TiECon Speakers

Vivek Wadhwa is Vice President of Innovation and Research at Singularity University; Fellow, Arthur & Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance, Stanford University; Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at the Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University; and distinguished visiting scholar, Halle Institute of Global Learning, Emory University. He is author of ”The Immigrant Exodus: Why America Is Losing the Global Race to Capture Entrepreneurial Talent”–which was named by The Economist as a Book of the Year of 2012. He was named by Foreign Policy Magazine as Top 100 Global Thinker in 2012. In 2013, TIME Magazine listed him as one of The 40 Most Influential Minds in Tech. Wadhwa oversees research at Singularity University, which educates a select group of leaders about the exponentially growing technologies that are soon going to change our world. These advances—in fields such as robotics, A.I., computing, synthetic biology, 3D printing, medicine, and nanomaterials—are making it possible for small teams to do what was once possible only for governments and large corporations to do: solve the grand challenges in education, water, food, shelter, health, and security. In his roles at Stanford, Duke, and Emory universities, Wadhwa lectures in class on subjects such as entrepreneurship and public policy, helps prepare students for the real world, and leads groundbreaking research projects. He is an advisor to several governments; mentors entrepreneurs; and is a regular columnist for The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal Accelerators, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, LinkedIn Influencers blog, and the American Society of Engineering Education’s Prism magazine. Prior to joining academia in 2005, Wadhwa founded two software companies.

Based in San Francisco and Washington, DC, Mr. Singh is the founder and CEO of dashboard.io — a community and benchmarking platform for startups; and Partner at 500 Startups — a California-based ‘super angel’ fund. To date, 500 Start-ups has invested in more than 500 firms in nearly 30 countries. He also serves as an Entrepreneur in Residence with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Department of Homeland Security and US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

In his role as Entrepreneur in Residence at OMERS Ventures, Haroon Mirza is responsible for contributing to the identification and execution of investment opportunities in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) sectors. Prior to joining OMERS Ventures, Haroon was Director of Business Development – Anonymous Viewer Analytics at Intel Corp. Before that he was the co-founder and CEO of CognoVision, an award-winning retail analytics provider. CognoVision was named Canada’s Most Innovative Company in 2009, and was acquired by Intel in September 2010. An accomplished entrepreneur, Haroon’s skills and experience include leading all stages of the commercialization process including idea development, fund raising, product launches, obtaining reference customers, and revenue generation. Haroon has also worked in the consumer packaged goods industry, and as a consultant for the Carleton University Foundry Program, evaluating technology startups and obtaining pre-seed capital to commercialize on-campus technologies. 

Michael Hyatt is a technology entrepreneur and innovator with a track record of building world-class software companies. His current company, BlueCat, is a four time winner of the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 award, which recognizes the fastest growing technology companies in Canada, winner of Red Herring’s Top 50 Private Companies award and was named Canada’s Hottest Innovative Technology Company by Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX). A recipient of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40^TM Award, Michael has been featured on the cover of Canadian Business Magazine and is a regular business commentator on CBC Newsworld. Prior to founding BlueCat, Michael co-founded Dyadem International, a highly successful software company that was acquired by IHS (NYSE: IHS). As an entrepreneurial success story himself, Michael looks for ways to help youth and other entrepreneurs succeed. He is a mentor for several start-ups, an active Kiva lender and a frequent motivational speaker.

Julien Smith, CEO of Breather, an on-demand space company, as well as the New York Times bestselling author of three books. Two of these publications, Trust Agents and The Impact Equation, were written with Chris Brogan. In the increasingly dense and competitive web-based marketplace, many have embraced Julien’s work on how to stand out, change yourself and to do what is necessary to succeed.

  Chris Courneya has acquired more than 15 years of leadership experience in the technology sector.  As the co-founder and former President and CEO of prairieFyre Software Inc., Chris played a key role in defining the vision and strategy of the company, delivering a highly competitive contact center software portfolio to the market. Launched in 1998, he helped to grow prairieFyre from a start-up to a global provider of contact center, business analytics, and workforce optimization software and services with thousands of clients across the healthcare, financial services, utilities, government and hospitality industries.  Following the acquisition of prairieFyre by Mitel in June 2013, Chris assumed the role of Vice-President and General Manager, Mitel Contact Centres. His contributions have been instrumental in establishing a solid foundation for Mitel in the contact center market with more than 7,000 installations in over 70 countries. Chris was awarded a 40 Under 40 Award in 2005 in Ottawa. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Guelph.

  Brad Loiselle, PMP is the Author of Keep Moving 4Ward and a serial entrepreneur. He is a natural innovator, problem-solver, visionary, leader and people person. Coming from a humble beginning, with little education and no money, Brad grew his career by focusing on project management and eventually becoming a board member with PMI-OVOC, finishing his term as President. Leveraging the discipline of project management, Brad built his first successful company that ended up securing contracts with the world’s top entertainment companies including Disney, Warner Brothers, Nickelodeon, 20^th Century Fox and Marvel Entertainment.  Brad’s business was not only disruptive, but it changed the entire North American gift industry forever.  Combining his experiences, by 2009 Brad went on to founding another company in the online education space, which was acquired less than two years and he remained with the acquiring company until earlier 2013.  Immediately after his departure, Brad founded yet another company that focused on building an International Education Network that would enable Canadian colleges, universities and associations to export education into the emerging markets, leveraging Brad’s company. These successes drove the development of an additional company by mid-2013 focused on technology that will solve many online development issues.

