Past Speakers

STAY TUNED FOR 2013 HPX DIGITAL SPEAKERS AND SESSIONS.
EXPLORE 2012 SPEAKERS BELOW.

ALEXIS OHANIAN
AMBER MAC
ANDREW BURKE
ATLEY HUNTER
BILL WILSON
BOYD NEIL
BRIAN MEECE
CHARLIE WHITNEY
CHRIS KEEVIL
CHRIS PINK
COLIN NICKERSON
DANIEL BERKAL
DANIEL SCHUTZSMITH
DAVID BRABEN
DAVID CROW
DON PITTS
DUNCAN MCKIE
FARIS YAKOB
JAMES EVERETT
JAMES WHITE
JASON NICKEL
JEFF MACARTHUR
JEFF STOCKHAUSEN
JESSE SCOTT
JEVON MACDONALD
JOHN ARNOLD
JOHN ATKINS
JONATHAN BURNS
KATHRYN TECTOR
KURT KRUMME
KYLE MCDONALD
LEONARDO DELL’ANNO
MAVIS HUNTLEY
PAUL RYAN
PATRICK KEEFE
PEARL CHEN
PHIL GIROUX
RICCARDO GIRALDI
ROB O’QUINN
ROSIE SIMAN
RYAN FITZGERALD
SAUL COLT
STACEY MULCAHY
TONY WALSH
TOON NAGTEGAAL
ZANDER BRIMIJOIN

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ALEXIS OHANIAN

CO-FOUNDER OF REDDIT AND STARTUP INVESTOR (NYC)

@Alexisohanian | Website | Without Your Permission

Alexis Ohanian is a startup founder and investor in Brooklyn, NY. After graduating from UVA in 2005, Alexis and his co-founder Steve Huffman started reddit, which has become one of the most popular social news websites online.

After leaving his full-time position at reddit, Alexis focused on his social enterprise Breadpig. Described as a “Newman’s Own for nerds,” Breadpig publishes books featuring some of the most popular webcomics in the world (like XKCD and SMBC), and produces other geeky novelties like Awesomesauce and LOLmagnetz. The non-sustainable profits are donated to worthy causes. In 2010, Alexis helped launch hipmunk, the most agony-free way to search for a flight or hotel. He ran the marketing/pr/community for hipmunk’s first year before moving to an advisory role and joining the fight against SOPA & PIPA.

These days, Alexis is an investor with over fifty tech startups in his portfolio, he sits on the board of reddit inc., is Y Combinator’s Ambassador to the East, co-founder of the non-profit IHAS, and he’s writing a book called Without Your Permission, set to launch in 2013. Along the way, Alexis spoke at TED, spent 3 months living in Yerevan, Armenia as a Kiva Fellow, and was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30.

Session: Internet FTW Keynote

AMBER MAC

PRESIDENT, KONNEKT CREATIVE DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT

@Ambermac | Website

Amber Mac is a technology host, journalist, and strategist. She writes a regular column for The Globe & Mail. She has worked as a technology TV host with tech guru Leo Laporte on G4TechTV, hosting/producing more than 500 episodes of a popular how- to call in show. She now hosts a live TV show called Webnation on Toronto’s number one news station.

She has spearheaded two successful podcasts, net@night on the popular San Francisco TWiT.tv network and commandN.tv. She speaks exclusively with The Lavin Agency at keynotes across North America about how to use social media to build community and customer loyalty online. In June 2010, Amber launched her first book about how to use social media to grow your business. Power Friending was published by Portfolio/Penguin in New York and is now a Globe & Mail bestseller.

As the Miami Herald said in their review of the book, “Amber Mac is a virtual Swiss Army Knife of networking: she displays an endless amount of enthusiasm and energy that nearly crackles off the page. More importantly, she demonstrates a deep and practical understanding of the necessity of extending one’s personal and professional presence online.”

Amber currently manages a production and new media company called Konnekt. Her clients include world- renowned speaker Tony Robbins, Rogers, Discovery Channel, Microsoft, Canada Goose, American Dental Association, among others.

Session: Social Media for Entrepreneurs: Amber Mac’s 7 Steps to Success

SOFTWARE DEVELOPER AND ENTREPRENEUR (HALIFAX)

Andrew Burke is a Halifax-based software developer and entrepreneur. After many years as a freelance Ruby on Rails developer, working for clients like The Beer Store (Ontario) and Toronto-based startup ClearFit, he has recently started developing his own iOS apps as well. Recent projects include “Remembary”, a social-media connected diary app that has been featured in the App Store worldwide, several interactive eBooks, and the parody photoblog site starshipsstarthere.ca, which received nationwide coverage in late 2011.

Session: Mobile Stuff We’de Like to Build and Use More Of (Panel)

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ATLEY HUNTER

MOBILE DEVELOPER (TORONTO)

@atleyhunter | Website

Atley Hunter is a passionate mobile developer with over 15 years’ experience. As one of the most prolific developers for the platform, he has more than 100 apps developed. He has also created the Lazy Library which promotes even faster app development on the already short development time of .NET. Always exhibiting a driving passion for technology and software development, Atley enjoys sharing his experience with others.

