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DEBORAH BEATTY
Deborah is the Director of Corus Interactive, a division of
Corus Entertainment. (Corus is a leading Canadian media
company (TSE: CJR.B, NYSE: CJR) that was spun out of Shaw
Communications in September of 1999.) Corus Interactive is a
corporate group that provides new media services to all Corus
divisions and groups, including Nelvana, Radio, TV and
Corporate. Deborah joined Corus in 1999 as Director of
Business Development, reporting to the CEO, focusing on
reviewing and recommending online and other business
opportunities for Corus, as well as managing Corus’s
existing online partnerships, such as LMiV (a joint venture
with 4 US Radio Broadcasters.)
Prior to Corus, Deborah worked for Monitor Company, a
leading strategy consulting firm in Boston, New York and
London, England. Deborah has a MBA from INSEAD and a BA from
Princeton University.
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LISA BETTERTON
Lisa Betterton is a Programmer in the Creative Electronic
Environment at The Banff Centre producing net.art and
supporting multimedia projects through programming, database
development and technical design. She also provides technical
workshops and training courses. Her background is in Applied
Science and she has a comprehensive teaching background in the
humanities and information technology.
Currently Lisa is working with designer Jennifer Villamere
to co-produce "Living Frost", a Web-based
exploration of metaphysical geomorphology.
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JUSTINE DANCY BIZZOCCHI
Ms. Bizzocchi has over 25 years of professional experience
with broadcast and film companies as well as extensive
involvement with non-profit arts and industry groups. Her
career has included work in production, marketing, public
relations, and organizational management. Since 1996, she has
worked in a variety of contract positions, including a recent
2-year job as the Executive Director overseeing the start up
of the BC Institute of Film Professionals. The Institute
serves the film and television sector by providing advice,
guidance and standards for human resources, training, and
related issues.
A graduate of the University of Michigan, Ms. Bizzocchi
came to Vancouver in 1971. She was one of the key-founding
members of Vancouver Cooperative Radio, then worked as an
independent film editor. After working with the Pacific Region
Studio of the National Film Board of Canada, Ms. Bizzocchi
joined the start-up team for WorldView Television, a
multi-lingual Pay-TV station. In 1983, she was asked to head
up the Vancouver branch office for KCTS Television, the
Seattle, Washington, public television station. She remained
in that post for over 10 years. From 1994 to 1996, Ms.
Bizzocchi served as the Executive Director for the Centre for
Image and Sound Research in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. CI•SR
is an independent nonprofit organization, which conducts and
supports research into and development of technologies, which
serve the fine and commercial arts, popular media and
media-based entertainment and live performance.
Ms. Bizzocchi has served on the Boards for Vancouver
Cooperative Radio, Cineworks Production Society, Canadian
Filmmakers Distribution West (now Moving Images Distribution),
Pacific Cinemathèque, the Pacific Cine Centre, and Women in
Film & Video Vancouver. She has worked on grant and award
juries for the Canada Council, the CBC, the Academy of Cinema
and Television and the BC Arts Council. She is currently
serving on the Advisory Board for the Interactive Arts Program
at the Technical University of B.C, as well as the Media Arts
Advisory Committee for the BC Arts Council.
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CARYL BRANDT
Caryl Brandt is Operations Director for Media and Visual
Arts, The Banff Centre supervising MVA planning, finances and
human & physical resources. Brandt has been exploring
Digital Media management and software tools, including common
reference points and differences to existing media practice.
Brandt has worked in communications and media arts for 30
years. She has written, directed and/or produced award-winning
documentaries for NFB, television series for CBC, and
industrials for private companies.
Her program awards include Prix Anik for TV series, Yorkton
for documentary and for TV series, CanPro and CFTPA for sports
special, and AMPIA Best of Festival for industrial film.** She
managed feature films like David Cronenberg's "Fast
Company" and commercials for Labatt's and Toyota.
She was Vice-President of the Alberta Motion Picture
Development Corporation (AMPDC) from 1985-87 and Executive
Director of the National Screen Institute from 1987-89. In
1995, she was producer/director for the start-up year of the
Women's Television Network (WTN), the (formerly)
Winnipeg-based specialty TV network.