Brad was awarded Ottawa’s Top 40 Under 40 Entrepreneurial Award in 2003 and a Bronze Award for Small Business of the Year presented by the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce in 2012. He has also been recognized for his thought leadership being published in The Globe and Mail, PM Network, and Canadian Society of Training and Development (CSTD) and American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) publications. Brad is a passionate and outspoken entrepreneur who has been featured on CBC Venture, CTV News, CJOH, CBC News and in many local and national newspapers.

  Harry Singh, Director, Intel Capital, is focused on investments in Education Technology, Compute Continuum, Location Based Services/ Commerce, Single Sign-On and Personal Cloud. Harry is Canadian who is living in the US for over 15 years. Harry has been with Intel for 12+ years where he held variety of roles. Prior to joining Intel, Harry played key management roles in the design and implementation of telecommunications solutions at leading companies such as Toshiba, Ericsson, Nortel Networks, & Alcatel. Harry holds an MBA from the University of Southern California, an MSEE from the University of Saskatchewan, and a BE (Electronics) from India’s Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology.

  Ayah Norris leads Marketing + Community in Canada for Indiegogo, the world’s largest crowdfunding platform. As Indiegogo’s on-the-ground representative in Canada, Ayah discovers and supports campaigners, and fosters a community of crowdfunders through social media, events, and speaking panels across industries. Ayah is also Co-Creator of The INSIGHT Project, an award-winning digital media platform sharing the stories of grassroots, creative game-changers. She led development and management of The INSIGHT Project crowdfunding campaign, raising over $20,000 in under 20 days to bring The INSIGHT Project to life. A graduate of The Queen’s School of Business, Ayah worked in corporate marketing and strategy for Canada’s largest restaurant company before making the leap into the creative world. When not traversing the country with Indiegogo, you’ll find her traversing the world discovering new cultures, cuisines, and stories.

  As SVP of Products, Bob oversees the strategic direction of Epsilon’s products, product marketing and product-specific client operations. With over 25 years of professional software development, technology research and strategy, and product management experience, Bob has extensive knowledge of data-driven technologies that help organizations thrive. He is also a frequent speaker and guest lecturer at numerous industry conferences and institutions. Connect with Bob on Linkedin or Twitter.

Sana is the CEO and Founder of YetiZen, a cornerstone of the social mobile game community. YetiZen has two arms. The first is the YetiZen Innovation Lab, a 20,000 square feet games innovation space in the heart of San Francisco that provides free coplay for the game industry and 150+ events for game developers yearly. This includes the San Francisco Game Developer’s Workshop series (SFGDW) which has 5000+ members making it the largest regularly meeting game developer event globally. The second is YetiZen Games Accelerator program, the only games focused accelerator program in existence. The accelerator has 150+ mentors, 300 angels and 9 VCs (like Tim Chang from Mayfield Fund and Baris Aksoy from Intel Capital) who are the leaders of the game space.

At YetiZen, Sana’s role is to help phenomenal entrepreneurs thrive by developing strong business, marketing, and fundraising strategies, and by building the professional network that would become instrumental in the success of accelerated companies. As a well known thought leader in the games space Sana often shares her essays on the business of games at Tumblr. Want to meet Sana? Stop by a YetiZen event and watch out for a King wearing a crown. On more formal occasions she will have a cape on as well. 😉 You can also reach out to her via Twitter @SanaOnGames

Alex is a game industry veteran with expertise in the administration of video game studios, team management, and the optimization of business potential on mobile. He joined Gameloft in 2003 after graduating with dual degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from Sherbrooke University. He advanced to the role of studio technical director before moving into international studio development. From 2005 through 2007 he opened and managed studios in the US, Vietnam, Brazil, and Argentina. In 2009, Alex moved to Paris where he led the deployment division, consisting of over 1000 people. In 2012, he co-founded Montreal’s game incubator Execution Labs.

Jeremy is an accomplished scientist, educator, speaker, educational game designer and entrepreneur. He has founded several education technology companies, led the development of numerous education communication tools and designed revolutionary educational games which have garnered international recognition with awards from the National Science Foundation, Journal of Science and the United Nations.

Jeremy holds a Doctorate in molecular genetics and biotechnology from the University of Guelph. He has been involved extensively in both public and private scientific education programs, consults and designs for global interactive educational initiatives and volunteers with high school students, talking about the importance of a strong background in science and alternative science-based careers. Jeremy is an invited speaker on many aspects of science and education, specifically, on promoting the use of data-driven personalized learning technologies, the efficacy of digital learning tools in formal education settings and the gamification of education.

Outside of Spongelab… Jeremy enjoys not sleeping, his young children, coffee, building blocks, more coffee, red balloons, and the belief that one day he’ll drink less coffee.

Jennifer is the CEO of Fenix Solutions, an Ottawa based web technology company specializing in Drupal. As Drupal specialists, Fenix is working with top tier clientele across Canada and North America providing association management solutions, content management solutions, extranets & portals, intranets and custom application development. Jennifer often finds herself in the position of mentoring business owners or those in the start-up stage. Jennifer’s interest and enthusiasm for entrepreneurship lead her to develop a monthly column profiling exceptional women business leaders in Ottawa called Ottawa Women of Wonder. Recently named one of the “Top 25 People in the Capital” by Ottawa Life Magazine, Jennifer has also launched a SaaS start-up called AgentApp which provides a combined content management solution / hosting environment for real estate agents

 

Ron Warburton is a Managing Partner in the IT Fund and joined BDC Venture Capital in 2000. Ron is an experienced operator with a proven record of building successful software companies over the past 26 years. During the early part of his career, he held progressively senior positions in engineering, product management, software sales and marketing. In 1991, Ron became President and CEO of Simetra Inc. after leading a management buyout. Over the following nine years, he grew Simetra’s software business across Canada and the U.S. and successfully sold it in 2000. In the process, he co-founded a second software business that he helped build and eventually sold.