Session: Building Mobile Apps That Don’t Suck: Designing for Mobile

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BILL WILSON

FOUNDER, MINDSEA (HALIFAX)

@wdrwilson | Website

Bill specializes in building smart, productive teams that translate brands into meaningful uses of mobile technology. He has 16 years of experience in the entire software lifecycle, including sales, business analysis, project management and delivery. Bill has helped clients adapt to changing technology in contexts ranging from aerospace to home computing to social media and smartphones. High reliability, creativity and effective collaboration are the hallmarks of Bill’s work. In 2007, Bill founded MindSea Development, an agile team of creative and technical minds, focused on delivering mobile solutions for clients across North America.

Session: Mobile Stuff We’de Like to Build and Use More Of (Panel)

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BOYD NEIL

NATIONAL PRACTICE LEADER, SOCIAL MEDIA AND DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS, H+K STRATEGIES (TORONTO)

@boydneil | Website

Boyd Neil is a senior executive with an international communications consultancy who has spent more than 25 years providing counsel on corporate reputation, issues management and crisis communication. He was recently asked to lead the firm’s national social media and digital communications practice given his belief that the social web is a communications game changer. Before becoming a management consultant, he was a magazine journalist and spent four years as a theater and dance critic for a variety of journals . . . experiences which inform his consulting and writing. Besides a busy consulting practice, he teaches courses in social media and in reputation management at a university in Eastern Canada.

Session: Turning Slacktivism Into Online Activism

BRIAN MEECE

CO-FOUNDER & CEO, ROCKETHUB (NYC)

@rockethub | Website

Brian Meece plays a mean ukulele and is the CEO of RocketHub, one of the world’s top crowdfunding platforms. He has lectured on crowdsourced funding at SXSW, NXNEi, TEDxBrooklyn, Makers Faire, The Recording Acadamey, Columbia University, NYU, among other colleges, conferences and institutions. His goal? To teach entrepreneurs and artists how to leverage the crowd for funding their endeavors. RocketHub is known as “The World’s Crowdfunding Machine”. The company has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Toronto Star, Wired, Rolling Stone, The Economist, ABC News, USA Today, etc. while helping thousands of funding campaigns raise millions of dollars globally.

Session: The Crowdfunding Manifesto: The New Path to Creative

CHARLIE WHITNEY

CODER/ARTIST/PARTNER, RED PAPER HEART (NYC)

@sharkbox | Website
Charlie Whitney is a media artist and coder living in Brooklyn, New York. Together with three friends formed the collective Red Paper Heart in 2011 in order to explore the gap between physical and digital spaces and bring them closer together. Hailing from a fine art background, Charlie is a very large proponent of story driven interaction and emphasizing emotive response in the most honest ways.

Session: Physical Interfaces & Warm Feelings

CHRIS KEEVIL

PRESIDENT & CEO, COLOUR (HALIFAX)

@keevil | Website

As President & CEO of Colour, Chris understands how business success depends on the right mix of enthusiastic leadership and people who share a vision. In 2010, Colour acquired E3 Marketing and opened a thriving office in Toronto. In May 2012, Keevill launched Colour Social with partner Duri Alajrami. In August 2012, Keevill and partner Craig Rennick launched Connex Networks, the first online exchange for social media influencer outreach. Chris was previously the President of Aliant Broadband, where he also had corporate responsibility for marketing and brand. Prior to his role at Aliant, Chris was President of the email marketing company FloNetwork in Toronto, with offices throughout the US. FloNewtork was funded by Ventures West and Mclean Watson and was a successfully sold to DoubleClick for 75 million. Chris was founder and President of New North Media, a joint venture between NBTel and Nortel.

Session: Business. Plan for Success (Panel)

CHRIS PINK

STUDIO HEAD, FRONTIER DEVELOPMENTS (HALIFAX)

@thereallost | Website

Chris Pink heads up the new Halifax studio for English developer Frontier Developments and is a veteran of over three decades in the games industry including the last decade as the Technical Director for HB Studios. He has been involved in over 40 titles including the innovative Baller Beats, FIFA, Madden and N64′s answer to Gran Turismo – World Driver Championship.

Session: Gaming’s New Frontier- Fueled BY A DIY Ethos (Panel)

COLIN NICKERSON

TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, FOURTH MONKEY MEDIA (LUNENBURG)

Website

Colin has been a professional game developer for the past 8 years. He offers a unique perspective as he has contributed to the video game industry from three distinct angles: As a Software Engineer programming AAA titles for Electronic Arts, Konami, and THQ. As a freelancer completing short projects and managing overseas teams, and currently as a Technical Director at local startup Fourth Monkey Media. Console, web, mobile…he has had a hand in it all. With a love of opensource software and hobbyist hardware he welcomes the growing openness and accessibility available to video game developers.