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ELIZABETH CANNON
Dr. Elizabeth Cannon's research is centered around the use
of the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites for precise
positioning and navigation of land, marine and airborne
vehicles. Her work involves the development of new algorithms
and methodologies to improve navigation accuracy to the
centimetre level through improved error modeling and analysis.
As a result of her work, several software packages have been
developed and are currently being licensed to various
industrial and government groups world-wide. Work has been
undertaken to apply this technology to determine vehicle
attitude through the installation of several GPS receivers on
the platform. The integration of GPS with and inertial
navigation system (INS) has also been investigated for
application to airborne remote sensing.
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SHEELAGH CARPENDALE
Throughout my life I have had dual
interests in fine arts and math. I finished high school with
math and physics scholarships but instead opted instead for
fine arts, attending Emily Carr, College of Art in Vancouver
and then later Sheridan College, School of Design. I worked
professionally in the arts for several years. During this time
I ran my own studio, taught fine arts at Humber College and
was involved in establishing the Arts Centre at York Quay,
Harbourfront in Toronto. My preferred mode of expression is 3D
sculpture created with a plastic medium such hot glass or
clay. Subsequently I reconnected with my interests in math,
intending to obtain a BSc in math from Simon Fraser
University. However, I discovered that my combined interests
were actually useful in computing science and end up obtaining
both a BSc and a PhD in Computing Science from Simon Fraser
University. Some of projects I have been involved with that
use both design and computing skills include:
-
creating a diagnostic program with a visual response
display that was used to test hardware,
-
creating a visual interface to unit three expert
systems,
-
being part of a team that developed an interactive video
disc for career choice issues for teenagers,
-
visualizing network theory, and
-
developing visual access for landscape dynamics data for
FRBC (Forest Renewal British Columbia) as part of the SEED
(Simulating and Exploring Ecosystem Dynamics) project.
I find that my combined visual and
computing science background is not only invaluable but that
it leads to exciting projects. My research interests include
information visualization, user interface design,
human-computer-interaction, visual languages, computer
graphics, and graph drawing.
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PATRICIA CLIFFORD
Pat Clifford is co-founder and President of the Galileo
Educational Network. Pat has an extensive teaching background
that includes Grades 1 to 12, university undergraduate and
graduate classes, and a wide range of teacher in-service
topics related to curriculum, school improvement and
leadership. For the past nine years she has worked in teaching
and research partnership with Sharon Friesen. She is a
recipient of numerous awards for both research and teaching
practice:
- 1999 The Alberta Teachers' Association, Educational
Research Award;
- 1999 Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence;
- 1998 Aoki Award for educational research;
- 1996 ASCD Celebrating Educational Successes in Alberta
award;
- 1994 National Institute Award for Technology
Integration;
- 1991 Alberta Excellence in Teaching finalist.
She has collaborated on three research projects funded by
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
As a teacher-researcher, she has published in scholarly
journals such as Harvard Educational Review and The
Journal of Curriculum Theory and in books on issues in
educational reform. She has presented at local, provincial,
national and international conferences. Most recently, her
work has centered on essential issues in the effective
integration of technology. She has a Ph.D. in Educational
Policy and Administrative Studies from the University of
Calgary.
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SARA DIAMOND
Sara Diamond is a television and new media
producer/director, video artist, curator, critic, teacher and
artistic director who has represented Canada at home and
internationally for many years. She was born in New York City
and has resided in Western Canada since 1978. She is currently
the Executive Producer for Television and New Media and the
Artistic Director of Media and Visual Arts at the Banff
Centre.
Diamond is responsible for developing the
artistic and professional development direction of Media and
Visual Arts, developing research perspectives, New Media
Institute workshops and think tanks, co-productions, artists'
residencies and partnerships, and work study opportunities in
key areas. She is also responsible for the publishing
initiatives of Media and Visual Arts and the Walter Phillips
Gallery as well as collaborations with the Aboriginal Arts
program and other departments of the Banff Centre.