Ron has actively participated on the board of directors of a number of IT companies. Ron is a registered professional engineer and holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Queen’s University and an MBA from the University of Western Ontario.

 

Jasvinder Obhi is COO and Co-Founder of RocketOwl Inc., and is passionate about creating experiential e-learning through social games. A serial entrepreneur, RocketOwl is his fourth startup and, as a seasoned executive with over 25 years of combined R&D and senior management experience, brings a lot of “grey-hair” to the table. He has had a high impact in a variety of industries, including the telecommunications, biometric-based security, and sustainable development sectors, most notably JDS Uniphase. As a Chartered Physicist with the Institute of Physics and member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Jasvinder holds a Doctorate in Physics from University of London, UK and has over 50 publications along with several patents.

I am a start-up specialist and have founded a number of software, Internet and media companies – some more successful than others. Having gained operational experience and having had a degree of financial success I co-founded Piermont Ventures, a boutique investment and advisory business which advised exceptional entrepreneurs and invested in their startups.

With experience I have made the transition to Venture Capital and co-founded Real Ventures, a seed stage VC fund which enables me to continue to invest and work alongside entrepreneurs operating in the wireless, internet, and media space.

My operational strengths are as a strategist, marketer and sales professional and I am always interested in using these skills to strengthen and grow any community of which I am a part.

Specialties: Strategic planning, Capital Raising.

Alison Johnston Rue is the CEO and cofounder of InstaEDU (InstaEDU.com), the online tutoring company that instantly connects students with top-notch tutors. At InstaEDU, Alison drives strategy, business development and marketing. She got hooked on startups as a student at Stanford University, when she had the opportunity to intern at Box. Prior to confounding InstaEDU, she was an early employee at Aardvark (purchased by Google) and then worked in marketing at Google and Nextdoor, focusing on community management and product marketing. Alison has a BA from Stanford and has spoken at SXSWedu, Harvard Business School, UC Berkeley and Stanford on entrepreneurship and education technology.

 

Aydin Mirzaee is Co-CEO of Fluidware where he focuses on building of two great software products: FluidSurveys & FluidReview. Fluidware was established in 2008 and never raised any outside investor funding. Today Fluidware has over 10,000 paying customers from over 70 countries and all walks of life including Fortune 500 companies, Governments, Educational Institutes, Non-profits and associations. The company has been doubling in sales every year since it was established and today employs 50 people in the ByWard Market in Ottawa and New Jersey in the US.

Before Fluidware, Aydin was the co-founder of a mobile 2.0 company and prior to that a software developer at Nortel. Aydin also serves as treasurer for a local non-profit organization for entrepreneurs called Fresh Founders. 

Products:

http://FluidSurveys.com – Online Survey Software at its Best
http://FluidReview.com – Online Submission Management
http://Fluidware.com – Enterprise software for the web that helps your data flow

 

For the past 12 years Adam has been relentlessly studying the principles of success.  Searching for answers to questions like, why are the top 1% so much more successful?  Why do certain people who appear to have no advantages in life achieve so much, while others achieve so little?  How does one cultivate the habit of success, in their personal life, work life and in their health?  He has demonstrated his ability to find these answers in every situation he has been put into.  With 12 years’ experience in the sales and of those 7 in management of sales professionals he has vast depth in working with all aspect of business.  From HR issues to accounting and cash flow, Adam, has come across all of them and found innovative ways to solve each challenge he has been faced with.  At a young age, Adam, learned he had two real passions in life, Sales and Teaching. 

Albert Qian is a Social Media Consultant, Founder of Networking Takes Heart, and is the author of The Social Media Ecosystem. He believes that social media has the ability to connect us, utilize the power of human potential, and advance society forward. Albert hails originally from The Silicon Valley where he has lived for his entire life and has a B.S in Commerce with a concentration in Management Information Systems from Santa Clara University.

Duncan Stewart is an engaging, energetic speaker and visionary, an advocate for trends that provide companies with the insight they need to plan for the future. Part of Deloitte’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) executive team, Duncan co-authors one of Deloitte’s premier publications: TMT Predictions.

With more than two decades of experience in the TMT industry, Duncan provides management consulting about what’s going to happen next – a key strategic driver for manufacturers, banks and retailers.

As an analyst and portfolio manager, Duncan has provided research or made investments in the Canadian technology and telecommunications sector, winning the Canadian Technology Fund Manager of the Year award in its inaugural year.

 

As Vice President at Wavefront, Hélène Joncas brings more than 20 years experience in innovation driven organizations in the private and not-for-profit sectors to bear in accelerating the growth of Canadian wireless SMEs.   Prior to Wavefront, Ms Joncas was Chief Strategy Officer at CANARIE where she formed programs driving innovation & commercialization in Canada. She has also founded two start-ups in the wireless space, imGenie and SIPquest (now CounterPath). While at Nortel, she held senior roles in the Wireless line of business, and had responsibility for the Nortel-Microsoft relationship.  Ms Joncas has an MBA from the University of Ottawa and is the recipient of the Trudeau Medal from the Telfer School of Management – its highest alumni honour.

 

Jeff has been involved in the mobile industry since ‘Snake’ was heralded as an advanced cell-phone game. He has designed, built and shipped hundreds of mobile games across all major mobile platforms. His day jobs at top Ottawa mobile developers Magmic, bitHeads and now Fuel Industries have provided Jeff the opportunity to not just build successful original mobile projects but craft mobile strategy for top brands entering the mobile space. Along-side that work, Jeff has consulted with numerous entrepreneurs and local start-ups to help them build great mobile products and business strategy.

