| Business Outlook Conference (Fall 2023) - Speakers |
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Halifax, NS
St. John's, NL
Saint John, NB
Charlottetown, PE
Eduardo Capouya (NS) Eduardo is a co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at LifeRaft, an enterprise SaaS company out of Halifax that services hundreds of clients, including many Fortune 100 companies that entrust LifeRaft as their provider of Open Source intelligence feeding into their security operations. As a technical founder, Eduardo led the creation of Navigator, a Digital Threat Intelligence platform for corporate security. He currently heads up LifeRaft Labs, an Al Think Tank focused on researching the latest AI technologies, collaborating with industry and academic partners and doing R&D work to advance the company's product offerings.
Brendan Chard (Keynote Speaker) (NS) Brendan is Vice President, Power, for EverWind Fuels, North America’s leading developer of large-scale green hydrogen and ammonia projects. Brendan joined EverWind at the start of 2023 after 20 years with Emera and Nova Scotia Power, most recently holding the position of Director of Portfolio Optimization where he was responsible for load forecasting, fuel forecasting and hedging, and business development. Brendan holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Dalhousie University and is a Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Business Valuator. When he’s not working to create a green energy mega hub and help decarbonize the world, you might spot Brendan jogging around Lake Banook in his hometown of Dartmouth.
Paul Cook (NB) Dr. Paul Cook received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Toronto in 2010, and joined the University of New Brunswick Faculty of Computer Science in 2014. He works in the areas of natural language processing and computational linguistics.
Holly Hill (NB) Holly Hill is a results-oriented, energising and inspiring leader who has been professionally involved in Sales and Organisational leadership and development for the past decade. Passionate about developing new businesses, Holly has dedicated her career to helping companies bring new and novel products to market. Within her career Holly’s work has contributed to helping companies with successful equity raises, growing and developing scalable business models, and gaining corporate acquisitions. With a mandate for pushing Atlantic Canada’s thriving technology sector forward, Holly has been involved in sectors such as FinTech, Wireless power, Automation and most recently was involved in an acquisition within EdTech. Holly is currently the CEO and Co-Founder of SiftMed, an AI company dedicated to making health records smart - helping individuals find key facts and insights in medical data.
Jennifer LaPlante (NS) Jennifer LaPlante is the Chief Growth & Investment Officer for Canada’s Ocean Supercluster. Her career has focused on data, analytics and technology. As the Executive Director of DeepSense, she drove economic growth through increased comprehension and adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning in Canada’s ocean sector. Jennifer holds an MBA and an MSc in Computing and Data Analytics. As an AI leader Canada, she is a member of the Public Awareness Working Group under the Government of Canada Advisory Council on AI and is a co-founder of the Halifax Chapter of Women in Machine Learning and Data Science (WiMLDS).
Bernard Lord (Keynote Speaker) (NB) Bernard Lord became Chief Executive Officer of Medavie in September 2016 where he provides strategic leadership to further the company’s mission to improve the wellbeing of Canadians. Prior to this role, Mr. Lord served eight years on the Board of Medavie. He is currently the Chair of the International Federation of Health Plans, the President of the Canadian Association of Blue Cross Plans and the recent past Chair of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association. He is also a member of the New Brunswick Law Society and Canadian Bar Association.
Kevin McCann (NL) Kevin focuses on leading teams to solve pressing challenges in an ever-evolving communications landscape. He specializes in strategy, communications, and advocacy, and can be credited for leading transformational campaigns for clients across North America. He leads the Atlantic Canadian region for NATIONAL Public Relations and is an active member of the AVENIR GLOBAL board. Kevins work encompasses both public and private sectors. His specialty areas include digital advocacy and strategy, earning social license, reputation management and recovery, investment and talent attraction, and strategic planning and facilitation.
James Mosher (PE) James is a member of the Saint John Law Society, the New Brunswick Law Society and the Canadian Bar Association. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Saint John Sea Dogs Foundation. James is ranked in The Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory.
Devashish Paul (PE) Devashish Paul founded BluWave-ai in 2017 and has built out one of the world’s premiere renewable energy and transport electrification companies, based in Ottawa, Summerside, and Calgary, Canada. In his role at BluWave-ai, he has taken AI concepts to live working systems from Asia to Europe to North America, successfully navigating the growth of the company through the critical COVID-19 pandemic, onboarding new customers worldwide and growing the team with an international employee group from 15 different countries. Devashish has taken the company to multi-million dollar SaaS revenue and has been an inventor on several of the company’s patents. Prior to BluWave-ai, Devashish had an extensive career in the semiconductor industry focused on supercomputing, artificial intelligence, and networking. During his 20+ years in the tech world, Devashish has led successful innovations in a diversity of markets at Canadian start-ups, Toronto Stock Exchange-listed, and Silicon Valley public companies.