At The Banff Centre, Diamond acts as
Executive Producer and Producer on numerous independent video
and interactive media projects. At the Centre, she works to
integrate television and video environments with visual arts
and build the new media creation program. Among her
accomplishments at the Centre, Diamond developed and
implemented artist based video practice, television
co-productions of artists’ works in video and video
installation support. She has been active in script
development, critics’ residencies, artists’ Internet
projects (NOMAD NET) and new media research consulting for
authoring tools and interactive media. Diamond also developed
the Memory/History creative residency, Dance Screen, the Eight
Minute Opera Project and Interactive Screen program. She
worked closely with the Aboriginal Film and Video Art Alliance
to develop the self-government project at The Banff Centre and
to practice self-government in developing programs for
Aboriginal artists as well as curate special screenings for
festivals and events such as Mill Valley, California, the
Vancouver Film Festival and Video Positive, England.
Committed to exploring new forms, she
created a prototype development environment for interactive
media projects and continues to curate one or two major
exhibitions each year - most recently, Cyber Heart, at the
Walter Phillips Gallery for contemporary art at The Banff
Centre. The exhibitions usually relate, or involve,
interactive media components and a thematic creative residency
running at the Centre. Diamond is also a key contributor and
creator of the New Media Focus strand of programming,
including Television with an Attitude, which runs each year at
the prestigious Banff Television Festival.
Her own television productions include The
Lull Before the Storm, On To Ottawa, and Fit to Be Tied. In
1992, Diamond was honoured with a retrospective exhibition and
catalogue at the National Gallery of Canada, following a
retrospective at the 1991 IMAGES Festival in Toronto and a
solo exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery. She often
represents Canada internationally at events like Biennial in
Sydney, Australia, and the Festival of the Arts in Budapest,
Hungary, Northern Lights in Tokyo, Japan and Exploding Cinema,
Rotterdam, and the Netherlands. She has had many solo
exhibitions including Patternity, an installation commissioned
by the Vancouver Art Gallery, which is now in the permanent
collection of the National Gallery. Heroics, an earlier
installation has toured throughout Canada and the United
States.
Her videotapes have been screened in
galleries, festivals, classrooms and community events all over
the world. They have been collected by diverse institutions
such as the Art Bank, the Museum of Modern Art, the National
Gallery of Canada, the School of Cinema and Television and
many universities, college, libraries, school boards and other
organizations. Diamond has won numerous awards for her videos
including Keeping the Home Fires Burning, The Lull Before the
Storm and Ten Dollars or Nothing. She was awarded the Gold
Medal in History by Simon Fraser University in 1990 and has
won awards from the Canada Council, British Columbia Film,
British Columbia Culture and various others. One of her most
recent honours is the 1995 Bell Canada Award for excellence in
video. She was nominated British Columbia Woman of the Year
while residing in Vancouver and is included in Canada's Who's
Who.
As a teacher and lecturer, Diamond leads
workshops, lectures and short courses for many post-secondary
institutions and art centres. For more than eight years she
served as faculty in studio and critical studies at the Emily
Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver. She has also
taught at the Capilano College Labour Studies Program and the
California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California.
Diamond is a curator, critic and writer,
curating many video and art exhibitions, and writing for
diverse publications and anthologies on the history of video
art, current issues in new technologies, sexuality and
censorship, and social history. She has recently completed a
history of computer arts in Western Canada and is writing a
text on French theory, new media and North American cultural
analysis.
She has acted as an advisor to university
programs including, the York Film School review and the
Technical University of British Columbia. She recently
consulted with the federal government of Canada in exploring
directions for content creation in new media. She speaks
regularly at international multimedia industry conferences
such as MILIA, consults with the communications industry on
issues of content and delivery and is a regular presenter,
curator and consultant for artists’ new media events. She
was recently made a member of the Academy of Canadian Cinema
and Television.
