Dereck Orr,
Division Chief, Public Safety Communications Research Division Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
KEYNOTE

Mr. Orr leads the Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) program that serves as an objective technical advisor and laboratory to FirstNet, the Department of Homeland Security, and public safety to accelerate the adoption and implementation of the most critical public safety communication standards and technologies. From October 2003 until October 2004, Mr. Orr was detailed to the Department of Homeland Security to serve as the Chief of Staff of the SAFECOM Office within the Science and Technology Directorate, to help establish the new program. Prior to working at NIST, Mr. Orr served as a professional staff member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, and Related Agencies under Senator Fritz Hollings. In that position, Mr. Orr was responsible for the appropriations accounts relating to state and local law enforcement issues. Prior to that, Mr. Orr served four years at the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) at the Department of Justice.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was founded in 1901 and is now part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. NIST is one of the nation’s oldest physical science laboratories. From the smart electric power grid and electronic health records to atomic clocks, advanced nanomaterials, and computer chips, innumerable products and services rely in some way on technology, measurement, and standards provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Frank Soqui, Vice President & General Manager, Gaming Division
Intel Corporation
Chair, Computing Technologists Group,
The International Future Computing Association

Frank Soqui currently leads PC gaming and end-to-end cloud gaming, shaping Intel’s business in these growth segments. As a 36-year Intel veteran, he has represented Intel in over 50 high-profile interviews worldwide focusing on Intel’s VR, gaming and eSports efforts. Previous leadership roles include: Technical Compute Cloud and Client General Manager, Workstation Group General Manager, and General Manager in what is known today as IOT with a highly visible presence in live TV interviews, keynotes, and commercials. Frank has held leadership roles Digital Office, Desktop PC and Telecom groups. Transformation, creativity, and growth are his passion.

Daryl Sartain, Director and Worldwide Head of VR, AI/ML, Displays, TV & Music ecosystems
Radeon Technology Group
Advanced Micro Devices
Chair, The Immersive Technology Alliance, The International Future Computing Association

Daryl Sartain has over thirty years of experience in research and development, product development and management for integrated circuits, software development, system design, system engineering, information technology, marketing, and program management. Mr Sartain’s previous roles at AMD included Director of Strategic Business Development for AMD’s Innovative Systems Group and Director of the Desktop Division where he led desktop product business planning and product management in AMD’s Microprocessor Business Unit.

He was responsible for the AMD Athlon™ 64 FX, Athlon™ 64, Athlon™ XP and Sempron™ processors. Mr. Sartain’s career also features top brands like Texas Instruments, ESS Technology Inc., Locale Systems Corporation, Vennworks and Cirrus Logic.

Sandra Clarke, Global Education Solutions Manager for VR Classroom
Lenovo

Sandra Clarke has worked in the education technology space for over twelve years, and has spent the past nine years at Lenovo in Strategy, Sales, and Product Development roles. Sandra is the Global Education Solutions Manager for VR Classroom, which her team developed through partnerships with educators and leading technology providers from around the world. Sandra graduated from Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina and is currently active in STEM-based learning programs at Duke University.

Ajay Fry, Co-Host
Heads up Daily (HUD), GINX Esports TV Canada

After two successful years as the Saturday morning host for YTV, Ajay blasted off to SPACE where he co-hosted INNERSPACE, numerous specials (E3 and SDCC recaps to name a few), after shows (including After the Black, the official Orphan Black after show), and live events for ten years!

His Hollywood interview experience list includes countless names like Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Stone, Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson, creators like Neil Gaiman, Robert Munsch, Brian Fuller as well as inspiring innovators like Natalie Panek, Tony Hawk and Commander Chris Hadfield.

Through it all, Ajay never lost his passion for gaming and now finds himself as a regular co-host on HUD (Heads Up Daily) which is broadcast on GINX TV – Canada’s first 24 hour eSports television channel. With stories to tell, Ajay is the Immersed eSports expert and will also be keeping a sharp eye out for future computing developments at the show! You can catch Ajay live streaming at twitch.tv/AjayFry

Josh O’Kane, Reporter
The Globe and Mail

Mr. O’Kane covers technology for The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business. He joined the newspaper in 2011, and has written extensively about innovation, small business and music, among many other subjects. His 2016 book, Nowhere With You, is a national bestseller, and examines the music and career of Joel Plaskett through the lens of leaving and staying in Canada’s Maritime provinces. Josh’s longform journalism has been showcased by Harvard’s Nieman Storyboard and Great Canadian Longform. His breaking-news writing has been shortlisted for a Canadian Online Publishing Award, and in 2018 he was part of the Globe team that won the Society of American Business Editors and Writers’ Best in Business Canada Award for breaking news.