Session: Gaming’s New Frontier – Fuelled by a DIY Ethos (Panel)

WORLD FAMOUS ETHNOGRAPHER (TORONTO)

@danielberkal | Website

Daniel Berkal is the Vice President, Research and a partner at The Palmerston Group. The recipient of the 2011 QRCA Qually for excellence in Qualitative Research, Daniel has worked on some of the most innovative brands in business and is best known for completely immersing himself in consumer environments. With projects featured in Fast Company and Forbes, he’s been called “Hands down, the most unique, thought-provoking and game-changing qualitative researcher in the business. Period.” Most recently, his team was awarded the 2012 Great Mind Award by the Advertising Research Foundation. Daniel holds degrees from McGill University and The University of Texas at Austin

Session: Project Butterfly: Escaping the Net

DANIEL SCHUTZSMITH

CREATIVE DIRECTOR, MARK & PHIL (NYC)

@Schutzsmith | Website | Mark & Phil

Daniel Schutzsmith is a rare breed – a hybrid of equal parts business, design, programming, and strategy – ready to change the world.

He’s the Creative Director and Co-Founder of Mark & Phil, an agency providing fine crafted cause marketing and philanthropic strategy for non-profits and triple-bottom-line focused companies. Prior to that he worked with The Barbarian Group to help define their new biz process and lead strategic pitches for brands like Broadway.com, San Diego Zoo, Rocking Roll Hall of Fame, and New York Life.

Over the past decade he has worked with clients such as Adobe, Greenpeace,CosmoGIRL!, Live Earth, The Pixies, MTV, Phish, Nelson Mandela Foundation, PBS: American Experience, They Might Be Giants, TBS, Pepsicoand Dave Matthews.

Session: Strategies for Pitching New Clients

DAVID BRABEN

CEO AND FOUNDER, FRONTIER DEVELOPMENTS (CAMBRIDGE, UK)

Website

David is CEO and Founder of Frontier Developments, a leading independent videogame software developer employing 230 people in Cambridge in the UK and in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is also co-founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a registered charity making very low cost educational computer equipment (with an ambition to give computers away free to kids in schools), a member of the BAFTA games board, a member of Cambridge Angels VC group, Chairman of the UK government SkillSet approval committee for university Computer Science courses, and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. David and Frontier have released a diverse range of critically acclaimed and award winning global retail disc and app download hits including the seminal Elite (co-authored with Ian Bell), RollerCoaster Tycoon® 3 with Atari; Thrillville with LucasArts, Kinect Disneyland Adventures and the Kinectimals series with Microsoft, and the self-published LostWinds® series on Nintendo Wii and Apple iOS devices.

Session: Creating Creators with Raspberry Pi

DAVID CROW

PRODUCT DEVELOPER AND MARKETER (TORONTO)

@Davidcrow | Website

David has held roles in product design and development and more recently in marketing and business development. He is focused on helping emerging technology companies engage customers, develop and refine technologies, get product feedback and find scaleable business models.

His recent experiences have been focused on enabling a strong community in Toronto and across Canada, so that there is a strong ecosystem of product/SaaS companies to create a strong entrepreneurial density.

Sessions: How to Start a Startup , Busines. Plan For Success (Panel)

DON PITTS

MUSIC PROGRAM MANAGER-CITY OF AUSTIN (AUSTIN)

Don Pitts has more than 25 years of experience in the music and entertainment industry,
community outreach, event planning, marketing and management. His career has been devoted to music, and he’s held nearly every position at every level of the industry.

Don’s career includes sixteen years in Entertainment Relations Division with Gibson
Guitar. During his tenure, he helped organize many live music performances and recording
sessions, secured product placements for TV, video and motion picture advertisements, and
initiated many special events and marketing opportunities on a national level. He developed relationships with premiere talent spanning countless music and entertainment genres.
He has worked on marketing campaigns and strategic alliances for companies like NASCAR,
LIVESTRONG, Anheuser-Busch and more. He opened the Austin office for Gibson and was
instrumental in the Austin Guitar Town Project, a venture that was successful in raising over a half of a million dollars for four Austin non-profits.

In 2009, Don was named the Music Programs Manager of the Austin Music Division, housed
within the Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services Office at the City of Austin. The
Music Division is dedicated to promoting the artistic excellence and cultural diversity of Austin musicians and to creating a sustainable cultural and economic environment for the community that enhances the livability and economic vitality of Austin.

Don is a member of the National Association for Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), he’s
served on the board of Governors for The Recording Academy, Texas Chapter and has devoted
much of his time to a number of organizations that work to enhance the quality of the Austin music/musician experience including: Austin Music Commission, SIMS Foundation, Austin Music Foundation, ME Television, and more.