In recent years, she has worked
increasingly with research and development projects in
software, has consulted in developing interactive media
curriculum and events and has created think tanks that bring
together cultural industries, new media content producers,
artists and investors. She has consulted with Brazilian,
Cuban, French and other international professional development
environments to present interactive media seminars,
conferences and exhibitions and served on the l998 SIGGRAPH
panels committee. She currently sits on several Ph.D. thesis
committees for the University of Calgary and is a member of
the advisory council for the development of the Technical
University of British Columbia. Diamond is also a visiting
professor at UCLA.
She has led research in authoring tools
(JAVA client side software, music and 3D imaging) and is
currently leading research in advanced design of visualization
environments. She contributes to peer review journals in the
fields of Media and Communications Studies and sits on the
editorial board of peer review journals such as Convergence.
Her writing addresses issues of technology, art, women’s
studies, sociology, law and media art history. She is
currently co-editing publications about linguistics, games
(The Banff Centre and University of Texas at Austin), science
and art.
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W. PATERSON FERNS
Pat Ferns is president and CEO of the Banff Television
Foundation, the management organization for some of the world’s
leading television and new media industry events. He has over
30 years experience in the television industry, including 25
years as an independent producer. As a pioneer of
co-production, he conducts his famous "Market
Simulation" in various locations around the world. In
2000 the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television made Mr.
Ferns only the fifth recipient of the prestigious Academy
Achievement Award for "exceptional contribution to the
Canadian Television Industry."
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LIZBETH GOODMAN
Dr Lizbeth Goodman is Director of the SMARTlab Centre for
Site Specific Media, Performing and Digitial Arts at Central
Saint Martin's College of Art and Design, the London
Institute. She also directs the Practice-based PhD programme
for CSM. She is the Principal Investigator of the SMARTshell
Project, (creating innovative tools for synchronous and
asynchronous online/integrated performance and learning), and
of the Virtual Interactive Puppetry Project, the British
Council's Cultural and Media Studies development programmes in
North Africa, and the European Commission's RADICAL project
(Research Agendas Developed in Creative Arts Labs). She has
run dramaturgy sessions, performed in and executive produced
Sara Diamond's Code Zebra Project in the UK since 1999.
Dr Goodman was previously Director of the Institute for New
Media Performance Research at the University of Surrey,
following on from eight years leading the BBC Open
University's multimedia research teams in Shakespeare, Drama,
Gender Studies and Literature. She has worked extensively for
the BBC as a researcher, writer and presenter of Learning and
Arts/Media Programmes. She regularly convenes major
international conferences, workshops and practical lab
environments in Gender and Development, IT training, Cultural
Studies and Performance.
Dr Goodman has written and edited some 12 books and has
written and produced a wide range of multimedia programmes
ranging from educational cd roms and video/media packs to more
experimental online performance events, including the Extended
Body Project.
Dr Goodman is also a performer/director with many years of
professional comedy and theatre experience. She is currently
concentrating on performing and improvising for the small
screen, primarily with the webcast production company,
Stuckontheweb.com
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LAURA GROPPE
Girl Games is under the purview of its founder and CEO,
Laura Groppe, an entertainment industry leader and a pioneer
in producing technology for teen girls. She has been
recognized by publications including Forbes, Time, and
Newsweek as a leader in hands-on knowledge of the teen girl
demographic, and she is in constant demand as a speaker at
conferences on technology and teens.
In her previous life, Laura had a successful seven-year
career in Hollywood. Laura’s talents and contacts in the
entertainment industry have proven to be tremendous assets in
helping the company achieve its ambitious growth objectives.
Her entertainment achievements include an Academy Award in
1992 for Best Short Film, "Session Man", four MTV
awards in 1994 for co-producing R.E.M.'s music video
"Everybody Hurts", and an award for "Best
Cinematography" at Robert Redford's Sundance Film
Festival in 1994 for co-producing the feature film,
"Suture."
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CHRISTENE HIRSCHFELD
Christene is a partner at the law firm of
Boyne Clarke in Nova Scotia. The majority of her practice
relates to intellectual property matters, with an emphasis on
entertainment and intellectual property law. She acts for the
Royal Bank of Canada in connection with the financing of
knowledge-based industries in Atlantic Canada, as well as for
producers and production companies in Atlantic Canada.
