Jason Mogus Jason is the CEO of Communicopia, a Webby Award winning online strategy and development firm supporting organizations working for sustainability and social change. He leads branding and online strategy engagements for clients including The Elders, BC Hydro, Make Poverty History, Environmental Defense Canada, the BC Climate Action Secretariat, and the United Nations Foundation. A serial entrepreneur, Jason has held senior roles in technology start-ups since 1995.

Rosalyn Lemieux Rosalyn Lemieux is an Internet consultant based in Washington, DC. Rosalyn previously served as the Director of the New Organizing Institute, worked for MoveOn.org Political Action, and was the Internet director for the Feminist Majority.

Rob Purdie Rob Purdie is a project management consultant and trainer with over thirteen years of program, project and operations management experience. Over the course of his career, Rob has successfully managed hundreds of projects, led project management departments, established Project Management Offices and worked with senior management teams and staff to develop, implement and maintain strategic plans, processes and best practices. In 2004, Rob founded Important Projects, a values-based project management consulting and training practice focused on helping social change organisations achieve their strategic goals through the effective and successful management of their most important programs, projects and ongoing operations.

Christopher Roy Christopher is the founder of THINKHIVE, an Internet strategy, management and localization consulting practice for social value and environmental sustainability organizations. He has been managing the strategic planning, design and development of Internet businesses for over ten years.  His recent engagements have included work with Communicopia, The Elders Foundation, Every Human Has Rights, BC Hydro, TransLink, The Natural Step, The Pembina Institute, Global Urban Sustainability Solutions Exchange (GUSSE) and Texas Instruments. He a co-founder of The Natural Burial Co-operative and a soon-to-be father.

Alexandra Samuel Alexandra Samuel is CEO of Social Signal, an online strategy company that works with business, government and non-profit clients to create engaging, mission-driven online communities. Social Signal uses its expertise in maximizing online participation to create site concepts, blueprints and engagement plans that turn web sites into active, dynamic communities. This work builds on Alex’s years of consulting, research and writing on online community and civic participation by harnessing the latest generation of web tools – tools like blogging, social bookmarking, and RSS – to the challenge of community engagement. In 2004, Alex received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University, and her doctoral research continues to inform Social Signal’s unique approach to online community.

Michael Silberman Michael Silberman is a Partner at EchoDitto, a leading strategic online communications and technology firm dedicated to building vibrant communities online and empowering people through the creative use of emerging technologies. EchoDitto works with its clients to leverage new media and participatory technologies as a vehicle for affecting positive social and environmental change. Prior to co-founding EchoDitto, Silberman managed the grassroots field organizing and leadership development programs for Howard Dean’s renowned presidential run in 2004.  As National Meetup Director, he developed a team and technology strategy that mobilized 189,000 volunteers in over 1,200 cities worldwide. He is a frequent writer and speaker on the effective use of technology for converting online activity into real-world action. Michael also gained valuable organizing and political experience at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and in the Clinton White House at the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).

Phillip Smith Phillip Smith is a dedicated convener, digital craftsperson, campaign strategist, and information architect who works tirelessly to build the technology capacity of values-based organizations. He has worked closely with many world-changing media organizations and NGOs, including Amnesty International, Billionaires for Bush, Council of Canadians, Greenpeace, Grist, Make Poverty History, Mother Jones, New Internationalist, and The Tyee.

Eric Squair

Eric spent six years learning about campaigning, effective communications, online organizing and fundraising as the manager of Greenpeace Canada's online activities. Since September 2007 he has been putting his experience to work for the Canadian branch of the Make Poverty History campaign.

Other Speakers

David Averill – Program Manager, ONE/Northwest
Based in Seattle, David has been managing ONE/NW's fee-for-service consultancy since 2002. He works closely with outreach staff, technical staff and consultants with an eye toward sustainability, quality and fun. When not saving the world one technology project at a time, Dave plays with his kids, and looks forward to his next cup of Fair Trade Coffee.