Vince Payne (NL) Vince Payne is the Co-founder & CEO of OPAS Mobile; a St. John's-based field management software that uses artificial intelligence to identify and mitigate safety and environmental risks on industrial jobsites. As a Professional Engineer with experience ranging from offshore emergency response to mine maintenance, Vince has experienced first-hand the challenges and opportunities faced within industry and is committed to building safer, more productive workplaces.
Joel Richardson (NB) Joel leads public and government relations for Cooke Inc. — a vertically integrated family seafood company based in New Brunswick with operations in 13 countries and nearly 13,000 employees – 2,300 are in Atlantic Canada. Cooke ships fresh, sustainable True North Seafood Company branded products globally. Cooke has been identified by the Atlantic Economic Council as one of the top private sector investors in the region with capital project plans to spend $350M over the next 5 yrs.
Jonas Slaunwhite (PE) Jonas is a seasoned Senior Consultant within the Data & AI practice at BDO Canada, bringing over a decade of expertise from the financial services, alternative investment management, and consulting sectors. His leadership is marked by a collaborative spirit where diverse teams thrive in creating meaningful change, driving success through strategic initiatives. A cornerstone of his consulting practice involves working closely with clients to establish robust data management foundations, empowering businesses of varying sizes to harness the potential of Generative AI technology.
Bill Syrros (NS) Meet Bill Syrros, the Exponential Labs leader and futurist at BDO Canada. With 25 years of experience in the technology services and business sectors, Bill is a seasoned professional known for driving innovation and technology leadership.
As a key member of the Senior Leadership Team at BDO, Bill drives innovation and deploys methods to increase innovative mindsets across the 5000 person firm, with a focus on delivering practical solutions to BDO's client base in areas such as AI,
Data and Cloud technologies.
Matthew Zimola (NS) Matt Zimola is a co-founder and the CEO of ReelData, a company that uses AI and computer vision to increase the sustainability and efficiency of land-based fish farms. Matt holds a degree in Chemical Engineering and a master's degree in Computer Science. He started his career in the oil and gas industry before transitioning to the sustainable agriculture industry. In 4 years ReelData has grown into a team of more than 40 talented individuals who are passionate about making a positive impact on the world.
Heather Zurel (NL) Heather Zurel is a Saint Francis Xavier graduate with a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Computational Chemistry. She is a self-taught Data Scientist with more than 5 years of experience in a fast-paced technology startup environment. She has worked with data in human genomics and epidemiology, as well as time-series forecasting for manufacturing. Heather designed and built Data Farms' crop monitoring system, including hardware wiring and developing a cloud platform in AWS to collect, process, analyze, and deliver data insights.
Atlantic Economic Council Presenters
Lana Asaff (NS) Lana is a Senior Economist at the Atlantic Economic Council and is leading our net-zero research. Previously, she held positions with the provincial government at the Nova Scotia Department of Finance and Treasury Board, as well as with the federal government at Finance Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency. Lana is also President of the Atlantic Association of Applied Economists. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) in Economics from Saint Mary’s University and a Master of Arts in Economics from Queen’s University.
Patrick Brannon (NL) Patrick is the Senior Researcher and Director of Major Projects for the Atlantic Economic Council. He has been active in economic and business analysis for over 25 years. Patrick is a leading voice on the issues impacting the economy of Atlantic Canada. He recently directed several reports on the labour skills challenge in Atlantic Canada and the latest edition of the Council's Major Projects Inventory which analyses capital investment trends in the region. He is a frequent speaker on the issues important to Atlantic Canada and is passionate about the continued success of the region.
Fred Bergman (NB & PE) Fred is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Atlantic Economic Council. He has been the Council's lead on economic impact analysis and Indigenous economic research since 2009. Fred is responsible for monitoring the New Brunswick economy. He sits on the Atlantic Chamber of Commerce Policy Advisory Committee for Nova Scotia. Prior to joining the Atlantic Economic Council, he was the Director of the Economics and Statistics Division at the Nova Scotia Department of Finance.
David Chaundy (Moderator) (All Locations) David Chaundy is President and CEO of the Atlantic Economic Council, a role he was appointed to in November 2018. David joined the Council as an economist in 1999, taking on increasingly senior roles, including research projects, member-only publications on Atlantic Canada’s economy, and our annual business Outlook conference. |