Christene is the Chair of the Nova Scotia Chapter of
Canadian Women in Communications, a director of the
Information Technology Industry Alliance of Nova Scotia (ITANS)
and a former member of the Domain Names & Trademarks on
the Internet Committee (Patent and Trademark Institute of
Canada). She is often invited to speak on matters relating to
intellectual property and entertainment law.
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GAYLE IRWIN
Gayle Irwin is the Production Manager/Executive Producer in
charge of ArtsCanada—a bold new CBC Arts, Music and
Entertainment initiative: interactive and online. This fall
she will be leading a team of NewMedia producers who will be
crossing the country on a mission to determine the future of
television as part of the CBC celebrations surrounding the 50th
anniversary of television in Canada.
Before signing on with the
CBC, Gayle worked with the
convergence team at Bluezone, as Content Manager for the
CTVNews.com site. She also ran her own multimedia company,
"Everywhere & Nowhere;" taught Interface Design,
Digital Video Effects, and Digital Storytelling at the
International Academy of Design; and worked as an Instructor
of English Literature and Cultural Studies at York University.
With a Masters Degree in literary theory and work toward a
Ph.D. focusing on non-linear narratives, she brings a wealth
of practical and theoretical knowledge to the project of
creating compelling, interactive rich-media stories. She has
been writing, programming, designing and otherwise concocting
mad-scientist experiments with digital stories for the better
part of a decade.
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RHONDA LYNN JESSEN
Rhonda Lynn Jessen is the Manager, Interactive Media for
the Creative Electronic Environment at The Banff Centre. Her
team assists artists using computers in their art practice,
which includes teaching software how-tos, and producing web
art. She provides training and mentoring opportunities for
workstudies and interns as well as practicum work
opportunities for recent graduates. She was a founding board
member of the Alberta New Media Association. Prior to working
at The Banff Centre she worked as a computer consultant,
taught computer skills at Parks Canada and Dispatched
Emergency services in Banff National Park.
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SUSAN KENNARD
Susan Kennard, is the Producer of the Banff New Media
Institute http://www.banffcentre.ab.ca/bnmi at The Banff
Centre and Co-Founder of Radio 90 - Cellular
Pirate, a net radio/pirate fm station
that developed the hybrid net/fm broadcast model. Her current
focus of activities is developing the research agenda of the
Banff New Media Institute and the design and delivery of media
based workshops, thinktanks and professional development
programs.
Kennard is also an experimental dj and net.audio artist.
Performances include:
Net Radio Day 99 - Berlin http://www.art-bag.net/2000years/
Send+Receive Festival of Sound (Winnipeg 1999/1998), http://www.sendandreceive.org,
Maids in Cyberspace Festival (Montreal 1998), http://www.studioxx.org/(Basel 1998),
http://re-lab.net/basel/netradio/
56 Hrs Live Ars
Electronics (Linz 1998),
http://xchange.re-lab.net/56h
and Xchange Unlimited (Riga
1998),
http://ozone.re-lab.net/archive/xu
Kennard has worked with Campus/Community radio stations throughout Canada and is a past
Vice-president of the National Campus/Community Radio
Association. She has also worked as an on-air journalist for
CBC Radio, as an Associate Television Producer for CBC News
World's "The International Hour" and "Dateline"
NBC New York.
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ROMA KHANNA
Roma is the Executive Vice President of Snap Media Corp.,
one of Canada’s leading producers of interactive content.
Leading Snap Media's strategic corporate development
initiatives, Roma is well known and highly respected within
the new media community in Canada. Roma is often quoted and
enlisted for her strategic thinking on the integration of
television and new media, as well as the implications and
applications of convergence.
An experienced entertainment lawyer, Roma was the Manager,
Legal and Business Affairs at Sony Music Canada for almost 4
years before becoming a member of the Snap Media team. Roma
has dabbled in producing various film and television projects
including music videos, television commercials and an
independent feature film.