Session: Silicon Hills: How Austin’s Music Scene Drives Tech

DUNCAN MCKIE

PRESIDENT, FACTOR (TORONTO)

Duncan McKie has been the President of FACTOR, the Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on
Recordings since December of 2010. Prior to this assignment, he enjoyed a broad and distinguished career in association management, while also working in culture, media and market research and regulatory affairs. Duncan was the President of the Canadian Independent Music Association (formerly CIRPA) from 2007 to 2010. He is the Chair of the Advisory Committee on Communications, Marketing and Programming for the National Capital Commission in Ottawa, and was formerly the Co-Chair of the Industry Advisory Committee on Music at the Ontario Media Development Corporation. He is a former Board and Executive Committee member of the Cultural Human Resources Council, and has sat on Boards of the copyright collection societies AVLA and Re:Sound (formerly the NRCC). One time Vice Chairman of POLLARA, one of Canada’s most recognized research firms, he was also a member of
the Board of Puretracks, Canada’s first digital download site for music. He also worked in an executive capacity at the CBC and BBM Bureau of Measurement. Duncan graduated from York University, Toronto, with a BA and MA in Sociology.

Session: Funding Digital Projects – Government & Private Sector Perspectives (Panel)

FARIS YAKOB

INNOVATIVE STRATEGIST (NYC)

@faris | Website

Let us introduce you to Faris Yakob, a strategist and a geek.

Faris was awarded the President’s Prize from the IPA for his thesis on the future of brands and Campaign magazine in the UK said his was one of the top 10 ad blogs in the UK and that he was a Face to Watch, which was nice of them. He writes about brands, media, communications, technology and more for Forbes, Fast Company, The Financial Times, Maxim Magazine, Mediaweek, Contagious Magazine, Media Magazine, Boards Magazine, and AdNews (AUS).

Faris is the chief innovation officer at MDC Partners, a different kind of agency network and is also a co-founder of the mysterious Spies&Assassins, a creative technology boutique. Before that he was EVP Chief Technology Strategist at McCann Erickson New York. Before that he spent five years as the Digital Ninja at Naked Communications, in London, Sydney and New York.

Faris is trying to work out how we communicate in a networked world, how we can make people happy, and how we can make awesome stuff that is useful or entertaining or both.

Session: Proximity is Virtue: Why Location Based Marketing Isn’t Really About Location

JAMES EVERETT

GAME DESIGNER (TORONTO)

James Everett has been a game designer for over 10 years and has shipped games in genres ranging from first person shooters to kart racing to tactical RPGs. He focuses on practical design, getting into the nuts and bolts of implementation to make sure that even the lowest-level inputs work toward creating the desired player experience. James is now tackling the largest challenge of his career as part of the team at the newly formed Ubisoft Toronto studio working as core gameplay designer on Splinter Cell: Blacklist.

Session: Points Don’t Make It A Game! (The Sequel)

JAMES WHITE

DESIGNER, SIGNALNOISE (DARTMOUTH)

@Signalnoise | Website

James White is a Canadian artist and designer based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He is the 1-man wrecking crew behind the Signalnoise Studio where he produces visual artistry for professional and personal projects.

He began his career as a designer in 1998 but started drawing way back in 1981 at the age of 4. His creative path has led to him woking with clients such as Nike, MTV, Google, Wired, VH1, Kevin Smith and more. He enjoys colourful stuff, nerdy things, Bezier points and a good metal song.

Session: Design Renegade , The Secrets of Creation (Panel)

CREATIVE STORYTELLER (HALIFAX)

Website

Jason Nickel is one of the industry’s leading creative technologists specializing in interactive live action video projects. His focus is on merging new and interesting uses of technology with creative storytelling to deliver an exciting mix of engaging entertainment. Personalizing content through mechanisms such as Facebook Connect allows Nickel to captivate audiences in a way that few have experienced before. Nickel’s latest success comes from the Emmy award winning Take This Lollipop, and has received other accolades for work on McDonald’s, Trident, Dr. Pepper, AT&T, and The Cold War Kids which was the first interactive website nominated for an MTV VMA.

Session: Like This Lollipop

JEFF MACARTHUR

CEO, KONNEKT CREATIVE DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT (HALIFAX)

@jeffmacarthur | Website

Jeff MacArthur has been helping organizations develop their digital presence and engage their audiences online for over a decade. Having worked on projects in more than half a dozen countries,Jeff has woven together expertise in user experience, marketing, and content development for clients in the private, public, and non-profit sectors.

Before moving back to Atlantic Canada, Jeff worked in Vancouver with gaming giant Electronic Arts and animation pioneer Mainframe Entertainment (creator of Reboot), and since then has helped clients such as Adobe, Rogers, Tony Robbins, Canada Goose, and many others create and refine their digital marketing solutions. In addition to co-hosting the popular commandN.tv online video series, Jeff has also led marketing and communications work for events such as TEDxHalifax, Nocturne: Art at Night, and Halifax’s Third Wednesday tech/media/marketing meetup.

Sessions: The User Experience of Everything, Evolution of the Web (Panel)

JEFF STOCKHAUSEN

KNOWLEDGE STIMULATION AND WEALTH CREATOR (HALIFAX)

@ainigmati

For over a decade Jeff Stockhausen made a career in Halifax working with and leading companies from small to large, from start-up to late stage. Focusing on satellite-based, sub-sea technologies and big data, he was just as likely to be representing Canada internationally as he was to be running high seas experiments or spying on drug traffickers from space.