 

For 14 years Rob has been immersed in the middle of the mobile revolution in roles ranging from strategic advisor, board member and coach to VP Operations and President & CEO. In each of the companies that he has been involved with, he’s helped shape strategy, marketing initiatives and product development to extend existing business into the mobile world — or flat out create new businesses leveraging mobile.

Rob’s experience is as diverse as the mobile industry — from a mobile game company targeting consumers to a mobile IT solution targeting enterprises to a video podcast focused on understanding the ins and outs of developing, marketing and selling mobile applications (found at http://www.untether.tv).

Raul F. Chong is a Senior Big Data and Cloud Program Manager and Technical Evangelist based at the IBM Canada Laboratory. He leads the development and design of several offerings for the Information Management (IM) brand of IBM, with the goal of increasing awareness and growing communities around IBM IM products, such as IBM InfoSphere BigInsights, IBM InfoSphere Streams, DB2 database software, IBM Data Studio, InfoSphere Data Architect, and pureQuery technology.
As part of the IM Cloud Computing Center of Competence at the Toronto Lab, Raul leads the development and deployment of projects by the community using DB2 on the Cloud, such as bigdatauniversity.com, and db2oncampus.org.

As a technical evangelist, Raul travels worldwide delivering presentations and workshops targeting customers, IBM business partners and the Academia.

Raul develops and leads the development of collateral material such as articles, books, videos, courses, and DVDs that help educate users in IBM IM products. He has also participated actively in the development of training material and offerings of IBM IM Certification programs.

Raul joined IBM in 1997 and has worked as a consultant, technical support specialist, and Information Developer. Raul has summarized many of his database-related experiences through the years in the first and second editions of the book Understanding DB2—Learning Visually with Examples for which he is the lead author. He has also co-authored the book DB2 SQL PL Essential Guide for DB2 UDB on Linux, UNIX, Windows, i5/OS, and z/OS (ISBN 0131477005), and other books that are part of the Big Data University Book Series.

In his spare time, Raul enjoys playing with his two little daughters. Raul is fluent in Spanish as he was born and raised in Peru, but he keeps some of the Chinese traditions from his grandparents. He also enjoys reading history and archeology books.

 

 

Joshua was one of the first members of the Java Research and Development team at Corel Corp. He joined Beduin Communications in 1998 to develop a personal information manager as part of a suite of applications for Java-enabled devices. After Sun Microsystems’ acquisition of Beduin, Joshua worked on the team building an XHTML Basic browser and MIDP 2.0. At Magmic Joshua leads a team of world-class software engineers producing sophisticated mobile application development tools and next-generation mobile entertainment applications.

 

As a thought leader in the area of human resources, Margo has been invited to speak on many occasions about leading edge HR principles and practices for small and medium sized enterprises as well as emerging and growing companies. Margo is a regular speaker including  the HR Best Practices and the Entrepreneurship 101 series at the MaRS Discovery District in Toronto.  Margo has also been recognized as a human resources leader in Ottawa.  As the recipient of the prestigious Vision Award’s, Human Resources Professional of the Year, and as co-founder of one of Ottawa’s most successful start up companies and founder of the Business Sherpa Group, she is a business leader who has been sought out to advise, lecture and speak on a variety of business and human resources topics.   Margo also has 25 years of corporate HR experience and Board experience in education, not-for-profit, NGO and technology organizations.   She brings sports leadership experience as former President and Board member of Nakkertok Nordic, one of Canada’s largest X-country ski clubs. Margo holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Carleton University and Master of Business Administration Degree from the University of Ottawa.

 

Helen Braiter, Director, Build in Canada Innovation Program (BCIP)

Helen Braiter has been with PWGSC for 15 years and is the Director of the Build in Canada Innovation Program (BCIP) in the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises and Strategic Engagement (OSME-SE).  The BCIP is a new $40 million program which aims to promote innovation and support Canadian business development.  It was announced in Budget 2010 and made permanent in Budget 2012 with the addition of a military procurement component. 

An environmental engineer by training, Helen has worked in many areas within the Acquisitions Branch of PWGSC including policy, risk management and supplier engagement.  She was recently awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for fostering a culture of innovation in the government and for supporting innovative Canadian  businesses.

 

Gemvara Founder and Chairman of the Board Matt Lauzon, and currently an EIR at Matrix Partners, started Gemvara as an undergraduate at Babson College and officially launched the company in 2010.

While earning his B.S. in Business Management at Babson College, Matt and a fellow classmate co-founded Paragon Lake in 2006, a platform developed to streamline the manufacturing process for independent retail jewelry stores across the country. The company installed computer kiosks inside jewelry retailers so customers could virtually create tailored pieces otherwise not kept in stock by the retailer. The idea won him $500,000 in seed capital from Highland Capital Partners.

After discovering that customers were much more excited about the experience of customizing from home,  Matt reworked his business plan to focus exclusively on online customization, a direct-to-consumer model.  Then in 2010, Matt transformed Paragon Lake into what Gemvara is today, a direct-to-consumer, online retailer of customizable fine jewelry. With a vision that entails combining the rational aspects of a purchase with the emotional, Matt’s unique “meCommerce” approach is providing jewelry lovers a seamless online shopping experience that encapsulates a physical product that is uniquely you.

As the founder of the brand, Matt has secured four rounds of funding totaling over $51M in financing from Highland Capital Partners, Canaan Partners, Balderton Capital and Norwest Venture Partners. He is one of the only company founders in the New England area, under age 30, to obtain VC funding in the past five years. Matt has also been named to Inc. Magazine’s 2011 “30 under 30” list, BusinessWeek’s “Top Entrepreneurs Under the Age of 25”, and the honor of being named an Entrepreneur in Residence at MIT.

