user-focused insights. Since then, she has led the company to be a leading user experience strategy and design firm that specializes in innovating in complex digital environments. Karyn has been working in the MoSo space since before there were animated GIFs, social media was a bulletin board on your website, and the hottest thing in smartphones had a thumbwheel.
13. 

    Azita Ardakani

    Founder, Love Social

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    Azita Ardakani is the 26 year old founder of www.lovesocial.org. Quoted by Seth Godin in his e-book "Pokes," Azita stated "If you would do it for free, you should make it a career" as she started her path in social media, volunteering on initiatives she was passionate about.  Her agency has worked on global impact focused social media campaigns alongside the UN, Global Alliance in Nutrition as well as the fight against hydraulic fracturing. In addition she has directed various corporate initiatives alongside Oprah & W Magazine, P&G, HP & many more. Sometimes dubbed an "anti-agency" Azita has created a space unlike the traditional, holding strong to the belief that creating campaigns and strategies centred in real value propositions is the only way to succeed in business today. Azita is the youngest Canadian B Corporation certified founder (www.bcorporation.net).
14. 

    Rob Swick

    CEO, ALPHASEARCH

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    Rob Swick is a 17-year veteran of online marketing, Search Strategist at  AlphaSearch, and co-producer of the Atlantic Internet Marketing Conference. A former university lecturer and contributing journalist, Rob was formally trained as a clinical psychologist before being bitten by the Internet bug in the late 90's. As a result, his approach to online strategy is steeped in the psychology of perception and online behaviour. An enthusiastic evangelist of digital marketing, Rob has co-produced two international and five regional conferences on the topic.
15. 

    Aerin Guy

    Space Race

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    Aerin Guy devises crafty and creative marketing strategies for clients seeking out of the ordinary digital campaigns. She connects entrepreneurs in the education technology and social innovation spaces with emerging markets. She consults with progressive people and organizations on social media integration, content and communication strategy, and product development. Her company, SpaceRace, is a full service digital agency working with the likes of Charity Village, Pearson Canada, Oxford University Press, Totally ADD, Fernie Tourism, and DreamBox Learning.
16. 

    Kip Simon

    President, 22Fresh

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    Kip Simon is the VP of Online Solutions for Captive Audience, and the President of 22Fresh. Starting out of a broom closet at Captive Audience, Kip has been able to build 22Fresh into an international online apparel company that has won awards and drawn the attention of NCAA and MLB All-Stars, by using only a sexy website and social media (and a lot of hard work). Using 22Fresh as its primary testing grounds, Captive Audience has become a pioneer in social media consulting and custom app development, helping SaskTel, SGI, Taylor VW Audi, and many others along the way.
17. 

    Dale Zak

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    Dale Zak is mobile developer passionate about using technology for social change. Over the past four years he has contributed to open source communities like Ushahidi and FrontlineSMS, and currently working with UN OCHA to develop mobile apps to help with humanitarian response. Dale has also coordinated several social good initiatives including establishing Repurposed Labs to re-purpose used computers into public internet terminals for low income communities and deployed I Vote Because map to spark a pro-democracy movement why voting is important in Canada. His next endeavor is launching Whitespace Initiatives, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to bridge the gaps between groups in need with individuals with the skills to provide solutions.
18. 

    Mark O’Sullivan

    Founder, Vanilla Forums

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    Mark O'Sullivan is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Vanilla: forum software that powers discussions on over 500,000 sites around the world. Vanilla is a re-imagining of how niche discussion communities should be built, with a heavy focus on integration with the social web, engagement, and reputation. In 2011, Vanilla was named one of Canada's most innovative tech companies by the Canadian Innovation Exchange. Mark is a University of Saskatchewan graduate, and following graduation went on to work as a contract developer for companies like Microsoft, Siemens and Bank of America. Since 2009, Mark has taken Vanilla through the TechStars startup incubator, raised multiple rounds of financing, and continues to innovate in the online discussion space.
19. 

    Jesse Heaslip

    Jesse is a Vancouver developer who has worked with startups in New Zealand and Vancouver, was featured in the National Post, has spoken extensively on entrepreneurship and lean development, and currently organizes the Haskell, Tech Co-Founders and Lean Startup Meetup groups. He was a finalist in Sencha’s Mobile App Development Contest and his latest project is built using jQuery Mobile. He has been working with HTML5 for the last 18 months. Jesse blogs about startups, community and technology at id8.ca.
20. 

