British Columbia Innovation Council

Amielle Lake

CEO, Tagga Media

Amielle Lake is the CEO of Tagga Media Inc, a company focused on delivering relevant and effective mobile marketing tools to professional marketers across North America. Tagga’s Agency Platform enables advertising and marketing agencies of all sizes to create and deploy a range of mobile marketing campaigns without having to manage carriers, hire specialized staff, or invest in hefty upfront fees for carriers and staff. The platform is popular with both digital and traditional agencies that understand the importance of mobile as a completely integrated solution across any brands’ campaign creative and media mix. Prior to founding Tagga, Amielle held a range of executive marketing and corporate development roles across the software, financial services and mining market sectors. Amielle also holds an MBA and B.A and is a published author.

Her book, The Elephant Hunters, is about how social interactions determine outcomes in the financial world.

Basil Peters

Angel Investor and Exit Strategist

Basil Peters is the principal of Strategic Exits Corp and fund manager for Fundamental Technologies II.

He writes a blog on best practices for entrepreneurs and angel investors at www.AngelBlog.net and has just published his first book: Early Exits - Exit Strategies for Entrepreneurs and Angel Investors (But Maybe Not Venture Capitalists). For more information, visit: www.BasilPeters.com.

Mike Satterfield

General Partner, IT Investments, Yaletown Venture Partners

Mike is a co-founder and General Partner of Yaletown Venture Partners. Yaletown invests in early-stage Cleantech and IT companies. Based in Vancouver BC, Yaletown seeks to be an investor-of-choice for entrepreneurs and a go-to partner for co-investors. Mike brings 25 years of experience in the software industry to Yaletown. Prior to Yaletown, Mike was CEO of Simba Technologies (acquired by Pivotal) and Partner of Paradigm Development. Mike is active in a number of technology industry associations and is a director of the Vancouver Aquarium.

Moderator: Mike Volker

President, Western Universities Technology Innovation Fun
Founder, Vancouver Angel Technology Network
Director of Industry Liaison Office, SFU

Michael C. Volker is an Entrepreneur active in the development of new high technology ventures. A University of Waterloo Engineering grad, Mike started his own company (Volker-Craig Ltd) in 1973, sold it in 1981 and then decided to work with entrepreneurs in building new companies. Since coming to B.C. in 1988, he has continued this work as Executive Director of the B.C. Advanced Systems Institute and is currently the Director of Simon Fraser University's Industry Liaison office. Check out his latest two projects: Greenangel Energy Corp, a public company that invests in green technologies and WUTIF - the Western Universities Technology Innovation Fund - an "angel" fund for start-ups. To further encourage tech entrepreneurship, Mike runs the Vancouver Angel Network, VANTEC and he's also quite active with New Ventures BC - an annual business competition. For more information, visit: www.mikevolker.com.

Sharon Barnes

CEO, RFind
Graduate, Okanagan Research and Innovation Centre accelerator

Sharon has over fifteen years experience in the executive management of start-up organizations helping to bring them to a point of production readiness and over nine years of experience implementing active RFID solutions in manufacturing environments. Sharon has an MBA in Project Management from Athabasca University coupled with a diploma in Technology from BCIT. www.RFind.com

Danny Robinson

Managing Director, Bootup Labs
Co-founder, Launch Party Vancouver

Danny has been starting and advising early stage technology companies for over 15 years. In this time, he has closed more than $100M over 9 rounds of venture capital financing. Prior to founding Bootup Labs, Danny co-founded Strutta, a platform that enables anyone, from a small publisher to the world's premier brands, to easily create online promotions centered around consumer generated content and social media.

As an accomplished entrepreneur, Danny works to promote Vancouver as the tech center he believes it can be by connecting local entrepreneurs with Silicon Valley-based VCs, co-organizing the popular tech mixer, Launch Party Vancouver, speaking at local and international tech events and serving on the Science World Equity Committee. Danny is a member of the Board of Directors for Strutta, Suite101, and the Bootup Entrepreneurial Society.

James Sherrett

Founder and CEO, AdHack
Graduate, Bootup Labs accelerator

James Sherrett has been working on the web for over a decade. He founded AdHack to make better advertising. Ads that imitate the way we talk to each other. Ads that don't have to seek permission to get made. Ads that emerge from a community of creative people working together.

In former lives he played hockey, guided fishermen, wrote a novel entitled Up in Ontario and helped grow e-commerce revenues from $2-million to $40-million for North America's largest resort operator, Intrawest.

Moderator: Martin Yuill

Director, Okanagan Research & Innovation Centre, Kelowna

Born and raised in South Africa, Martin is a graduate of the University of South Africa and has an MBA degree with specializations in advanced strategic management, services marketing and change management.

Martin joined ORIC as Director of its Kelowna Innovation Centre in December 2008 fresh from his success as a member of the team that launched "The Innovation Hub" in Pretoria, South Africa, as a unique high-tech services precinct, technology cluster and the first internationally accredited Science Park in Africa. As a key member of the Hub management team, Martin created an entrepreneurial "value-added services" division as a critical market differentiator for this $200+ million precinct; managed the strategic marketing, sales and business development functions; re-launched what is currently South Africa's most successful high-tech business incubator; and created the country's largest virtual technology community.