Today, Gemvara is the revolutionary leader of fine jewelry shopping online. Jewelry lovers and gift givers now have access to 29 different gemstones, 9 precious metals, and thousands of styles to create a one-of-a-kind piece that captures their personal story or unique inspiration. Every piece of heirloom-quality jewelry is skillfully handcrafted to order in the USA.  Headquartered in Boston’s financial district with additional offices in New York City, the company provides 24/7-customer care, a 101-day return policy, free shipping, free engraving, and free ring sizing. Gemvara combines the values of traditional jewelry creation with modern technology to truly provide shoppers with fine jewelry exactly the way they want it, always.

When Matt’s not focusing on business, he enjoys spending time fishing in his home state of Maine, giving back to the tech community, and drinking coffee milk ,while watching Gemvara’s online customer chats as if it’s a spectator sport. His favorite gemstone is green tourmaline.

 

Coreen Bouchard is the business owner and CEO of PureLogic IT Solutions, an IT VAR focusing on commercial and Federal Government organizations. Coreen started PureLogic on her own in 2008 and in 5 short years, has grown the company to 12 employees, including a Sales team, a Marketing & Accounting department, and a Managing Partner. In 2010, she was awarded the prestigious Forty under 40 award, and in 2011, PureLogic garnered a nomination as Most Promising Start-Up at the OCRI awards. In 2012, thanks to Coreen’s superior business knowledge and over 12 years’ experience in the IT Industry, she led PureLogic to be awarded the Ottawa Business Journal’s ‘Fastest Growing Company in Ottawa’. Coreen is a member of CITPA, OCRI, and TEC CANADA and has been invited to be a speaker at many events through these organizations. Her community involvement through PureLogic spans from raising money for the Operating Rooms at CHEO, to the United Way, to sponsorship of men’s and women’s recreational sports. In her spare time, Coreen enjoys skiing, playing soccer, and spending time with her husband and new baby boy at their home in Carleton Place, Ontario.

 

 

 

Dr. Nishith Goel is the CEO of Cistel Technology, a technology consulting company he founded in 1995 which has operations in Canada and the U.S. A veteran technology executive and a service entrepreneur, Nishith also co-founded CHiL Semiconductor, IPine Networks and Sparq Systems. After his early education in India, Nishith earned his MASc in Electrical Engineering (1978) and PhD in Systems Design Engineering (1983) from the University of Waterloo. He began his professional career at Bell Northern Research in Ottawa in 1984 before moving on to Northern Telecom in 1988. He has served on the boards of various technology companies and community organizations.

 

 

 

Alex Berlin, AFORE President & CEO since founding the company in 2003, is a successful business leader with a proven track record in developing and monetizing innovative networking, virtualization and security products. Prior to AFORE, Alex held a number of senior management and executive roles with high tech companies in both Canada in Europe including Marconi Communications, Nortel Networks and Telrad Networks. Alex was a co-founder of Ambercore Software Inc. (big data analytics), where he served as a Chairman from 2004 to 2007 and played a key role in initial product incubation and securing Angel and VC rounds of funding.

 

 

 

 

Rainer Paduch has a proven and successful track record as a serial entrepreneur, leader and manager.  Rainer has over 30 years of in-depth business management and team building experience as well as expertise in internet operations, software design, telecommunications and data networking. Rainer is currently a local Ottawa angel investor, founder of the Band of Scoundrels Investment Partnership and a co-founder of the Ottawa Angel Alliance.  He has also served as a Director or Chairman on the boards of various technology companies in the Ottawa area.

Rainer was the founder of iSTAR Internet Inc. where he served as President, Chief Technology Officer and Vice Chairman. He successfully led iSTAR from start-up to rapid growth and through IPO.  PSINet Inc acquired iSTAR in 1998. 

He holds an Honors Bachelor of Engineering and a Masters of Engineering from McGill University in Montreal.

 

 

 

 

·         Serial Entrepreneur with five successful high technology start-ups. Currently on his 5^th start up. Chairman of Whodini Inc. – developing cutting edge software for enterprises, utilizing Artificial Intelligence and Computer linguistics.

·         Chairman of the TIE Global Board of Trustees. TiE is the world’s largest organization of entrepreneurs with over 15 members in 61 cities across 18 countries.

·         Was one of the first Indian-Americans to take a company public on NASDAQ.

·         Member of the prestigious GOOSE Society (The Grand Order of Successful Entrepreneurs). Founded by Silicon Valley legend Dr. Jack Gill and Compaq founder Rod Canion, membership is by invitation only and is limited to 11 members.

·         In 2007, was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award for Entrepreneurial achievement from his alma mater Marquette University.

·         Received the 2008 APAHA George H. W. Bush award for Arts Achievement.

·         Received the 2007 Literacy Advancement Award for his contributions to the advancement of Math and Science in the Houston School District.

·         Was selected as one of the top 100 South Asians in America in the book “Lights of South Asia” by the publication “Roshni”.

·         As CEO of Excalibur Pictures, produced four award winning feature films, released in 2008/09. “My Faraway Bride”, “Before the Rains” and “The Lost Tribe” had successful runs in theaters worldwide – now available on DVD.

·         Angel Investor in 6 high-tech startups.  On the Boards of several private & public companies, and Universities.

·         From 2004 to 2007, was Chairman of Opelin Inc., an online data backup system and software. Sold to HP in 2007.

·         From 2000 to 2003, was CEO of Prime Wave Communications, a broadband wireless access technology start-up. In 2003, sold his interest & retired.

·         Founder & CEO Trex Communications Corporation.  Founded in Dec 1997 and in the Satellite Communications business.  Sold TrexCom to L3 in March 2000.