Richard Huddy, Head of Game Ecosystem
Samsung Research Institute, UK
KEYNOTE

Samsung is the world leader in smartphone sales and for almost a decade has been setting the agenda for others to follow. Richard is proud to lead Samsung’s Games Ecosystem Team – the team that works to ensure that games play better on Samsung than anywhere else. He is an industry veteran with almost thirty years of experience of the hardware side of the games business and has held the position of “Chief Gaming Scientist” and of “Chief Gaming Evangelist” at industry leading tech companies.

Richard has a love of pixels that few can match, his favorite modern games are from the Battlefield series by DICE, but he also still finds time to occasionally play Asteroids on an original arcade machine. Richard prefers cappuccino to tea – in spite of being English.

Sarafina Bonsu-Akoto, Business Development Manager
Futurpreneur

Sarafina is a graduate from Wilfrid Laurier University with a Double Major in Leadership and Law & Society. She also has a certificate in Project Management from Sheridan College. Before working at Futurpreneur, she was at Bioenterprise Corporation where she led the launch of an online regulatory software and two government funded programs. Currently at Futurpreneur Canada, she is the Business Development Manager supporting Newcomers and Canadian entrepreneurs alike start their business dreams.

Marc Saltzman,
Technology Author & Journalist

Marc Saltzman is one of North America’s most recognizable and trusted tech experts, specializing in consumer electronics, Internet trends, interactive entertainment, and future tech. Marc has authored 16 books since 1996 and currently contributes to nearly 40 high-profile publications in North America, including Toronto Star, Metro, USA Today, AARP, MSN, Yahoo, Costco Connection, and Zoomer. Marc hosts various video segments on Canadian and American TV stations, as well as the “Gear Guide” video seen at Cineplex movie theatres across Canada. Marc also hosts four radio shows, and the “Tech It Out” podcast.

Mike Domaguing, Vice-President of Marketing
Survios

Survios is a virtual reality developer and distributor that releases chart-topping titles like “Raw Data,” “Sprint Vector,” and the latest collaboration with investor MGM, “Creed: Rise to Glory”. Mr. Domaguing oversees all marketing efforts and is responsible for the company’s brand identity, growing product portfolio and efforts across its broad VR arcade network. A video game industry veteran, Mr. Domaguing carries an extensive background in digital media, gaming and entertainment. He previously led marketing for properties such as “Delta Force: Black Hawk Down,” “Dead or Alive,” “Yar’s Revenge,” “Ninja Gaiden,” Hasbro’s “Game of Life,” “Clue,” “Scrabble” and countless others.

Alex Igelman, Executive Chairman and Founder
Millennial Esports Corp.
Managing Director, Spectrum Esports Advisors

Mr. Igelman is a lawyer with over 25 years of experience in technology, entertainment and casino gaming. In 1996, Igelman was the first lawyer to focus on Internet gaming and in this regard was instrumental in the early success of both PartyGaming and PokerStars. In 2004, he was involved in the creation and formation of Gaming VC, an AIM listed public gaming company that has become a giant in the space. Since 2013, Igelman has been focused on the Esports sector. In 2014, Igelman was recruited to be a strategic consultant to Pro Gaming League (PGL), the first Esports related company to be later acquired by Millennial Esports Corp. In 2016, through a reverse merger, Millennial Esports was created and debuted on the TSX-V under the symbol GAME – with Igelman taking the helm as CEO. Since then, Igelman has led the company in its continuous and successful growth, most recently focusing on raising over $27,000,000 and counting.

Ricardo Wagner, Marketing & Operations Product Lead
Microsoft Canada

Mr. Wagner’s team is at the forefront of creating positive experiences that apply technology to make a difference in the world and individual lives. Among other things, Mr. Wagner leads Microsoft Canada’s Diversity & Inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. Covering both internal and external efforts, his work addresses both the hardware and software components needed to enable everyone in day to day computing and future computing lifestyles and day to day activities. Some of the Microsoft products featured in Mr. Wagners’ work include the Windows 10 operating system, Microsoft Office, XBOX, and more.

