Keynote Speakers

Technocon 2010 was proud to present the following keynote speakers.

Chris Pratt
Strategic Initiatives Executive - IBM Canada

Chris has national responsibility for managing IBM Canada's activities in the strategic areas of High Performance Computing, Virtualization, Smarter Systems and other emerging technologies. During his 29 year tenure with IBM, Chris has been involved in numerous areas of information technology strategy and deployment. Chris has a deep technical and business background in diverse environments around the world. His past work has included solution design, project management and support of large organizations in their deployment of leading edge technology for business benefit. He also is focused on IT optimization and was a founding member of IBM's Worldwide Server Consolidation Group where he obtained a patent as a co-author of IBM's ALIGN Methodology.

Chris spoke on "Building a Smarter Planet, One City at a Time".

Dr. Greg Zeschuk (pronounced Zess-chuk)
Group Creative Officer RPG/MMO Group, Electronic Arts Vice President and Co-founder of BioWare

Dr. Greg Zeschuk has been in the game industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, primarily at BioWare, the award-winning development studio based in Edmonton, and responsible for such games as the Baldur's Gate series, Neverwinter Nights, MDK2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect and Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood.

After co-founding the studio with Dr. Ray Muzyka in 1995, Greg and Ray operated BioWare successfully for 10 years before it was purchased by Elevation Partners.  BioWare started a studio in Austin and began working on Star Wars: The Old Republic, a massively multiplayer game in partnership with Lucasarts. BioWare was purchased by Electronic Arts in 2007 and at that time Zeschuk became a Vice President of EA.  Recently Electronic Arts formed the RPG/MMO Group and Greg was named the Group Creative Officer, responsible for BioWare studios in Edmonton, Austin and Montreal and MMO developer Mythic Entertainment based in Fairfax, Virginia.  BioWare, respected industry-wide for its emotionally engaging and detailed cinematic games, will shortly be releasing Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2.

In addition to being a medical doctor, Greg completed his executive MBA program at the Queen's School of Business and serves as a Director and Co-Chairman of CodeBaby Corp., a software company developing a next generation interface for digital media and the Internet.

Greg spoke on "Building a World Class Culture".

Ibrahim Gedeon
Chief Technology Officer, TELUS Corp.

Ibrahim Gedeon, as the Chief Technology Officer, is responsible for technology strategy, service and network architecture, service delivery and operational support systems for TELUS Communications Inc. and TELUS Mobility. In his role as CTO he is responsible for the Wireless-Wireline service and network convergence, enterprise applications and network infrastructure strategies and evolution.

Mr. Gedeon began his career in telecommunications engineering and research in 1990 when he joined Bell Northern Research designing signal-processing software in the cryptographic systems division. He moved to Nortel Networks in 1994 as a network design engineer, where he provided technical network design expertise to Nortel Networks' customer base globally. He was named vice president and director of Data Network Engineering at Nortel in 1996, and vice president of Internet Brand Management in 1999, where he was responsible for IP/MPLS/ATM standards, engineering, and market development. He was appointed senior vice president of Wireless Engineering in 2000 and led the global engineering team responsible for operations, sales support, and systems engineering.

Mr. Gedeon has held numerous leadership roles in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and has received several professional awards and industry recognition, including being named to the Global Telecoms Business magazine, GTB Power 100 , a list of the 100 most powerful and influential people in the telecoms industry and by IEEE Canada for two major awards; Outstanding Canadian Engineer and for Industry Leadership. Ibrahim is currently the General Chair for the IEEE ICC 2012 Conference in Ottawa and currently serves on the board or council of other industry associations such as ATIS, Industry Canada's Communications Research Centre, and CASA (Child Psychiatric Services of Alberta). Ibrahim has a bachelor's in electrical engineering from the American University of Beirut and a Masters' in Electronics Engineering from Carleton University.

Ibrahim spoke on "Transformation: Subscriber Convergence".

John Weigelt
National Technology Officer, Microsoft Canada Co.

As the National Technology Officer for Microsoft Canada, John Weigelt is responsible for driving Microsoft Canada's strategic policy and technology efforts. In this role, Mr. Weigelt is the lead public advocate within the company on key issues such as the development of national technology policy and the use of technology by government, education and the healthcare community. These including leading Canadian outreach for environmental sustainability, accessibility, privacy, security and Interoperability. Mr. Weigelt is also responsible for the development and implementation of strategies which strengthen the company's relationships with the Canadian technology industry at large.

Prior to joining Microsoft, John held the position of Senior Director of Architecture, Standards and Engineering at the Chief Information Officer Branch of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. In this role, he was responsible for the development of the Government of Canada Enterprise architecture, Treasury Board IM and IT standards, and provided support for Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Policy. John holds a Master's Degree in computer and communications security from the Royal Military College of Canada and is both a certified information systems security professional as well as a certified information security manager.

John spoke on "Open Government: Engaging Individuals, Empowering Business and Driving Efficiency".

Mack D. Male
Software Developer, Entrepreneur and Social Media Guy

Always up-to-date on the latest trends and technologies, Mack loves sharing what he learns with others.  He's particularly passionate about his hometown, Edmonton, and does his best to expose everything it has to offer, through his blog, his Twitter account and many other online tools and services.  Mack has been a driving force behind open data and government transparency in Edmonton, helping to organize ChangeCampEdmonton and leading many open data events and discussions throughout the last year.  Mack was named one of Edmonton's "Top 40 Under 40" in 2009 for his work in helping to build Edmonton's online communities.  You can learn more about Mack at http://www.mastermaq.ca

Mack spoke on "Open Government and Citizens: Transparency, Trust and Collaboration".

Ronnie Scott
Data Centre Consulting Systems Engineer, Cisco Canada

Ronnie Scott recently relocated from Cisco New Zealand to Cisco Canada, as a Data Centre Consulting Systems Engineer (CSE). Ronnie brings with him over 20 years of broad IT experience, including senior consultative roles for Financial Services, Internet Service Providers, ILEC Carrier Networks, and large enterprise customers across New Zealand, Australia and Canada.

Ronnie has dedicated much of his career to Enterprise Information Security, specifically focused on network and Data Centre security, with interest in the emerging requirement to integrate host and application security into the overall IT and Data Centre architecture. Most recently, he has been focused on assisting customers design and architect their Data Centres to leverage Cisco's Data Centre 3.0 solution.

Ronnie's engaging presentation style provides a clear and understandable translation between sophisticated IP technology and business requirements, providing an enlightened view on how the Data Centre can be built out scalably, efficiently and cost-effectively.

Ronnie spoke on "IT Transformation Through Deploying Enterprise Compute Clouds".