Prior to Sony Music Canada, Roma practiced
corporate/commercial law at the firm of Davies, Ward &
Beck in Toronto. She received her B.Sc. from the University of
Toronto, and received both her Canadian and American law
degrees at the University of Windsor and the University of
Detroit, respectively. As well, Roma has an MBA from York
University’s Schulich School of Business.
An active member of the new media and televisions
communities, Roma sits on the Board of Directors for the
Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA)
and acts as Chair of their New Media Committee. In the recent
past, Roma has served on other Boards including for the
Association of Internet Marketing and Sales.
In 2001 Roma was awarded the
I.H. Asper Broadcast
Entrepreneur of the Future Award at the Canadian Association
of Broadcasters annual convention.
Under the direction of Roma and her brother Raja, Snap
Media produces cutting edge interactive and convergent
projects such as Degrassi: The Next Generation (www.Degrassi.tv)
and CBC’s new arts and culture portal ArtsCanada.cbc.ca.
Snap Media specializes in taking TV projects into the
interactive world and has worked with such TV shows as Franklin
the Turtle, Fashion Television, Open Mike with
Mike Bullard, Mysterious Ways, Made In Canada,
Tracker, Savoir Faire, Riverdale and more.
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top>
DAVID KINCAID
David Kincaid was appointed Chief Marketing Officer for
Nelvana Ltd. on June 1, 2001. Prior to this role, Mr. Kincaid
was Vice President, Marketing for Corus Entertainment since
October 2000. Before joining Corus, he was Vice President,
Marketing for Labatt Breweries in North America. Mr. Kincaid
also has extensive marketing and sales management experience
working for American Express and General Foods.
Mr. Kincaid is a board member of Canadian Women in
Communications, a Junior Athletics coach and volunteer
fundraiser for Sick Children’s Hospital. He holds an Honours
degree in Political Studies and Business from Queen’s
University and has been a guest lecturer on the subject of
marketing at both Queen’s University and York University’s
M.B.A. programs
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MARTHA LADLY
Martha repatriated herself to Canada in January 2001,
having spent the last two decades in the UK, working in the
music business as a performer, recording artist and graphic
designer. In 1992 she joined Peter Gabriel's UK-based Real
World Group where she founded and ran the in-house design
studio, undertaking graphic, packaging, editorial and
interactive design work with her design team for the entire
Group. She was also Editor of Real World Notes Magazine and
E-CD, a bi-annual compendium of design, art, music and
interactive experimentation. During her time at Real World she
worked closely with Peter Gabriel and her design team and with
leading designers and directors on a number of award winning
projects including 'Xplora 1', the 'EVE' CD-ROM, 'Ceremony of
Innocence' CD-ROM and Secret World Live CD, video and tour. On
Martha's return to Canada she joined Toronto-based Immersion
Studios as Director of Design where she oversaw the design and
marketing, corporate identity, educational and internet
campaigns for the launch of the new Immersion Cinema at the
Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History
in Washington, D.C.
The move back to Toronto brings Martha full circle in a
20-year career in entertainment and education. She is now on
the faculty of the H@abitat Program at the Canadian Film
Centre and teaching graphic and interactive design at the
Ontario College of Art and Design, where she trained as a
student in the early 80's. In a previous life Martha was
keyboard player and b/vox with legendary Toronto new wave band
Martha and the Muffins.
Martha is an alumna of The Ontario College of Art and
Design and a Member of the Chartered Society of Designers and
the Designers and Art Directors Associations in the UK. She
continues her design practice with Commune.ca, her
Toronto-based production company and ThreeHumansINC, a virtual
design studio shared with colleagues in London and New York.
Martha is developing the 'Pussy Files' co-production with The
Banff Centre; a photographic/video/ interactive exploration
on the subject of female sexuality.
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STEPHANIE MACKENDRICK
Stephanie MacKendrick has worked in the communications
industry 25 years, five of those as President of Canadian
Women in Communications, an association that supports the
advancement of women in the converging communications field.