Outside of Microsoft, Mr. Wagner is working to support education in Africa and Latin America by co-leading a program called Myskills4Afrika.

Charlie Choo, COO / Partner
Studio 216

Charlie Choo is Chief Operating Officer of Studio 216 and Partner in Charge of projects. He works closely with project leaders and teams, inspiring and critiquing the quality of the work and ensuring the very best efforts are made serving their clients each day. Since 2006, Mr. Choo has led the firm’s most notable projects including ground breaking work in virtual and mixed reality. Mr. Choo understands the power of visualization and the ways immersive technologies can empower design, enhance workflows and impact decision-making.

Mr. Choo has also served on the faculty of the University of Washington College of Architecture and the Art Department at Seattle Pacific University. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Tufts University and a Master of Architecture from the University of Washington.

Briana Brownell, Founder & CEO
PureStrategy.ai

PureStrategy.ai deploys AI agents into the Enterprise that proactively provide the workforce information they didn’t even know they needed to understand the deeper currents that underlie their most important data streams. Using the leading edge technology in natural language processing, machine learning and neural networks, PureStrategy.ai’s Automated Neural Intelligence Engine (ANIE) gives enterprises insight from data using AI so they can act faster on customer experience trends and emerging issues.

Briana founded Pure Strategy in 2015 after ten years as a data scientist in the marketing research and finance industries and is a frequent keynote speaker on both technical and business topics including AI, data science, and machine learning. She has lead advanced analytical data projects with top tier companies in pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, banking, insurance, utilities, and retail, among many others. Her specialty is in unsupervised learning where she has created methodology used globally by research teams and Fortune 500 companies, most notably methods to apply unsupervised learning methods to longitudinal data so that organizations can accurately track changes in data with minimal data collection costs.

Pascal Langlois, CEO
Collective Intent

Ex-dancer, and RADA trained Graduate, Pascal has over 20 years experience as an actor and performer in all media, with a deep interest in areas where technology and acting meet. Having developed a cross discipline system to classify and apply human facial expressions and gestural behaviors for procedural and mark up animation, Pascal now brings that experience to consultancy work with Ubisoft and others who are working on their own approaches.

Mr. Langlois is currently contracted at Ubisoft Toronto as Assistant Director of Precedural Motion Capture and has worked for companies including the Royal National Theatre, Warner, BBC, Talkback, Kudos, Quantic Dream, CBC, Ubisoft Montreal, Dynamixyz, Quantum Capture, Space and SyFy, and numerous other Canadian TV productions.

Pascal has written and produced cutting edge game and tech demos, and a co-wrote and performed one hour Live animated interactive drama “Faster than Night” as part of harbourfront Hatch Festival.

Andrew Schmied, CEO
APS Consulting

Mr. Schmied is a corporate and business development executive who has commercialized visual technologies globally. He formerly led global consumer businesses at Advanced Micro Devices and created new markets for advanced graphics technologies through his relationship building abilities. To benefit his clients, Mr. Schmied has built deals with the likes of Intel, Microsoft, Samsung, NASA, Garmin, Airbus, Dell, Lockheed Martin, Apple and Barco.

Mr. Schmied has pivoted numerous start-ups to viability, raised crucial international venture capital for reputable companies such as Lucidlogix and Adshir, and is focused on accelerating revenue and building valuation by helping teams identify strategic core value and execute alignment with future markets.

Lucille De Haitre, Director, Public Sector Canada
Lenovo

An accomplished and highly motivated bilingual sales executive and sales director, Lucille possesses excellent skills and experience in dealing with corporate and public sector customers, developing strategic alliances and establishing strong client relations. Lucille has a wealth of experience in the IT industry, having worked for IBM, AMD, BEA Systems and Lexmark in the areas of business development and sales.

A proven team player and motivator with strong interpersonal, communication and leadership skills, Lucille is a results-oriented individual with an exceptional vision for business imperatives and information technology. Lucille has a comprehensive understanding of the broad technologies environment and also of government procurement processes.

Ofer Shai, Director
Omnia AI, Deloitte Canada

As Director of Deloitte’s AI practice, Dr. Shai is leading their IP Factory. Ofer uses the latest in deep learning, machine learning and AI to build products and solutions for Deloitte’s clients, and drive AI strategy and insights in the market. Omnia AI’s IP offerings include solutions designed to help enterprises manage their contracts and re-papering load, media and social-media monitoring to detect and predict strategic risk, AI driven cyber security tooling, health care solutions for improving caregiver and patient experience, and more.

