Speakers
Elizabeth Denham
Information and Privacy Commissioner, Province of BC
Since her appointment as B.C.'s Information and Privacy Commissioner in May 2010, Elizabeth Denham has raised the profile of
privacy rights, promoted transparency in government, and adopted a proactive approach to the enforcement of access and privacy laws in British Columbia.
Prior to her appointment in British Columbia, Ms. Denham served as Assistant Privacy Commissioner of Canada (2007-2010), where she led a ground-breaking investigation into the privacy practices of Facebook which resulted in changes to the social networking site - changes that were implemented on a global basis. She also led the office's discussions with Google, which prompted improvements to the company's street level imaging service in Canada. Prior to her federal appointment, she served as Director, Private Sector, for the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta (2003-2007).
Ms. Denham is a frequent speaker on the many challenges of protecting privacy in a networked world. She is a director of The Privacy Projects, the Centre for Law, Ethics, and Applied Research in Health Information, and a member of the IAPP Canadian Advisory Board. She holds a Bachelor's degree in history and a Master's degree in archival and information science from the University of British Columbia.
In 2011, Ms. Denham was honoured as a UBC distinguished alumni for her pioneering work in archives and leadership in the field of access and privacy.
Stéphane Guidoin
Transportation Director,
Open North
Stéphane Guidoin cofounded the
first Canadian open data initiative, CivicAccess. Since
2010, Stéphane has focused on transportation and
urbanization issues with the development of ZoneCone and
the organization of TransportationCamp in Montreal.
Stéphane believes that open data is a major component to
improve communities and democratic processes. He hopes to
make open data more relevant as a tool for making
government open and encouraging fulfilling and sustainable
communities.
Michael Lenczner
CEO, Ajah
Michael Lenczner is a Montreal-based entrepreneur who uses technology
to positively impact society. In 2003 he founded Ile sans fil,
Montreal's community wireless network, which became a worldwide leader
in the field.
In 2005 he co-founded Civic Access, Canada's first discussion list on
the subject. In 2009 and 2011,
respectively, he co-founded the citizen initiatives Montreal Ouvert
and Quebec Ouvert, which successfully lobbied for open data policies
at the municipal and provincial levels. In 2009 he started Ajah, a
company whose flagship product, Fundtracker, is based on government
data. They collect and merge dozens of different government datasets
in order to provide their online fundraising research service to
Canadian non-profits.
He also serves on several boards and working groups, including Apathy
is Boring, whose mission is to use art and technology to engage youth
in Canadian democracy, and on the City of Montreal's Working Group on
Municipal Democracy.
Pete Forde
Hacker Tourist
Pete Forde is an acclaimed technologist, serial entrepreneur and open source community leader. Pete was an early proponent of Ruby on Rails and Ajax web techniques. In 2004 he founded Unspace Interactive as the first dedicated Rails team in the world, with over 100 clients including the United Nations, TheScore Sports Network and dozens of startups.
Pete's published articles and O'Reilly book contributions introduced or promoted ideas ranging from endless scrolling pages, live web datagrids, progressive enhancement and HTML data attributes. These concepts are now common interface patterns used by Facebook and Google, and helped to lay the groundwork for the current JavaScript MVP framework renaissance.
An avid traveler and occasional touring rock drummer, Pete is passionate about pinball and film photography.
Lisa Green
Director, Common Crawl
Foundation
Lisa is the Director of the
Common Crawl Foundation, a non-profit organization
dedicated to providing an open repository of web crawl
data that can be accessed and analyzed by everyone. She
is motivated by a strong belief in the power of open
systems to drive innovation in education, arts and
research.
Over the last several years she has been
active in the areas of Open Access publishing, Open
Science, Open Data, copyright, digital rights and
policy. Immediately prior to joining Common Crawl, Lisa
was Chief of Staff at Creative Commons. She holds a PhD
in physical chemistry from the University of California
Berkeley.
Per Kristensen
Director Information
Technology, City of Nanaimo
As the
Director of Information Technology for the City of
Nanaimo, Per has been instrumental in making the City a
leader in the effective use of Information Technology.