Jeff’s passion for philanthropy drew him to the Canadian Cancer Society, of which he now is the incoming Chair. He’s developed print and TV campaigns and shares his free time with charitable causes by applying his business, technology and creative skills.

Currently, Jeff stimulates knowledge and wealth creation for Canada as a Industrial Technology Advisor, where he delivers the National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program. Through strong, personal relationships, Jeff provides business and technology assistance to SMEs at all stages of the growth to help build their innovation capacity.

Funding Digital Projects – Government & Private Sector Perspectives (Panel)

CREATIVE CODER (VANCOUVER)

@jesse_c_scott | Website

Jesse Scott creates and exhibits work in the genre formerly known as new media.

Under various aliases and operating within several artist collectives, he produces work for live performance, for site-specific actions, for listening, for viewing, for reading… His work has spanned the domains of a/v performance, locative media, telematics, improvisational practice, urban projection, installation design, smartphone apps, public workshops, and the written word.

He is the co-founder of the Canadian and German chapters of Graffiti Research Lab, the Berlin and Vancouver incarnations of Processing Cities, and co-runs the memelab, an interdisciplinary arts collective, with his wife Mirae.

He currently teaches creative programming and smartphone development at several universities and media arts centres in Vancouver, and has led workshops all across North America and Europe. He has been the recipient of several awards, grants, artist residencies, and commissions, and has been exhibited extensively throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

Session: Creative Coding Roundup

CO-FOUNDER GOINSTANT, VP SALESFORCE (HALIFAX)

@jevon | Website

Jevon MacDonald is the co-founder of GoInstant, a Halifax-based startup that was acquired by Salesforce earlier this year. He’s been solving problems with code since grade 7, and has founded and operated a half dozen startups since then. He writes at StartupNorth.ca, and as a VP at Salesforce, he’s focused on bringing GoInstant to the next level.

Session: Funding Digital Projects: Government and Private Sector Perspectives (Panel)

JOHN ARNOLD

LEAD BIT FLIPPER, HANDELABRA (HALIFAX)

Website

John Arnold has been in the mobile app development business since 2006 (the glory days of J2ME). Nowadays his focus is on the Apple iOS platform, upon which he has built several successful apps. As the lead technical partner of Handelabra Studio (based in Cleveland, Ohio), John has shipped popular productivity apps (RE.minder), games (Uncle Slam, Expo Bingo) and niche services (GAME.minder). He is based in Halifax, Nova Scotia and runs Island of Doom Software, providing mobile software development and graphic design services.

Session: Mobile Stuff We’de Like To Build and Use More Of (Panel)

JOHN ATKINS

FEARLESS LEADER, JAC (ST. JOHNS, NL)

Website

For over eighteen years, John has taken on all aspects of the industry, from building and maintaining websites to overseeing the servers that host them. Thanks to this, John is an expert in online design, development and marketing strategies, search engine optimization and marketing, social networking, and knowing when a problem needs a little love or a hard boot.

Looking for a new challenge, John started his own marketing firm, JAC, in 2008. To date, he has worked on projects for companies in Canada, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, and the United States – producing work for industries including luxury resorts, oil and gas, ad agencies, newspapers, musicians, and feature films. His work has won national and international awards for its innovative approach and design.

Working from a belief in honesty and transparency, feel free to ask him what exactly he buried in his parent’s backyard so long ago.

Session: Evolution of the Web (Panel)

JONATHAN BURNS

VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES- AD DISPATCH (HALIFAX)

Website

Jonathan Burns is the Vice President of Sales for Ad-Dispatch and Managing Partner for BoostAR. 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 augmented reality holds for marketers and brands. Despite a recession environment, Jon cofounded Pinpoint Training in 2008 and has since grown that company by 700%. While Jon sure knows how to get people enthusiastic about the technology Ad-Dispatch offers, he’s the first to remind his clients that technology without a purpose is pointless. He works tirelessly to strike a balance between the creative use of new technology and strong marketing strategy; because after all, Jon knows that it’s the results that matter most.

Rising in the East: Local Tech Standouts (PANEL)

KATHRYN TECTOR

TEAM LEADER- USER AND RESEARCH STRATEGY, T4G (HALIFAX)

@siftec | Website

Kathryn’s passionate about defining and growing user experience strategy and research services. Her expertise in this area has made it a unique offering within the T4G portfolio. Her work with multi-disciplined marketing and development teams, which includes facilitating and managing user research, strategic planning, usability, and online marketing campaigns, includes brands such as Tourism New Brunswick, Cadillac Fairview, ACTP, Parks Canada, Vancity, Macy’s, Canadian Tire, and more.

Session: Evolution of the Web (Panel)

KURT KRUMME

USER EXPERIENCE CONSULTANT (TORONTO)

@burtbrumme | Website

Kurt Krumme is a User Experience Consultant who’s spent most of the last decade creating web sites and apps for clients ranging from small not-for-profits to billion-dollar companies. These days he gives talks, writes articles and helps clients keep the focus on their users, where it should be.