Andrew Carryer

Business Development Engineer, MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates

Andrew Carryer works in business development at MDA with a focus on new initiatives that bring together existing technologies and new applications. His interests vary across many sectors; ranging from carbon credits to aerospace & defence.

Andrew is a Professional Engineer in the province of British Columbia. He holds a MASc in Aerospace Engineering from Carleton University and BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Queen's University.

Moe Kermani

President and CEO, Bycast

Moe Kermani brings to Bycast extensive experience with entrepreneurial technology driven companies. Before joining Bycast, Moe was the Chief Scientist and Director of Research and Development for Sonigistix Corporation, a world leader in the field of high performance audio systems. Previously, Moe was involved in physics research at the TRIUMF Particle Physics Research Laboratory. Moe holds a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of British Columbia, and he has been awarded several US patents for his work at Sonigistix.

Irfhan Rajani

Serial Entrepreneur
Co-founder & CEO (past) Apparent Networks
Co-Founder, TeleBackup Systems

Irfhan is a serial entrepreneur whose reputation is built on the success of three technology companies founded over the past two decades. Apparent Networks, Irfhan's third startup, develops software to improve the performance of networked applications. The leader in its market, Apparent secured a sizeable growth financing in 2007 from Bain Capital and JMI Equity. Before launching Apparent, Irfhan co-founded Zentra, a network storage systems integrator, and then TeleBackup. TeleBackup, one of the first companies to enable off-site data backup via the Internet, was purchased by storage software giant Veritas for over $200 million.

Dimitri Sirota

Founder, VP Alliances, Layer 7 Technologies

Dimitri Sirota is an accomplished entrepreneur and a pioneer in the security field. Prior to co-founding Layer 7 Technologies, Dimitri co-created the award-winning Virtual Private Network provider eTunnels Inc. Dimitri spearheaded its early marketing and business development activities, establishing eTunnels as a leader in secure connectivity for the extended enterprise. He has also worked in senior product marketing and channel development roles at AT&T and Telus. Dimitri holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from McGill University and a Master of Science in Engineering Physics from the University of British Columbia.

Moderator: Jim Mutter

Lawyer

Jim Mutter has over 20 years of experience building companies in BC. As a partner at a national law firm, to co-founder of a venture backed company and from driving the Premier's Technology Council to software CEO he has been a passionate advocate for growing the sector.

Ryan Holmes

CEO, Invoke Media (Creators of Hootsuite)

As founder of Invoke, Ryan's experience combines diverse management skills with solid industry and technical knowledge. Since 2000, Invoke has grown to a talented 26-person powerhouse focused on new media disciplines such as online advertising, viral campaigns and social application development. As CEO, Ryan has been active in all aspects of Invoke operations, focusing on strategy, business and product development and technical and social networking trends.

Ryan gained valuable experience in entrepreneurial and startup ventures, business management, and marketing as owner of a restaurant chain, a tourist adventure business and online store with 3m+/year revenues.

Adam Binnie

VP Product Management, Intelligence Platform Group, SAP BusinessObjects

Adam Binnie is vice president of solution management for the Emerging Technologies group within the Intelligence Platform Group at SAP. Adam Binnie leads the activities required to deliver new products and offerings to market or to enter new markets, reporting to David Meyer.

Adam Binnie brings 20 years of technology management experience to SAP, with 18 of these in the BI field. Previously Adam Binnie has led the emerging strategies function at Business Objects SA, alliances solution management at Business Objects, developer solution management at Crystal Decisions, Inc as well as roles in Sales, Sales Consulting and Solution Consulting.

Adam Binnie holds a bachelor's degree in electrical and computer engineering from Birmingham University (UK).

Chris Wheeler

President, BCID Professional Industrial Designer
Founder and CEO, Unique:ID

Chris is currently Vice President of the Association of Canadian Industrial Designers (ACID) and President of the British Columbia Industrial Designer's Association (BCID). Chris operates Unique Industrial Design Inc. [UNIQUE:ID] in Vancouver, BC, and with 10 years of professional product design and development experience, his portfolio includes kiosks, architectural hardware and fixtures, consumer product design, industrial machine design, electronic enclosures, medical products, outdoor extreme weather enclosures, plus various mining exploration, alternate energy and transportation design projects.

In 2006, Chris founded Aria Wind Power Systems Inc. to focus on research and development of wind/tidal turbines and hybrid diesel systems integration. Chris earned his bachelor's degree in Industrial Design from the Emily Carr University of Art & Design in 1999.

Steve Woodside

Senior Scientist, Stemcell Technologies

Steven Woodside is a Senior Scientist at STEMCELL Technologies in Vancouver where he develops platform technologies for cell purification and assay automation used in products for medical and biological research. His PhD from UBC and Bachelor's degree from McGill - both in Chemical Engineering - were not purchased on the internet.

Moderator: Douglas MacLeod

Executive Director, Okanagan Science and Technology Council

Douglas MacLeod is the Executive Director of the Okanagan Science and Technology Council. Before joining OSTEC he was the Executive Director of the Canadian Design Research Network - a pan-Canadian network of architecture and design schools. For the past fifteen years, MacLeod has led innovative research projects across Canada in areas such as e-learning, virtual reality and computer-aided design. Most recently he led the Canada-British Columbia Green Building Exchange to Seoul and Beijing. He is also an architect registered in California and a contributing editor to The Canadian Architect Magazine.