Under his leadership, the City of Nanaimo has received
numerous awards and recognition, including a GITA Gold
Medal Distinction Award of Excellence for Innovative
Service Delivery in Municipalities and a MYSTIC
Leadership in Technology Award. In 2007, Per was awarded
the Peter Bennett award for outstanding contributions to
the Municipal IT environment in Canada.
Vincent Gogolek
Executive Director, B.C.
Freedom of Information and Privacy Association
Vincent Gogolek is the Executive Director of the B.C.
Freedom of Information and Privacy Association. He was
called to the Bar in Ontario in 1987 and has degrees in
Law (University of Ottawa) and Journalism (Carleton),
and a diploma in International and Comparative Politics
from the London School of Economics. His work history
includes stintsin journalism, law and intergovernmental
affairs. He has worked for legal aid in B.C. and Ontario
and has been Policy Director of the B.C. Civil Liberties
Association.
Luke Closs
Founder and CTO, Recollect.net - the garbage reminder service.
When he's not building trashy apps, he's working with the Vancouver Biodiesel Co-operative or inventing the future at the Vancouver Hack Space.
David Wrate
Director - Citizen Engagement, Province of BC
David has been actively engaged in open data for the past two years, developing and growing DataBC, the Provinces' open data program. He's very interested in how data can be used to improve lives and change how citizens interact with government.
Sean Simpson
GIS Manager, City of Surrey
Sean Simpson is the GIS Manager at the City of Surrey and leads a multi-disciplinary team of analysts, programmers, and map specialists. Sean is also an instructor in the GIS program at BCIT. Prior to the City of Surrey Sean worked at ESRI as a consultant.
Philip Ashlock
Co-founder, Open311
Phil has spearheaded community-driven civic technology initiatives with global reach. Most recently he served as the Open Government Program Manager at OpenPlans where he established the Open311 initiative. Open311 is a standardized protocol for publicly reporting and tracking civic issues which is now implemented in dozens of cities around the world. In partnership with Code for America he also co-founded Civic Commons, an initiative to help governments share technology and their experiences using it.
Phil has also facilitated broader collaboration between cities and other government bodies around open government initiatives, standards, and open source civic technology. He's been an active participant in the Open Government Partnership and served as a member of the NYC Transparency Working Group where he helped shape one of the world's strongest open data laws: NYC Local Law 11 of 2012. He currently lives in Washington D.C. where he's serving as a Presidential Innovation Fellow working with the GSA and the White House Office of Digital Strategy.
Kieran Harrop
Partner and Executive Consultant, CGI
Kieran Harrop is a Partner and Executive Consultant at CGI who develops strategy and policy for Open Government. He is interested in how Open Government and Government 2.0 can increase transparency, public engagement and enable better, more efficient service outcomes for citizens, and intrigued by the power of technology to change our lives and create value for organizations.
Paul Norman
Paul Norman is a OpenStreetMap editor and developer from New Westminster. He focuses on integrating other data sources with OSM data and makes use of open data from several governments locally.
Jeff Chamberlain
Jeff Chamberlain is the Director of Sales and Marketing for Spatial DNA, a consulting firm specializing in Spatial Systems Architecture and Design and a reseller for Voyager in Canada and the USA.
Prior to joining Spatial DNA, Jeff has held various sales and technical positions in sales for Spatial Energy, Intermap, PCI Geomatics, Monenco Agra and TYDAC Technologies.
Jeff holds a Bachelor of Environmental Studies degree, specializing in GIS and Remote Sensing from the University of Waterloo.
Bowen Osoko
Communications Coordinator, Victoria Police
Bowen Osoko is the Communications Coordinator for the Victoria Police Department and an Open Data advocate. Open Data, particularly as it enhances public safety and public participation in government processes, is one of Bowen's deep passions and has been part and parcel of his working life.
Previous to joining VicPD, Bowen worked with the BC Public Service helping to support both Citizen Engagement and Open Data initiatives. A conference organizer, attendee, hackathaon participant and occasional white-hat, Bowen is an enthusiastic member of the Open Data community.