Ofer has 15 years of experience in natural language processing, predictive and advanced analytics, recommendation systems, information retrieval, and computational biology. Ofer holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto Machine Learning Group, and has held leadership positions at Upsight, Meta, and Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative.

Rama Krishna Aravind, Founder & Creative Director
Poco Loco Amusements

Mr Aravind has always had a multidimensional approach. Prior to founding Poco Loco Amusements, he explored and accomplished in areas from being a C# Dot Net programmer to being an Assistant Director in India’s biggest blockbuster film “Baahubali -The Beginning” – the highest grossing film in India. He later served as VFX Project Manager for “Baahubali – The Conclusion”.

His love for challenges and ability to understand both creative and technical languages developed, in him, a great passion for creating multidimensional entertainment forms.

As his brain child, Poco Loco Amusements continues to revolutionise the story telling craft by making it an engaging affair. Evolving from mixed reality and artificial intelligence, Poco Loco aims to create hologram interactive X.R. Cinema and other innovative entertainment forms.

Ed Callway, Principal Member of Technical Staff
Advanced Micro Devices

Mr. Callway has been designing analog and digital products for 35 years, beginning with medical imaging equipment. At ATI/AMD, he has developed a range of products including sound and graphics cards, the award winning All-in-Wonder graphics + TV tuner series, STB/DTV designs, as well as algorithms for video and display processing. His current work is focused on Virtual Reality and High Dynamic Range (HDR) displays.

He has a B.Eng and M.Eng in Engineering Physics from McMaster University and holds over 35 patents in video technology and computer architecture.

David Rolston, CEO
Tirocorp

With over 35 years of experience, Dr. Rolston has worked in several engineering roles including developing elements of DARPAnet (the precursor of the internet), serving as VP of engineering for ATI, and being the youngest engineering fellow ever appointed at Honeywell, Inc.

Dr. Rolston is a recognized industry pioneer in Artificial Intelligence and wrote “Principles of Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems Development”, one of the first best selling books on AI. He was also a pioneer in 3D graphics and Virtual Reality / Virtual Worlds. He was CEO of a company that produced one of the world’s first full VR systems.

Dr. Rolston has been GM of divisions of TRW, Silicon Graphics, and ATI. The position at TRW was in the government services industry and included developing very-early stage applications for transferring images and video on the internet as well as internet hyperlinking. The Silicon Graphics role involved developing the foundations of 3D graphics with applications in film and games as well as enterprise systems. At ATI Dave was responsible for developing graphics chips for 75% of the world’s laptops as well as for various gaming systems.

In addition to these corporate roles, he has been CEO of five early-stage venture-backed companies. These companies worked in a variety of industries building many different hardware and software products for consumer, government, and enterprise applications.

As CEO of Tirocorp, Dr. Rolston is building a “do anything” intelligent personal assistant that will be based on an AR avatar. He is also chairman of Image Metrics, a company that develops software that is used to automatically animate facial expressions on any type of character.

Dustin Freeman, Founder
Escape Character

Dr. Freeman has a mixed background in Computer Science and Theatre. He’s had a long experience building fluid, immediate interfaces for creative expression and immersive, interactive theatrical experiences, backed by novel Computer Vision, and Machine Learning-powered gesture detection. After finishing a PhD at the University of Toronto in 2015, he worked for a series of AR/VR startups in Silicon Valley, and then co-founded a company to look into live streaming television shows with remote audience participation (Raktor). Now, he works at Escape Character, looking at ways to use inexpensive motion capture to enable live, professional performers to create engaging interactive content.

Hilary McVicker, Communicatrix
The Elumenati

Also known as VP of Business Development, Ms. McVicker has a background in communications and new media which led to several years in the video game industry, providing resources and creating community for game developers. Joining The Elumenati in 2008 was the next step in a career focused on the business of interactive technologies and their meaningful application.

The Elumenati are leaders in the field of immersive projection design, creating virtual reality that groups of people can experience together without the need for headsets. Their team brings decades of experience to building projects for clients in education, enterprise and entertainment – from NASA to Dreamworks, and innovative museum installations around the globe.