Beka Economopoulos – Greenpeace USA
Beka has been a field organizer for environmental, economic and social justice organizations for the past 12 years. She now manages Greenpeace's online organizing program, where she develops and uses technology tools to coordinate scalable offline grassroots organizing efforts, and develops outreach and advocacy strategies in online social networks. She is a founding member of Not An Alternative, a non-profit arts collective and cultural production company, and she organizes Brunch 2.0, a quarterly event that promotes the meaningful cross-pollination of geeks, activists, and artists over eggs and pancakes.

Clay Johnson
Clay Johnson was one of the four founders of Blue State Digital, the progressive left's premier technology and online strategy firm, where he was responsible for developing the organization's brand, and building its initial client roster. Before Blue State, Johnson was the lead programmer for Dean for America in 2004, overseeing the development and of the grassroots tools like GetLocal, DeanLink and Project Commons. Clay still claims that he learned the most from his first job – waiter at Waffle House in Atlanta, Georgia.

Phillp King – President, Artez Interactive
Philip is the President of Artez Interactive. Artez works to help non-profits leverage the power of social-network fundraising, fuelled by the evolution of user-generated content systems. A native of Tennessee, Philip now lives in Toronto with his wife and two sons.

Kris Krug – President, Raincity Studios
Kris became President of Raincity Studios after Bryght, a pioneering Drupal hosting start-up, merged with RCS. As well known for his unique, ultra-personal photographic style as for his business acumen, KK is in demand as a speaker about social media, the future of entertainment and public relations, and growing businesses across borders. A native of California, he is now based in Vancouver, BC.

Mike McDerment – CEO and Co-Founder, Freshbooks
An entrepreneur with two successful start-ups to his name, Mike talks faster than he writes and can deftly juggle and keep his eye on hundreds of balls at one time. Mike is a founder of the mesh conference, lecturer at Humber College and a frequent speaker at Internet conferences. He talks about these things on his blog. Mike loves his work, and would rather be outdoors than inside.

Ricken Patel – Executive Director, Avaaz
Ricken is the Executive Director of Avaaz, an international campaigning organisation making strategic use of the Internet to help achieve its campaigning objectives. Avaaz is the latest example of a participation-led campaigning model exemplified by MoveOn in the USA and GetUp in Australia that have started to transform US and Australian politics over the last few years. With Avaaz operating in multiple languages and attracting members in multiple countries, including the UK, it is quickly becoming a major player in international politics.

Cristen Perks – Senior Strategy Architect, EchoDitto
Cristen is currently a Senior Strategy Architect in EchoDitto's Washington DC office where she works with non-profits and socially responsible corporations to develop and implement online strategy and technical development. Prior to EchoDitto, Cristen worked as a consultant developing custom issue advocacy campaigns. During the 2004 Presidential election, Cristen served as the Online Political Marketing Manager for MSHC Partners. It was there that she developed and implemented large-scale advertising campaigns for issue advocacy groups and political campaigns, including John Kerry for President and the Democratic National Committee. Outside of the office, Cristen can be found running the streets of DC, playing wii and blogging at cuteandnerdy.com.

Eli Singer – Segal Communications
Eli is the Director of Social Media with Segal Communications, an experiential marketing firm in Toronto. Segal are the exclusive Canadian representatives for Facebook. Until December 2007, Eli was the Managing Director of Social POV, the social media practice area of Cundari, one of Canada’s largest independently owned advertising and communications firms. His social media clients included the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation’s CIBC Run for the Cure, Kaiser Permanente, Alstom, Deloitte Consulting LLP, WWF-Canada and The Royal Ontario Museum. Eli lives in Toronto with his wife, Iris, and their new baby girl.

Jon Warnow – Step It Up
Jon Warnow is an online organizer who has spent the last year working on projects to unite communities for on-the-ground action to stop the climate crisis. After graduating from college in Vermont last year, Jon helped coordinate the "Step It Up," a national campaign which united over 2000 off-line events for a common call to climate action.  He's now transitioning to international work with Project 350, a grassroots initiative to stitch together a truly global climate movement.  He hopes that we can all create a new model of "open-source activism" will lead to deeper engagement, accessible campaigns, empowered constituencies, and more effective results.