When he’s not probing the digital frontier, he enjoys incubating food-related businesses and writing about himself in the third person.

Session: Dynamic Instability: Rebooting How You Work

LEONARDO DELL’ANNO

MEDIA ARTIST, ideaBOOST (TORONTO)

A graduate of Humber College’s Film and Television Production program,
Leonardo has produced several shorts and documentaries including the award-
winning documentary short Tyler (2005). Tyler (2005) was recently picked up for
broadcast by the American Documentary Channel. He also produced the award-
winning Broken Lines (2007), a short World War II period piece.

Leonardo is the Manager of Operations & Special Projects at the Canadian
Film Centre (CFC) Media Lab he is also currently the Recruitment Specialist for
ideaBOOST, the CFC Media Lab’s newest signature program. ideaBOOST is
a business and creative-development lab for SMEs and teams looking to build
digital-entertainment properties. Leonardo has also been involved in several
interactive media projects internationally including works displayed at the 01SJ
Digital Arts Festival in San Jose, California and SXSW Interactive Music & Film
Festival 2011 in Austin, Texas.

Leonardo’s recent projects include producing a stop motion music video for
Canadian Jazz artist Ori Dagan for his song Googleable, being part of the
production team on a recent BravoFact! production, Furstenau Mysteries, being
associate producer of the Interactive Musical Web Series, Prison Dancer and
the web series Millions. Last summer he produced his first play, Grounded in
Fantasy, which was funded by crowd-sourcing and debuted at Fringe Toronto
2011. His new play The Mirror was part of the June 2012 Festival St-Ambroise
FRINGE in Montreal.

KYLE MCDONALD

MEDIA ARTIST, (BROOKLYN NY)

@kcimc | Website

Kyle McDonald works with sounds and codes, exploring translation, contextualization, and similarity. With a background in philosophy and computer science, he strives to integrate intricate processes and structures with accessible, playful realizations that often have a do-it-yourself, open-source aesthetic. Presently (Autumn 2011) Kyle is Artist-in-Residence at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, Japan.

Kyle is a regular contributor to open-source arts-engineering initiatives such as OpenFrameworks, having developed a number of extensions which provide connectivity to powerful image processing and computer vision libraries. For the past few years, Kyle has applied these techniques to problems in 3D scene capture, first using structured light techniques, and later with the Microsoft Kinect sensor. Kyle’s camera-based artworks range from the hyper-formal to the tactical and interrogative.

Session: How To Give Everything Away

MAVIS HUNTLEY

ADVERTISING PRODUCTION INTEGRATION (TORONTO)

@mavylala | Website

Mavis is responsible for the integration of production across clients for digital, broadcast and print advertising. She inspires john st. and clients to embrace change and use emerging technologies to create better relationships with consumers. She has spoken at digital forums like NXNE and DX3 and her work has been awarded at global shows like TED, SXSW and the Webby’s. She sits on the ICA Interactive council, leads the Loyalist College Advisory Council and helped renegotiate the collective bargaining agreement with ACTRA. Mavis dreams of opening a Halifax office so she can get back to her niece and nephew before they stop thinking she is cool.

Session: What Makes and Idea Stick?

PAUL RYAN

PRESIDENT, WOOSHII LIMITED (HALIFAX)

@pryan2112 | Website | Blog

Crowd-sourced video and animation, social media monitoring, personnel recruitment, commercial banking, and consultative software sales – in 17 short years, Paul Ryan has done a wide array of work for a variety of interesting organizations. Paul has had the opportunity to work with businesses of all sizes and stages of maturity locally, globally, and across all industry verticals. Regardless of the role, he values the challenge of earning trust, building solid relationships and helping to guide effective business strategies and solutions.

As the President for Wooshii Limited, an on-line video production firm, Paul heads up the North American home base. At its heart, Wooshii is a global community of animation and video creatives. Through crowd-sourcing creative talent, Wooshii makes it easy for buyers to commission video advertising, video marketing, animations, viral videos, website videos and other rich media projects. Wooshii also provides creative professionals the opportunity to win projects producing high-quality video and animation for exciting global organizations.

Away from the office, Paul enjoys time with his wife and five dogs, playing hockey, wearing bow ties, and blogging about music.

Session: Rising in the East: Local Tech Standouts (Panel)

PATRICK KEEFE

VICE PRESIDENT OF INVESTMENT, INNOVACORP (HALIFAX)

@keefepatrick | Website

As vice president of investment at Innovacorp, Patrick oversees seed and early-stage venture capital activities. He also works hands-on with Innovacorp’s portfolio companies to assist them in accelerating their growth, achieving milestones and securing additional financing. also has over 15 years of highly relevant investment and entrepreneurial experience, including independently building a successful Starbucks Coffee business in Atlantic Canada, securing an exclusive license to operate. He opened 11 locations in five cities before they were acquired by Starbucks Corporation in 2008. Previously, Patrick held senior positions with Boston-based venture capital firm Atlas Venture and the Boston Consulting Group, which provides strategic advisory services for leading companies around the world. Patrick holds an M.Phil from Oxford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Funding Digital Projects – Government & Private Sector Perspectives (PANEL)

PEARL CHEN

WEB DEVELOPER (TORONTO)

@androidsNsheep | Website

From HTML to LEDs, or Android to Arduino — Pearl Chen takes on a cross-disciplinary approach to her work. With over 8 years of professional experience in web technologies, Pearl has a body of work that includes Facebook campaigns for Google Chrome, microsites for Nike, and WordPress customizations.