·         President of the North-American operations of Houston-based Enron Corp. 1996/1997.  Grew revenues from $300 mm in 96, to $2 bb in 1997.

·         Founded Midcom Communications in 1990.  As CEO and founder, grew the company into one of the 10 largest long distance carriers with $250 million in annual revenues, culminating in a successful IPO in July 1995. One of the first Indians to take a company public in the US on NASDAQ.

·         Professional speaker:  Motivational and Keynote speaker at numerous Global Conferences,, Universities, Fortune 500 companies and various trade organizations.

·         On the Board of the Jones Business School of Rice University.

·         Guest lecturer at Rice University, U of H, Franklin Pierce University and USC. From 98-02 was a Trustee & Board Member of Franklin Pierce University.

·         Founded ASCENT, the largest trade association for the long distance & wireless industry with over 1,000 member companies.  Was Chairman for its first 2 years.

·         BS in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Delhi.  MS from Marquette University. Diploma in Financial Management from the London School of Economics.

·         Married to Sheela, 2 children; hobbies include golf, guitar, photography, poetry and various charitable organizations. 

 

 

 

Marc Gagné is a Senior Technical Evangelist at Microsoft Canada with a passion for startups, the cloud & the web. Before embarking on this chapter of his career he worked at a startup in his hometown of Ottawa, Ontario trying to solve the big data & analytics problem. This isn’t his first time with Microsoft though, having worked in Dublin, Ireland & Redmond, Washington as a developer and manager on a number of great projects.

 

Nazim Ahmed is an entrepreneur, the Co-Founder of both CanvasPop and DNA11, and specializes at scaling bootstrapped companies.  With a focus on long-term vision, an emphasis on company culture, an obsessive approach to customer service and a relentless drive to re-invent his companies, Nazim helped turn DNA 11 and CanvasPop into global e-commerce leaders in the digital art space.  Both companies now serve over 200,000 customers in over 30 countries.  Nazim holds an honours degree in molecular genetics from the University of Western Ontario, is a recipient of the Top 40 under 40 award from the Ottawa Business Journal, and previously held positions in sales and business development for Bio-Rad Laboratories, a Global leader in the field of biotechnology.

 

Stephen is a Visiting Professor at the University of Ottawa and the Telfer School of Management’s Entrepreneur in Residence.  He is also the founder of Agawa Entrepreneurship Development Corporation which works in the area of entrepreneurship strategy and program development helping colleges, universities and communities build programs to support entrepreneurs.

Previous to Agawa, Stephen led the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation’s Entrepreneurship Centre as Executive Director leading a team of staff members dedicated to helping entrepreneurs succeed.

 

 

Theresa Laurico is the founder of SociaLIGHT and executive producer of the annual SociaLIGHT Conference which hosts over 1,000 entrepreneurs nationally with past speakers and contributors like Sir Richard Branson, Tony Hsieh, Seth Godin and Mastin Kipp.
Laurico is the 2012 Toronto Lean Startup Machine winner and nominated by the Toronto Board of Trade for Business Excellence “Startup of the Year.”
Laurico has been featured in the Huffington Post, TechVIBES and PROFIT regarding lean principles and application. Seen as an expert in the startup and social innovation space, Laurico’s focus embodies media, systemic leadership, entrepreneurship and empowerment for positive global impact.

 

 

John leads the Product Research and Analytics team at BNOTIONS, an award-winning strategic innovation firm in Toronto. There, he focuses on helping organizations of all sizes think like start-ups. He works with clients across a variety of verticals including retail, non-profit, telecoms and major financials, advising them on how best to use technology to accomplish their goals.

Prior to BNOTIONS, John worked in a Product role at Jugnoo, a Toronto Social CRM company. There, he was a conduit between investors, clients, and the product development team. He also played a valuable role in their Series A raise. When John isn’t working, you can find him golfing, playing NHL 95, or cheering on his beloved Montreal Canadiens.

 

 

 

Chris is a software and communications executive with 22 years’ experience in financial, operational and strategic management positions. Chris currently operates Face Strategic, a consulting firm that provides digital marketing and social media consulting services. Previously, Chris was Founder and CEO of dna13, a software company sold in early 2010 to PR Newswire. As CEO of dna13 he developed extensive operational and business planning experience having raised north of $11M in venture capital. At dna13, Chris focused on delivering value through a highly metrics-driven approach.

During his tenure at dna13, Chris consulted with some of the world’s largest organizations including; Starbucks, RBC, MasterCard and Wal-Mart. He has spoken on the topic of brand and reputation management across North America, Europe and the Middle East.

Prior to founding dna13, Chris played senior management roles in both software and technology organizations. Experience includes corporate strategy and communications for Bell Canada. In addition, Chris helped launch Bell Actimedia; a partnership between Sympatico and American Internet giant Lycos (eventually acquired by Yellow Pages Group).

Chris has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Mass Communications from Carleton University’s

School of Journalism.

 

 

 

D-TA Systems – Founded in 2007, this company is set up to serve the growing Defence ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance) market with solutions that not only advances the state-of-the-art but also drastically cut the deployment time and cost. Dr. Roy has spent a significant amount of his personal resources to position the company for substantial growth in the US and International markets. The company now has 20 fulltime staff, with 4 PhDs and others with masters in Engineering and MBA degrees.

 

 

 

Dragan Veljovic is the Managing Director of Fontana NBG, LLP, US based real estate investment firm. Prior to founding Fontana NBG, he was the CEO of WelchGroup, management consulting firm specializing in helping entrepreneurs create sellable businesses.

His most successful venture was founding and managing Maplesoft Consulting in 1996, and growing it by 30% annually to $28M of revenue in 2008, when he sold it.