Her career began in 1977. After completing her degree in
journalism from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, she worked as
an Associate Editor for the cable TV monthly, Cable
Communications Magazine. She quickly moved to the position
of Managing Editor at Filmworld Magazine, a film and
cable television tabloid.
By 1982, Ms. MacKendrick had moved to radio. As National
Communications Reporter at Broadcast News Ltd., a
division of The Canadian Press, she covered everything
from CRTC rulings to the creation of satellite TV, and two
years later was named BN’s Marketing Manager, Cable
Services. Ms. MacKendrick left the company in 1987 to pursue a
career in corporate communications at Rogers Communications
Inc.
After stints at Rogers in Cable Advertising and Marketing
Communications, Ms. MacKendrick moved in 1990 to Unitel
Communications Inc. (now AT&T Canada) as Senior
Manager, Public Affairs. She left Unitel in 1994 to
become Vice-President, Corporate Communications, for Atlantis
Communications Inc., (now Alliance Atlantis
Communications) an international television production and
distribution company.
Ms. MacKendrick joined Canadian Women in Communications
(CWC) in 1996. As President, she has continued to press
forward the association’s mandate, including a national
mentoring program and the Women on Boards Initiative, the most
high-profile project CWC has taken on to date. Ms. MacKendrick
is a member of the Board of Directors of The International
Alliance, an worldwide women’s business networking
organization.
In recent years, Ms. MacKendrick has become a sought-after
speaker on a number of topics including Mentoring, Work-Life
Balance, Women in the Workplace, Networking and Women on
Boards.
Ms. MacKendrick, an avid sports fan and artist, lives in
Toronto with her husband, Gordon Donley, and their two sons,
Ian, 16, and Brian, 13.
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ELLIE RUBIN
Ellie Rubin – no. 1 national best selling author,
international speaker, television personality and syndicated
columnist – embodies the essence of the next generation of
entrepreneurs.
Her no. 1 national best seller, Bulldog – Spirit of
the New Entrepreneur has become the authoritative
blueprint for the ambitious. Based on her hands-on software
and marketing experience in the Silicon Valley, Hollywood,
Europe and the UK, Ellie offers practical strategies and
inspirational guidance for those who seek to control their own
future and provide unprecedented opportunities for themselves
and the companies they represent.
Ellie has piloted a roller-coaster business ride that any
careerist would recognize. She has managed radical shifts in
company direction, opened offices in the Silicon Valley,
formed alliances with such high-tech players as Sony Pictures
Entertainment and Sun Microsystems and raised more than $30
million in outside investment. Recently, Bulldog merged with
Documentum, a publicly traded content management software
company based in California.
Ellie’s ability to bring the complexity of a
knowledge-based economy into a clear business context makes
her a much sought-after keynote speaker in North America,
Europe and Australia. Her column Ambition has appeared
in a number of newspapers including The National Post and
The Chicago Tribune. As a television personality she
has been on Canada AM, The Pamela Wallin Show, The Dini Petty
Show, www.janeapplegate.com and is now the host of Business
Minutes on national television.
As an international speaker, Ellie provides her audiences
with the skills, mindset and attitude necessary to
thrive in today’s chaotic climate. By adopting the mindset
of ‘entrepreneuring’ as a verb, audiences not only find
her ideas stimulating and enlightening but leave with a road
map for turning competitive advantage into richly deserved
success. Customers include GlaxoWellcome, IBM, Yale
University, Phillip Morris Agency, The American Marketing
Association, Microsoft, The Australian Trade Commission,
The Annual Finland Multimedia Conference and The Annual
Scandinavian Interactive Media Event. Not surprisingly she has
the reputation of being someone "who makes your brain
sweat".
Ellie’s desire to give back to the community is reflected
in her various industry affiliations and awards including her
acceptance of the Wired Woman of Distinction Award 2000.