Pearl was most recently the Research & Technology Manager at the CFC Media Lab and is now currently acting as CTO for The Hungry Veg, a startup for vegetarians that she co-founded.

Alongside her web developer work, Pearl also tackles more unusual jobs such as modifying the guts of Nintendo Wii controllers, making vinyl toys talk to her Android device, and holding electronics workshops.

Session: NFC: Thinking Creatively Beyond Mobile Payments

PHIL GIROUX

DIRECTOR OF MOBILE, LIXAR (OTTAWA)

@philgiroux | Website

Phil Giroux leads Lixar Mobile. Phil loves to push innovative thinking through his unorthodox creative style and approach. He’s a veteran in the Mobile games and apps industry having co-founded Magmic Games, and an advisor to mobile/social games companies Sylien Games and GlitchSoft Games, and has been involved first hand in numerous related projects over the last decade.

Session: Mobile Stuff We’de Like to Build and Use More Of

RICCARDO GIRALDI

CREATIVE DIRECTOR, B-REEL (LONDON/NYC)

@Giraz | Website | B-Reel

Riccardo Giraldi is Creative Director at B-Reel in New York. He started his career playing with Lego and is not sure how he ended up working in the digital industry.

Over the years Riccardo developed a strong geek accent and found wild satisfaction in watching his ideas quickly coming to life thanks to computers and the Internet. He loves to understand how things work, programming, interaction design and is now experimenting new ways to offer more tangible-digital experiences.

Riccardo loves getting his left and right brain hemispheres to work together. He worked in Florence, Stockholm, London and New York with companies like unit9, Helpful Strangers, Specialmoves and B-Reel. He covered different roles over the years in his attempt to learn as much as possible concerning what he loves. Unfortunately he keeps falling in love with new disciplines and wonders if this will ever come to an end.

Sessions: Back to the Good Old Tangible World, The Secrets of Creation (Panel)

ROB O’QUINN

SOFTWARE ENGINEER, HB STUDIOS (LUNENBURG)

Rob O’Quinn is a senior software engineer at HB Studios Multimedia in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. For a little over 7 years, he has been writing code for sports games for a wide variety of platforms, including multiple entries in franchises such as EA Sports’ Rugby and NBA Live for Playstation 2, XBox, PSP and PC, Big Beach Sports for the Nintendo Wii, and Rugby World Cup for the XBox 360 and PS3. More recently he has been involved with internal development projects at HB Studios, working with new and emerging technologies and platforms to develop new intellectual properties.

In addition to making games, Rob has acted as a consultant and mentor in the development and instruction of the Game Development course and degree specialization at the Jodrey School of Computer Science at Acadia University, where he is also a member of the Advisory Board.

Session: Gaming’s New Frontier- Fueled BY A DIY ETHOS (Panel)

ROSIE SIMAN

SOCIAL STRATEGIST AND CULTURAL CURATOR (NYC)

@rosiesiman | Website | 360i

By day, Rosie Siman is a social strategist at 360i, an award-winning digital marketing agency named by Fast Company as one of the world’s most innovative companies. She helps brands like Dentyne, NBC and Oreo navigate the world of social & emerging media from creative ideation through to activation.

By night, she’s an internet junkie and cultural curator, authoring and editing The Tuesday Ten, a weekly newsletter covering the 10 things you should be paying attention to online each week.

Rosie comes from the world of entertainment branding and has worked with iconic people & brands such as Jay-Z, Steve Stoute, Motorola, Pampers, Olay, Samsung, Target, Wrigley, Orbit and Altoids. She believes that brands can create and curate culture, and connect to people in ways that create value for both.

She has written for SocialFresh.com, has had presentations featured on the front page of Slideshare and served on the Jay Chiat Social Media jury in 2011. She has spoken in NYC, Sydney & Toronto and looks forward to speaking at HPX this fall.

Her Twitter feed, @rosiesiman, showcases her knowledge on emerging media technologies and her passion for pop culture. You can also find her on Facebook, Tumblr, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Flickr, Delicious and probably any other social media platform that comes to mind.