With Master’s Degree in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering background, Dragan spent his career in Asia, Europe and North America delivering IT solutions and management consulting with Accenture and Unisys Corporation.

 

 

 

Joyce leads the Community Development of B Corps in Canada and also explores the world of impact metrics that help lead to more impact investment.  Her previous life included eight years at KPMG as a Manager of Assurance Services in the Consumer Markets Group. In her role, she focused on leading audits of manufacturing and retail clients throughout North America and participated as a recruiting manager for campus talent attraction.  She also spent time in South America as a volunteer advisor to a local entrepreneur in Chile through the Endeavor Global program.  Joyce is a partner at Social Venture Partners Toronto (SVPT) and serves on the Investment Committee as well as on the Advisory Team to selected investees.  She holds a BComm from Queens University and is a Chartered Accountant (CA).

 

 

Nish Acharya is currently a Principal at Equal Innovation, LLC, a strategy consulting and investment Group working with universities, governments, foundations and companies to assist them with innovation, entrepreneurship and globalization strategies. He is currently advising Northeastern University on its global education strategy and is a Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress.

Nish just left the Obama Administration, where he was appointed by President Obama as the Director of Innovation & Entrepreneurship and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Commerce, where he led the President’s efforts to nurture economic growth through innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialization. As part of his work, Nish managed the President’s National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship – a group of nationally known investors, entrepreneurs and university presidents. Nish also engaged with twenty-six federal agencies to provide over $100 million in funds to universities, research centers and companies to increase the commercialization of federally-funded research. He engaged with over 500 universities and colleges across the United States to boost their programs supporting innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialization. Prior to joining Commerce, Nish served as Executive Director of the Deshpande Foundation, a prominent American philanthropy focused on innovation, entrepreneurship and scalability around the world. Nish led the Foundation’s strategic planning, grant making, evaluation and advocacy efforts. Under his leadership, the Foundation’s “Sandboxes” – centers of innovation and entrepreneurship have become a leading international model for regional economic development. During his tenure, the Foundation created a Sandbox in India, which supported innovation and entrepreneurs to reach over one million people. Nish has also led the Foundation’s venture philanthropy, working to help scale Indian NGO’s like Akshaya Patra and Agastya and the United Way throughout India. It also created Sandboxes to boost the economies of the Merrimack Valley cities of Lowell, MA and Lawrence, MA and New Brunswick, Canada.

Nish serves as a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bretton Woods Committee, The Indus Entrepreneurs, and the Clinton Global Initiative. He also served as a Board member of Akshaya Patra USA and the United Way Worldwide Global Advisory Board.

Nish also served five years as a Presidential Appointee in the Clinton Administration, where he worked with the Administrator and Deputy Administrator of the US Agency for International Development for USAID programs in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, and has worked for Education Secretary Richard Riley and as Associate Director of Scheduling & Advance for the President.

Nish has a Master’s in Public Administration from George Washington University; and a BS in Political Science from Northeastern University and is a graduate of an MIT Sloan School of Management Executive Program. He has been quoted in many major

publications, including the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Asian Week, the Times of India, the Economic Times, the Financial Times, Newsweek, BCC and NPR.

 

Dr. Kalai Kalaichelvan founded EION in 2001, and has since grown the business to become a world leader in IP software and wireless networking solutions. He was the Chairman and co-founder of iPine Networks prior to its acquisition by Nakina Systems. Dr. Kalaichelvan brings over 20 years of experience in the communications industry in business and technology leadership. For his entrepreneurial innovation, CATA Alliance and National Research Council honored him with Innovator of the Year 2004 Award. He is currently the only Canadian member on the Advisory Board of Samsung Electronics, Seoul, Korea.

Prior to founding EION, he held the position of Vice President in Nortel Networks in the wireless and carrier networking division. Dr. Kalai Kalaichelvan holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. from the University of Toronto.

 

 

 

Paul Brent is Senior Communications Strategist at the Almonte-based market2world communications Inc. a public relations and product marketing resource for global innovators. The company promotes knowledge-based products and services with clients in Ontario, across Canada and the United States. Prior to market2world Paul enjoyed more than 30 years as an award-winning broadcast journalist. From 2001 to 2011 he was CTV’s technology specialist, covering the technology industry in his popular weekly Tech Now program. His awards include Canada’s Technology and Science Reporter of the Year.

 

 

 

Teri Kirk is the Founder and CEO of The Funding Portal,Canada’s national bilingual e-commerce platform and one-window gateway to improve access to government funding and private financing. The Portal aggregates more than 7,000 sources of funding within a free searchable database—more than 4,500 government sources and 2,500 private sources—representing more than $30 billion in available funding for your business, hospital, university, charity or non-profit.

Teri holds a Juris Doctor from Osgoode Hall Law School and a Masters in Public Administration from Queen’s University. A former VP of Business Development within Bell Canada, Teri has more than 25 years’ experience as a lawyer, executive, investor and entrepreneur.

Teri is a regular commentator in national media, including the Globe & Mail, the Financial Post, and BNN, and is often quoted on funding opportunities and policy issues in the Canadian marketplace.

 

 

A Global Shaper selected by the World Economic Forum, Vinod is Executive Director and Co-Founder of HUB Ottawa. Part of the global HUB network spanning 40 cities, HUB Ottawa is a coworking community, learning academy and incubator optimized for people, projects and organizations bettering the world. As one of Canada’s largest coworking spaces driving social innovation, HUB Ottawa includes 250+ members working in 30+ disciplines including: arts and culture, sustainability, design, technology, education, marketing, green energy and more.

Vinod believes the future of learning,knowledge creation, and innovation is through collaboration. He has a history of developing and executing learning programs and shared value strategies in not-for-profit, philanthropic, private and social enterprise sectors.