Karim Aly, Co-Founder & Chief Growth Officer
Galilei

Galilei is the Open Innovation Company and an affiliate of Concordia University. In partnership with Ubisoft, Galilei recently launched XR:MTL, a collaborative innovation factory for applied XR development. XR:MTL brings together corporations, academia and startups to catalyze and accelerate commercially targeted innovation in XR.

Prior to Galilei, Mr. Aly was the founder and CEO of TaskSpotting; a multi-award winning VC-backed technology start-up that enables businesses to activate the power of micro-influence across digital channels. His earlier venture was a $20m early-stage investment and incubation firm focused on clean technologies across high growth markets.

Mr. Aly previously held several senior roles within the financial services industry including Vice President at the Dubai Sovereign Wealth Fund where he created the portfolio management and strategy team and worked on transactions totalling in excess of USD 3 billion globally. He also served in a project origination and strategic advisory role with ‘The Executive Office of the Ruler of Dubai’, conceptualizing and launching multiple $1b+ mega-projects in the Emirate of Dubai. Mr. Aly began his career in Mergers and Acquisitions with Merrill Lynch in North America.

Tom C. Hall, Co-Founder
Tribe of Pan

Traveling all around the globe, Tom C. Hall is an award-winning Stereographer, Cameraman, and Virtual-Reality Filmmaker. Mr. Hall is constantly exploring how emerging technology can enable storytellers to better connect with their audiences and drive the art form of cinema forward. As a lead technological thinker he made possible the Canadian Screen Awards nominated Horizon: A 360 Journey, a large format 360° film experience to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Canada. A pioneer in virtual reality film-making, Tom is constantly pushing the envelope of what the future of narrative storytelling could be in the 21st century.

Avery Rueb, Co-Founder, Educational Sales Director
Affordance Studio

Affordance Studio is a startup founded by design experts and veterans of the video game industry. Its collaborative design approach combines expert learning content into innovative, fun and effective gaming solutions. Integrating games into schools,companies and professional development is not only cutting-edge but also highly effective.

Mr. Rueb is responsible for the educational games and work with school districts. As an educational researcher, he has published multiple articles on game-based learning with funding from organizations like SSHRC. Finally, Avery co-founded and is on the Board of Directors for the Association EDTEQ, a not-for-profit in Quebec which brings together over 60 edtech companies to improve access to educational technology in classrooms province-wide.

Dr. Jason Jerald, CEO
NextGen Interactions

Dr. Jason Jerald is CEO at NextGen Interactions and Adjunct Visiting Professor at Duke Univeristy. Dr. Jerald serves on multiple advisory boards and has been creating VR systems and applications for over 20 years with over 70 VR-related projects across more than 40 organizations including Valve, Oculus, Virtuix, Sixense, MergeVR, AT&T, NASA, General Motors, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, three U.S. national laboratories, and seven universities.

Dr. Jerald’s work has been featured on ABC’s Shark Tank, on the Discovery Channel, in the New York Times, and on the cover of the MIT Press journal “Presence”. He has held various technical and leadership positions and has served on the ACM SIGGRAPH, IEEE Virtual Reality, and IEEE 3D User Interface Committees. He is also the author of numerous publications including the best-selling title “The VR Book: Human-Centered Design for Virtual Reality”.

Ted Judge, Vice-President of Marketing
Polar Screens

Ted Judge is an experienced business strategy and marketing executive with over 30 years experience in creating and growing technology companies. He has been responsible for conceptualizing and launching numerous products in assistive technology, multimedia communications and telecom. He has experience in building strong relations with partners and customers around the world.

PolarScreens has been at the forefront of stereoscopic displays since 2003 with leading 3D displays being sold under license for professional and gaming applications. The upcoming release of PolarScreens’ Holographic Display with “Steerable Lightfield Technology”™ will radically change the expectations for desktop computer monitors.

Kevin Williams, Founding Chairman
DNA Association

Kevin Williams has an extensive background in the development and sales of the latest amusement and attraction applications and immersive technologies. The UK born specialist in the pay-to-play scene; is well-known through his consultancy KWP; and as a prolific writer and presenter covering the emergence of the new entertainment market. Kevin has co-authored a book covering the sector called ‘The Out-of-Home Interactive Entertainment Frontier’ published by Routledge, and also runs his own news service called The Stinger Report. The DNA Association focuses on the digital Out-of Home interactive entertainment sector.