Session: 2012: The Year of the People

RYAN FITZGERALD

COMMUNITY MANAGER, CELTX (ST. JOHN’S)

@celtx | Website

Ryan has written for linear and non-linear media in film, TV and new media. He is an alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre Media Lab’s Interactive Art & Entertainment Program, the National Screen Institute’s Features First Program and the inaugural National Screen Institute’s playWRITE Program for video game writing. He has taught transmedia nationally, including Melting Silos for the National Film Board, at the Banff New Media Institute for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and the Transmedia Production Lab for Film Training Manitoba & New Media Manitoba.Ryan has served as the President & CEO of Rogue Nation Studios and as the Executive Director of the video game business development incubator Fortune Cat Games Studio. As the current Community Manager for Celtx, Ryan fosters community, discussion and feedback among Celtx’s 2,000,000 users in over 170 countries. He lives with his family in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Rising in the East: Local Tech Standouts (PANEL)

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SAUL COLT

HEAD OF MAGIC, FRESHBOOKS (TORONTO)

@saulcolt | Website

Saul Colt is the Head of Magic at FreshBooks.com and was recently named as one of the iMEDIA 25: Internet Marketing Leaders & Innovators and has been called one of Canada’s best community builders/experiential marketers, even 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, and even knows what it is like to work for a large corporation from his time in a leadership role at Rogers Communications. Saul loves all people, especially women and is tired of people asking him to remove his shirt. On top of all that Saul is also a professional Speaker and Consultant specializing in Social Media, Customer Service, Community Building and Word of Mouth Marketing, collects Air Force One sneakers, watches a lot of Movies and likes to think he understand people…and just happens to be the Smartest Man in the World.

Session: Startup Marketing: Techcrunch is Not a Marketing Plan

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STACEY MULCAHY

SENIOR DEVELOPER, BIG SPACESHIP (NYC)

@Bitchwhocodes

Stacey Mulcahy is a Senior Developer with Big Spaceship. Prior to joining the team, she has worked at Teknision and Fuel Industries in Ottawa, Canada and IQ Interactive in Atlanta in a variety of development roles.

A seasoned public speaker, technical editor and instructor, Stacey enjoys sharing her love for her work in interactive development. Stacey considers her lack of verbal filter and extreme candor just a small part of her womanly charms.

Sessions: Getting Your Feet Wet With Responsive Web Design, The Secrets of Creation (Panel)

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TONY WALSH

FOUNDER/CREATIVE DIRECTOR AT PHANTOM COMPASS (TORONTO)

Tony Walsh is a multi-disciplined creative leader with nearly 20 years of experience in the Canadian interactive digital media industry. During his career, he has been a contributor to a number of award-winning and award-nominated digital productions including Xenophile Media’s “Regenesis” and “Fallen” transmedia / alternate reality games, and Marblemedia’s “Splatalot” games. He founded Toronto-based game studio Phantom Compass in 2008 and helped raise over $400k in third-party financing for the studio’s original game products in 2011 and 2012.
Walsh was a mentor in international cross-media labs such as LAMP and the BAVC Producers Institute from 2007 – 2011, during which time he coached participants in developing interactive entertainment, cross-platform documentaries, and factual games on topics including the U.S. criminal court system, human trafficking and Iraqi refugee integration in America.

He has served as a program advisor for SXSW Screenburn, George Brown College, triOS College, and the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Walsh was an instructor for several Game Design courses provided by George Brown College and Centennial College between 2006 and 2009. Walsh appeared in the 2008 game culture documentary “Second Skin,” is an occasional media commentator, and has been cited in such publications as Wired, Discover, Utne, and the Harvard Business Review. He presents several times yearly to audiences internationally on topics at the intersection of games, culture, and technology

Session: Making A Mashup: Pinball Meets RPG with “Rollers of the Realm”

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TOON NAGTEGAAL

VENTURE CAPITALIST/CONSULTANT (NOVA SCOTIA)

Website

Toon has, all of his working life, been involved in the development and growth of companies, either as a venture capitalist or a consultant. He was a co-founder of Atlas Venture and p3 technology partners, managing director of Holland Venture and a VP Investments of GrowthWorks. He invested in early and later stage companies in Europe, North America and Israel. He served on the board of more
than 25 companies. Toon was an executive board member of the European Venture Capital Association from 1995 to 1998, responsible for the events and training courses.

Together with Shawn Carver, Toon runs THENEXTPHASE, a consultancy company that is fully dedicated to prepare teams and companies for growth and financing.

Session: Business. Plan for Success (Panel)

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ZANDER BRIMIJOIN

ART DIRECTOR/PARTNER, RED PAPER HEART (NYC)

@redpaperhearts | Website

Zander Brimijoin used to make web sites, but now makes installations. He founded Red Paper Heart with 3 friends who shared an interest in combining interactivity and physical devices. In his tenure as an Art Director at agencies like Big Spaceship, Zander was supposed to be producing award-winning web work, but he spent an annoying amount of time on physical installation experiments. At Red Paper Heart, absurd experiments now become installations. In the last year Zander has designed a digital bike race, an interactive stuffed animal, reactive sugarcubes, and a swimmable projection screen. Zander aims to produce work that makes people jump, laugh, fall down and even find unexpected joy.

Session: Physical Interfaces & Warm Feelings

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MANY MORE SPEAKERS TO COME. STAY TUNED…