Vinod is a recipient of The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his contribution to Canada. He was recently appointed to the Advisory Council of Imagine Canada, and Chairs the World Economic Forum project “What has Social Innovation Done for You Lately?”. His background includes a B.Eng. in Aerospace Engineering from Carleton University and a M.Sc. in Public Policy from the University of Bristol in the UK.

 

Éric Dagenais is currently Director General, Small Business Branch in Industry Canada.

His responsibilities include the development of policies and programs addressing the development of small businesses throughout Canada.

Between 2009 and 2010, Éric served as Director General, MacKenzie Gas Project Office, at Environment Canada. He was responsible for coordinating federal government actions, including negotiations regarding financial support for the project.

Between 2007 and 2009, Éric served as Director General, Investment Review and Strategic Planning Branch, Industry Canada. He was responsible for the Administration of the Investment Canada Act.

Prior to 2007, Mr. Dagenais held various positions with Industry Canada and the Privy Council Office.

Éric holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Ottawa and a Masters in Economics from Carleton University.

 

 

Jaswinder Kaur is the Director of the Canada India Centre at Carleton University. She has over 15 years experience in climate change, IT communications, entrepreneurship development and venture investment. From 2006 – 2011, Jaswinder was based in Delhi, India as Managing Director for the Cleantech Group, a provider of cleantech investment advisory services and as Executive Director of the Indian Venture Capital Association (IVCA).  Before moving to India, Jaswinder was a co-Founding Partner at Venture Coaches, an Ottawa-based early stage venture capital fund. This followed an extensive career building a marketing and operations background working at leading telecommunications companies such as Nortel Networks, Cambrian Systems and CrossKeys Systems. She has also been a sessional lecturer at the Sprott School of Business, mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs.

 

 

James Watson is the Global Program Director for Village Capital, and has launched and managed several domestic and international VillageCapital programs. Prior to Village Capital, James taught Entrepreneurship, Accounting, Economics, Mathematics, and founded a music program at the Ben Franklin Academy. He currently serves on the board of the Atlanta Music Project, and recently completed Level 3 of the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) program. James graduated from the University of St Andrews in Scotland with a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics, upon graduation was awarded the Robert T. Jones Memorial Scholarship for postgraduate study at Emory University.

 

 

Driven and motivated sales and marketing professional, with deep expertise in product marketing and e-marketing including social media strategy and digital media marketing. Known as a skilled strategic leader who develops effective integrated marketing campaigns with efficiency while working to ensure the business objectives of the corporate structure are fulfilled. Strong and enthusiastic team player with a fierce work ethic and continuous ability to learn through conferences, networking and mentors. Prior account executive and agency marketing experience provides unique capabilities and a thorough understanding of client and cross functional relationships to deliver successful results.

 

 

 

Suneet Singh Tuli is the founder and CEO of DataWind Ltd., responsible for its overall vision, strategy and execution.  He has 23 years of experience as a serial entrepreneur, having previously launched two successful companies that conducted Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) on the NASDAQ stock market.  At DataWind and previous ventures, patented technologies were created to develop scanning, printing and imaging products that set world records in both price and performance.  The innovative products and technologies created through these ventures have received numerous awards and accolades, including recognition by the Guinness Book of Records.

Most recently, DataWind’s Aakash/UbiSlate tablets have received worldwide attention, as the Company executes a vision to empower the next 3 billion people with computing and internet access.  On November 28th, 2012, DataWind’s Aakash2 tablet computer was launched at the United Nations by the Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon.

Suneet has been recognized by Forbes magazine in its 2012 Impact 15 list as a “classroom revolutionary” using innovative technologies to reinvent education globally.   He has also been recognized as the entrepreneur of the year for 2012 at the World Sikh Awards.

DataWind has been awarded:

•           UK’s Most Innovative Mobile Company for 2012 by UK Trade & Investment

•           The Technology Achievement Award by the Indo Canadian Chamber of Commerce

•           CNBC TV 18‘s Young Turks Innovation award

•           For Contributions to Technology and Education by the Indo-US Chamber of Commerce

and has been finalist at the Mobile World Congress for Innovation in Education and at the CTIA Wireless Show for the BiG Idea award.

Suneet regularly speaks about social innovation at various forums internationally.  He has been a keynote speaker at TiEcon Southwest 2012, at the Indo-US Chamber’s annual conference and at the Darpan awards.  In addition to speaking at numerous universities, Suneet has also spoken at the Internet Freedom Conference in Stockholm, the Beyond Access conference in Washington D.C. and the Digital World conference in Dhaka.

Suneet graduated in 1990 with a Bachelors of Applied Science in Engineering from the University of Toronto.

 

 

As the CEO of TiE Global, P.K. oversees the development of programs and supports the goals of TiE chapters worldwide to advance the TiE mission of promoting entrepreneurship through mentoring, networking and education. In his prior role, P.K. was the Chief Technology Officer of the State of California since 2005. During his tenure, he successfully consolidated multiple independent IT organizations, saving taxpayers over $60 million; and helped create an enterprise IT operation consisting of 800 professionals. As a national speaker on IT issues, he has spread the message of innovation with thought-provoking insights into the future of technology and the shape of things to come. He has over 25 years of experience in government technology, spanning both the public and private sectors. Previously, he held positions of Vice President at ACS Inc. and Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer for NIC Inc. He started his professional career as a management consultant for EDS Corporation. P.K. has a Bachelor’s in Engineering from IIT, New Delhi, and Masters Degrees from California State University, Sacramento and University of California, Berkeley. He is a sought-after speaker on IT, social media, embracing the next generation and doing business with Government.