Steve Williams – Business Objects
Steve Williams is Director of Product Marketing at Business Objects, an SAP company. He is a founding member of the Business Objects (previously Crystal Decisions) Foundation and currently focuses on working with social enterprises and non-profits to help them make the best use of reporting, analysis and performance management tools. Steve holds a BA in Political Science from UWO, an MBA in Management of Technology from SFU and is presently completing the SFU Certificate Program in Community Economic Development.

Advisory Committee

David Crow

David is a software designer with a passion for community. At Microsoft, David helps companies understand the technology and design opportunities for creating compelling digital experiences. He focuses on helping companies to extend their customers' reach with next generation technology for the desktop, digital devices, standards based applications for the Web, and rich media applications. David was named Toronto's Best Web and Tech Evangelist for his efforts in founding DemoCamp, BarCampToronto and Founders & Funders. David has worked to facilitate a vibrant community and ecosystem in Toronto. And continues to help clients understand the power of community beyond just being an audience. The community is the framework.

Allyson Hewitt

Allyson Hewitt is the Director of Social Entrepreneurship at MaRS. Allyson comes to MaRS from SickKids where, as the Executive Director of Safe Kids Canada, she was an advocate in preventing injuries to children. Prior to that, Allyson was the Executive Director of Community Information Toronto, an agency that matches people with services. In this capacity, she helped lead the development of 211, providing three-digit and online access to social service, community and government information. For this work she was awarded the HRDC-sponsored Head of the Public Service Award and several other awards for meritorious public service. Allyson’s academic background is in Criminology, Law, Public Affairs, Voluntary Sector Management and Leading Change.

Mark Kuznicki Mark Kuznicki is a researcher, writer and strategy consultant working at the intersection of technology, culture and innovation strategy. Together with like-minded collaborators, Mark is developing an innovative field of practice applying Open Source and “crowd-sourcing” methodologies to public policy, strategy and planning problems. Mark is a leading contributor to Toronto’s BarCamp technology community and is a commentator on social media. Mark was a co-organizer of Toronto TransitCamp, an experiment in Open Source co-creation, in February 2007, and published an article on the subject in Harvard Business Review in early 2008.

Mark Surman Mark Surman is in the business of connecting things: people, ideas, everything. A community technology activist for almost 20 years, Mark has spent the last three years leading a $26 million experiment in network weaving and open philanthropy called telecentre.org. He is currently an open philanthropy fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation in South Africa where is is inventing new ways to apply open source thinking to social change and social investment. Mark also co-convenes conversations about open cities in his hometown of Toronto. He has facilitated over three dozen participatory workshops and unconferences, including Hollyhock's Web of Change, CopyCamp, PenguinDay and countless telecentre.org events.

Ross Wallace Ross is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at MaRS, a role in which he coordinates relations and collaborations with all levels of government, regional and international partners and other key external stakeholders.  In 2007, he led the creation of SiG@MaRS - MaRS’ new social entrepreneurship initiative. Ross joined MaRS after completing his MBA at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.  Before attending Rotman, he worked as the executive editor of Corporate Knights, Canada’s first corporate social-responsibility magazine, helping create partnerships with stakeholders in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors.  Ross spent almost five years in Washington, D.C., working for the G7 Group, an economic and political consulting company, and for the Canadian Embassy assisting Canadian companies liaise with the World Bank. In 2006, Ross was an inaugural recipient of a Global Youth Fellowship from the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation.

Steve Williams

Steve Williams is Director of Product Marketing at Business Objects, an SAP company. He is a founding member of the Business Objects (previously Crystal Decisions) Foundation and currently focuses on working with social enterprises and non-profits to help them make the best use of reporting, analysis and performance management tools. Steve holds a BA in Political Science from UWO, an MBA in Management of Technology from SFU and is presently completing the SFU Certificate Program in Community Economic Development.

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