David Gull, CEO
Outer Realm

Mr. Gull has a unique combination of design & technical expertise as a licensed architect and technology executive and his company Outer Realm has the experience of delivering over 500 new development virtual tours to date. A large part of the Outer Realm business is the use of virtual reality to exemplify real estate, and its their practice to focus on creating experiences that are emotionally engaging and realistic to gain the customer trust during their clients’ sales process.

Prior to Outer Realm, David was a Vice-President at Floored, a Virtual Technology startup acquired by CBRE. He also has 6 years at the renowned architecture firm Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. David graduated first in his class from Cornell University’s #1 Ranked Architecture Program.

David Parker, Founder
Wishplay

Wishplay is a non-profit that uses virtual reality to grant last wishes and unattainable experiences for the terminally ill and disabled. Previously David consulted as a system architect bringing bleeding edge technology to large national and global companies. He integrated existing legacy systems with bio-metrics, empathy analysis, AI, or IoT systems focusing on the retail, financial and telecommunications space. When not granting wishes he can be found out with his family filming unique 360 VR environments and experiences for patients

Dr. Jon Peddie, CEO
Jon Peddie Research

Dr. Jon Peddie is one of the pioneers of the graphics industry, and formed Jon Peddie Research (JPR) to provide customer intimate consulting and market forecasting services. Peddie lectures at numerous conferences on topics pertaining to graphics technology and the emerging trends in digital media technology. Regularly credited as one of the world’s most influential analysts, he regularly advises investors in the GLG network, he is frequently quoted in trade and business publications, was the former president of Siggraph Pioneers, and he is also the author or co-author of twelve books. His most recent works include “Augmented Reality: Where we Will All Live” and “The History of Visual Magic in Computers”. Dr. Peddie has also been honored by the CAD Society with a lifetime achievement award.

Bob Raikes, Publisher & Managing Editor
Large Display Monitor, Mobile Display Monitor, Display Daily
Founder, Meko Ltd.

Bob Raikes is an experienced sales and marketing specialist in distribution and in the displays business in particular. In addition to being Publisher and Managing Editor for Large Display Monitor, Mobile Display Monitor and Display Daily, Bob has also served as the displays editor for The Peddie Report and a regular contributor to Computer Shopper and other titles including the SID Information Display magazine.

From 1982 he was involved in the sales, marketing and distribution of computer displays, including seven years with Japanese monitor and graphic board maker Eizo, initially as sales director and later for five years as managing director of the company’s UK subsidiary. He established Meko Ltd, a specialist market research consultancy in 1994. Bob Raikes has appeared on TV and radio for his expertise; including BBC World and BBC Radio 4.

Matt Deneault
Client Executive, Education K-12, Canada

Matthew Deneault has spent over 12 years in the Canadian IT Industry in various sales and marketing roles. Matthew has extensive experience within the Solution Partner channel working with hundreds of end-user organizations in the private and in the public sector. In the most recent 5 years, Matthew has been focused on technology in the K-12 space in his dedicated role supporting Ontario School Boards and Schools.

Joanne-Aśka Popińska, Co-Founder
Tribe of Pan

Ms. Popińska is the Director of The Choice, a VR documentary about reproductive rights which is currently in development. She is the former Artistic Director of the 3D IMAGE Film Festival in Łódź, Poland and is at the forefront of the bleeding edge of cinema and technology.

A Ph.D. student at the Polish National Film School, Joanne-Aśka Popińska immigrated to Canada to pursue filmmaking and activism. With a Master’s Degree in Sociology, Joanne-Aśka dedicates her creative vision to explore the similarities between us homo sapiens and all other life we share this planet with, and that ‘rights’ don’t just end at human rights. She is a recipient of Toronto Arts Foundation “The RBC Arts Access Fund Awards” for the newcomer artists.

Neil Schneider, Executive Director
The International Future Computing Association

Neil Schneider is best known for founding Meant to be Seen (mtbs3D.com), the first modern stereoscopic 3D gaming community and the launch point of products like The Oculus Rift, the Virtuix Omni, the open source Vireio Perception VR drivers, and more. Neil also served as Manager of Immersive Technology Services for the Faculty of Business and IT at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, and was the founder of The Stereoscopic 3D Gaming Alliance which the Immersive Technology Alliance which TIFCA is born from.