    Jonas Woost

    Executive Producer, Digital Music, CBC

    Jonas Woost is the Executive Producer, Digital Music at CBC, and is co-founder of Nimbi a cloud based ebook reader. Jonas first starting working in the music industry at the age of sixteen with PIAS Recordings. His past experience has included dance label Kickin Music; record label Ministry of Sound and Head of Music at Last.fm. Between 2004 and 2009 Jonas has produced an hosted ‘heute:pop:morgen’ – a breakfast radio show for local Hamburg station Tide 96.0. Jonas is regularly invited to speak publicly at international conferences to discuss issues within the digital music and media business, including SXSW (Austin), Popkomm (Berlin), Canadian Music Week (Toronto), In The City (Manchester), NARM (USA), and Porto Musical (Recife, Brazil).
21. 

    Lenny Rachitsky

    Co-Founder/CEO, Localmind

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    Lenny is the co-founder and CEO of Localmind, a new location-based startup that allows you to find out what’s happening anywhere in the world, right now, by giving you the ability to send questions to people checked-in at any location. Prior to founding Localmind, Lenny was head of R&D at Webmetrics/Neustar in San Diego, a speaker at TEDx, and a long time blogger. He also puts both pant legs on at the same time.
22. 

    Doug Junor

    Chief Business Officer, Robots and Pencils Inc.

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    Doug is the Chief Business Officer at Robots and Pencils. Doug has been working in the Telecom and IT sector for over 25 years and has held a number of roles in the Technical Support, Sales & Marketing and Business Development areas. Prior to working with Robots and Pencils, Doug spent the majority of his career with a number of Canadian Telco’s, including 14 years with SaskTel. The last 8 years have been spent focusing exclusively on wireless solutions, applications and devices, and how business’s can leverage these solutions and technologies to change their business models.
23. 

    Arlin Schaffel

    Noodlecake Studios

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    Arlin Schaffel is a software developer passionate about mobile technologies. After an internship with IBM Toronto, Arlin returned to Saskatoon to finish his B.Sc in Computer Science. He promptly found a job at zu and started sinking his teeth into mobile development. Arlin has touched the code base of over a dozen production mobile apps, both customer facing & enterprise. Recently, Arlin made the jump into the Indie Game world, joining the team at Noodlecake Studios who made the Canadian Video Game Awards nominated Super Stickman Golf! Not only has this allowed Arlin to branch into many new technologies, including Android development, it has increased his geek cred substantially.
24. 

    Nathan Kroll

    President, Ad-Dispatch

    Nathan Kroll is the President and Founder of Ad-Dispatch, North-American leaders in Augmented Reality (#AR). Not one to rest on his laurels, Nathan has always been ahead of the curve. A seasoned entrepreneur in the radio and television production industry, he recognized an enormous opportunity in AR in 2009, a then-emerging technology. He knew that Augmented Reality had the potential to take the digital advertising world by storm so he took a risk; investing significantly in learning the tools of the trade. Since then, Nathan has positioned Ad-Dispatch as a North American leader in delivering AR experiences to the mainstream, working with clients like Disney, Walmart, Marvel, Volvo, Chevrolet, among others.
25. 

    Jon Burns

    VP Sales, Ad-Dispatch

    Jonathan Burns is the Vice President of Sales and Managing Partner for Ad-Dispatch, North-American leaders in Augmented Reality (#AR). While that may sound like an elaborate title, Jon doesn't get hung up on formality. He does, however, become extremely passionate when it comes to educating the market on all things AR. As a pitch person, Jon loves selling the big picture – helping his audience experience 'ah-ha moments' as they begin to understand the potential that the augmented reality holds for marketers and brands. He's spoken to audiences across North America, including at the 2010 Canadian Marketing Association Awards in Toronto.  
26. 

    Blair Knippel

    Technology, Media and Telecom Group Leader/ CleanTech Group Leader Saskatchewan,

    Blair Knippel is Deloitte’s TMT and CleanTech leader in Saskatchewan. He has worked with Deloitte throughout his entire career starting in 1988. Blair serves a wide variety of Canadian and International TMT, CleanTech and other clients.  He concentrates his professional practice on Canadian and international business consulting assignments.  Blair is experienced in providing tax and general business advice to TMT and CleanTech clients throughout the continuum of business operations, from start-up to IPO/sale.  Blair is currently Deloitte’s lead on a project with the Government of Saskatchewan to bring TMT clients, particularly in the Bio-Tech and IT sectors, to Saskatchewan. 
27. 

    Ryan Dumonceaux

    R&D and Government Incentives Leader – Saskatchewan, Deloitte

    Ryan has spent the last 11 years assisting companies in accessing a wide array of government funding opportunities, most notably the Scientific Research & Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax credit.  On this front, Ryan has provided services to companies in every province across Canada, and has presented at numerous SR&ED-related seminars and industry events, including joint CRA/Industry Software Committee workshops in Ottawa.  Ryan is a Professional Engineer (P.Eng) with an academic and industry experience focus in the Technology, Media and Telecommunication (TMT) sector, including former positions at Nortel Networks. Ryan was also elected to the Saskatchewan Advanced Technology Association (SATA) Board of Directors in 2011.