Highlights:
AUTHOR: no.1 national best-selling author of Bulldog
– Spirit of the New Entrepreneur; Chinese
publication release January 2001
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Ambition has been syndicated in a
host of US and Canadian newspapers including The Chicago
Tribune and The National Post
CO-FOUNDER: The Bulldog Group is an international media
management software company with offices in LA, San Francisco,
New York, London and Toronto.
TV PERSONALITY & MEDIA SPOKESPERSON: The LA Times,
www.Jane Applegate. com, The Pamela Wallin Show, Canada AM,
CBC Midday, The Dini Petty Show, The National Post, The Globe
and Mail, Report on Business, Maclean’s, Profit Magazine,
Chatelaine Magazine. She hosts Business Minutes
on national television.
INDUSTRY INFLUENCER: Recipient of the Wired Woman of
Distinction Award 2000; Smart Toronto board member; The
Canadian Film Centre’s Medialinxh@bitat
Advisory Council; Banff Centre's Arts Advisory
Committee; Interactive Digital Media Small Business Growth
Fund; Ontario Mentor for BDC, CAWEE; Wired Woman Society.
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KATHLEEN SCHERF
Dr. Kathleen Scherf was appointed Dean, Faculty of
Communication and Culture, at the University of Calgary in
1999. She is adjunct full professor in both the Departments of
Drama in Fine Arts and English in Humanities. Dr. Scherf holds
a BA in English literature from the University of Toronto, and
an MA and PhD, both in Canadian literature, from the
University of British Columbia. A native of Oshawa, Ontario,
she comes to Calgary from the University of New Brunswick in
Fredericton, where she taught theatre production and Canadian
literature, and where she was Associate Dean of Arts. Dr.
Scherf has published five books, has contributed many articles
to scholarly journals, and has delivered numerous papers at
learned conferences. For seven years, she edited the national
refereed journal Studies in Canadian Literature.
An active stage director and actor, Dr. Scherf looks forward
to continuing her theatre career in Calgary, once she is not
quite so busy writing fascinating decanal memos. She is very
interested in the training of girls and women for careers in
the communications industry; to that end, she is a Director of
the WTN Foundation, which funds communications training for
young girls, recent graduates, and women in mid-career.
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ELIZABETH VANDER ZAAG
I have been working as a digital artist with works
integrating computer and human sensibility dating from the mid
70’s. An early stint of being the first digital video
operator at the CBC prefaced work integrating video and
computer imagery and sound in the 80’s. Continued work with
computers and video saw a shift of control with the computers
controlling the videos. It has been a phenomenal experience
riding the wave of this medium over the last 27 years.
At one time I was one of a handful of people in Canada
integrating digital imagery with video and now an entire
nation is participating in this amazing renaissance. After
teaching electronic cinema and video at Simon Fraser
University in 1993, I started a multimedia school for artists
funded by HRDC called Western Front Multimedia. For the last
three years I have been concentrating on individual projects
and the development of the Speak and Yell software. We just
celebrated our first anniversary of www.cougardate.com
which is a tremendous study of how the public interfaces with
virtual internet entities and then interacts with each other.
Current projects include purchase of a vintage but rundown
apartment building in my neighbourhood in Vancouver’s Main
Street area.
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JENNIFER VILLAMERE
Jennifer Villamere is the New Media Designer and Web
Content Editor for the Creative Electronic Environment at the
Banff Centre. She produces net.art and collaborates with
artists to explore, explain and produce their Web-based work.
Jennifer’s background is in music journalism. She also runs
a thriving Web design company, "All Together Now Online
Design" (www.alltogethernow.ca).
Currently Jennifer is working with programmer Lisa
Betterton to co-produce "Living Frost", a Web-based
exploration of metaphysical geomorphology.
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LORI WARD
Lori Ward graduated with a BA honours in Environmental
Resources Studies and Comparative Development Studies from
Trent University in 1995. She joined The Banff Centre in 1995
and despite several long breaks to go traveling in South East
Asia, Australia, New Zealand, India and the UK has always
returned to the mountains. Lori assumed a new guise as the
Banff New Media Institute (BNMI) Research Assistant in June of
2000. The position developed into her present role as BNMI
Coordinator in October of 2001.
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