Saskatoon

Confirmed Speakers

• Gordon Barnhart
  Lieutenant Governor Gordon Barnhart is an acclaimed historian and recognized expert on the Canadian parliamentary process. Dr. Barnhart’s extensive experience in government includes twenty years as Clerk of the Saskatchewan Legislature and five years as Clerk of the Canadian Senate. He has worked as a consultant to strengthen democratic governance in countries around the world. Dr. Barnhart obtained a Ph.D. in history at the University of Saskatchewan, where he taught political studies and served as University Secretary. He has published several books on prairie history and Saskatchewan political figures.
• Gregg Cochlan
  Gregg Cochlan is an author, speaker, consultant and leadership coach whose first book, Love Leadership, challenged traditional corporate conditioning by positioning love as a more effective, sustainable leadership style. Gregg newest book World Peace, Really offers to it’s reader the application of cognitive psychology to enable peaceful coexistence. Since 1986 he has been helping industry leaders deal with the challenges of change. Gregg is the managing Director of The Pacific Institute a Seattle‐based educational and coaching company that provides critical thinking skills that enable individuals and organizations to increase their overall effectiveness.
• Monique Dubé
  Dr. Monique Dubé is a Canada Research Chair in Aquatic Ecosystem Health Diagnosis at the University of Saskatchewan. Her interest is to bring “science to service” with a focus on assessing and managing freshwater rivers and their watersheds. Monique has 20 years experience working across public, academic, government, industry (pulp and paper, mining, oil sands), consulting, and global (United Nations) networks. Never bored, Monique is a wife, mother of two, endurance kayak adventure racer, ultra-marathon runner, singer/songwriter and occasionally runs a horse around a few barrels!
• Jay Semko
  Jay Semko is known across Canada and beyond as singer/songwriter/bassist with multi-platinum selling Canadian pop/rock icons the Northern Pikes, and as an award winning music composer for numerous films and television productions, including Canada’s most successful internationally syndicated series, “Due South”. He is widely considered one of Canada’s finest songsmiths, and has co-written with many well known songwriters in Canada and the USA. Jay recently released his sixth solo album, and continues to instruct and mentor at numerous songwriting seminars and workshops across Canada. For more info about Jay visit www.jaysemko.com.
• Dean Shareski
  Dean Shareski is a Digital Learning Consultant for Prairie South School Division in Moose Jaw, SK. He works with teachers and students in understanding the power of the Read/Write Web. Dean is an advocate of design, storytelling and the power of sharing. He’s been modeling this on his own blog (www.ideasandthoughts.org) for nearly six years. He won the 2010 ISTE Award for Outstanding Leader of the Year. A husband, father, dog owner and golf nut, Dean never takes himself too seriously and credits the smart people he is connected to for helping him be a life long learner.
• Ellen Quigley
  Born and raised in Saskatoon, Ellen Quigley is a 25-year-old community organizer and founder of We Are Many (WAM), a local youth environmental organization with a particular focus on cycling and urban agriculture. She is an Ivy League graduate and holds a B.A. in English literature.
• Alec Couros
  Dr. Alec Couros is an Associate Professor of educational technology and media at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina. He has given hundreds of workshops and presentations, nationally and internationally, on topics such as openness in education, social/networked learning, learning environments, digital citizenship, and critical media literacy. His graduate and undergraduate courses help current and future educators understand how to use and take advantage of the educational potential offered by the tools of connectivity.
• Dale Zak
  Dale Zak is a software developer passionate about social change. After spending a number of years developing applications for the corporate world, Dale has now shifted his focus to helping initiatives that promote positive change. His past projects include developing a mobile application for Ushahidi’s crowdsourced crisis mapping system, helping The Extraordinaries develop their revolutionary micro-volunteering platform, and contributing to the opensource FrontlineSMS project which is used by NGO’s around the world. This past spring he travelled to Rwanda to help deploy a medical record system in a small rural hospital.