2021 Speakers
Mara Bullock - Smart Mobility National Manager WSP (Keynote)
Mara Bullock, P.Eng brings over 28 years of experience of applying technology to transportation and community building to her role as WSP’s Smart Mobility National Manager. Over her career, Mara has seen significant transformation in services as new technologies evolve as well as new opportunities and different ways of doing business. Automated, Connected, Electric and Shared mobility will further transform the services offered for personal mobility as well as goods movement. Mara believes that technology is a tool to resolve operational or institutional gaps or deficiencies that cities and transportation networks face and understanding those problems and needs is critical to delivering the project.
Sandor Tucakov Caetano - Chief Data Scientist (Presenter)
Sandor Tucakov Caetano is an Economist. He has worked with Econometric models and game theory since 2006 building marketing, pricing and sales models for big consumer goods and food companies. He worked as the head of Data Science for Nubank in Brazil and today is the Chief Data Scientist of iFood.
Saiedeh Razavi - Associate Professor; Chair in Heavy Construction; Department of Civil Engineering; Director, McMaster Institute for Transportation and Logistics McMaster University (Moderator)
Dr. Saiedeh Razavi is the Director of the McMaster Institute for Transportation and Logistics (MITL), Associate Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering, and the Chair in Heavy Construction at McMaster University. Dr. Razavi has a multidisciplinary background and considerable experience in collaborating and leading national and international multidisciplinary projects on smarter mobility, smart infrastructure, construction and logistics. Her formal education includes degrees in Computer Engineering (B.Sc.), Artificial Intelligence (M.Sc.) and Civil Engineering (Ph.D.). She combines several years of industrial experience with academic teaching and research. In her role as Director of MITL, she brings together the private and public sectors with academia for the development of high-quality evidence-based research in mobility, transportation infrastructure, and logistics. She is a member of the provincial “Hamilton Transportation Task Force” to support the Government off Ontario for $1 billion capital investment in transportation and transit projects in Hamilton. In April 2017, she was invited to the Parliament of Canada to present her transportation research at McMaster at the “Research Matters” event to the Members of the Parliament. She is currently a member of the Discovery Grants Evaluation Groups in Civil, Industrial, and System Engineering.
Mike Branch - Vice President, Data & Analytics, Geotab (Panelist)
Mike is the Vice President of Data & Analytics at Geotab and leads the charge for developing solutions that enable insight from over 2 million connected vehicles and 30 billion telematics records that Geotab processes on a daily basis. Mike joined the Geotab team in 2016, and prior to that was the CEO of Inovex Inc. which in 2013, spun off a brand new entity Maps BI -- a platform for geo-spatial data visualization. Maps BI was integrated within Geotab's telematics platform as a key partner and was later acquired by Geotab in 2016. Mike has received numerous honors including the University of Toronto Arbor Award and Early Career Award, Engineers Canada Young Engineer Award, Professional Engineers of Ontario Engineering Medal, and the Cloud Innovation World Cup.
Scott Cober - National Practice Leader, Transportation, BFL (Panelist)
Scott joined BFL in October 2018 after leaving one of the largest Global Insurance Brokerages where for 12 years he also held the role as National Practice Leader for Transportation. Scott has 25 years of insurance experience and holds an Insurance Diploma from Mohawk College. He has achieved the Chartered Insurance Professional (CIP) designation, and Canadian Accredited Insurance Broker (CAIB) designation. His experience and skills in off-shore captives, alternative risk solutions, expertise in Telematics / Behavior Technology and the Sharing / Gig Economy have proven to be beneficial and profitable to many clients.
Susan Boot - P.Eng. Head, ITS Innovation and Planning Section, Intelligent Transportation Systems Ontario Ministry of Transportation (Panelists)
Susan Boot is MTO’s Manager of the ITS Office, previously the Head of the ITS Innovation and Planning Section within the office. With over 28 years of experience with MTO, Susan has been with the ITS Office since 2011. Susan has experience with provincial highway planning and design and ITS planning, design, construction, maintenance, and operations. Susan is currently responsible for managing the ITS Office which includes the areas of innovation and strategic planning and the design, construction, and maintenance of ITS infrastructure on provincial highways. The ITS program is heavily engaged in MTO’s planning for Smart Mobility, Connected and Automated Vehicles and the ministry’s Data and Information Strategy.
Richard Dunda - Director, Centre for Integrated Transportation and Mobility, Innovation Factory (Panelist)
Richard has spent more than 30 years in the software and communications/media industries. More recently, Richard has been immersed in and working with Canada’s start-up, scale-up, and growth companies as an executive, advisor, consultant, mentor, and certified coach. Richard now joins Innovation Factory as the Director at the Centre for Integrated Transportation & Mobility (CITM). Over the course of his career, Richard held a series of engaging and foundational roles – stretching from his beginnings in the PC industry running an start-up in the late ’80s, to 20+ years at Microsoft in a series of roles in North America, to 5 years at Rogers Communications’ as Director of Strategic Partnerships team, and, most recently as President & COO of a technology start-up. Richard credits these roles and, more importantly the people and mentors, with his development of a unique combination of skills, experience, and expertise.
Sherry Colbourne - President & CEO, Spark Centre (Panelist)
Sherry Colbourne is a Canadian entrepreneur with decades of experience in Ontario’s high-tech sector. Her career has taken her to the far corners of the world in pursuit of building strategic business relationships for the companies she has served. As CEO, Sherry guides the direction and growth of Spark Centre and advocates for an international approach to the development of Durham Region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Sherry is a strong believer that entrepreneurism brings diverse cultures and people together and that the opportunity for Durham Region lies in its roots as an innovative and diverse Region.
Edward Dawson - Senior Manager, Automobility and Innovation - Simulation Team, Invest WindsorEssex (Panelist)
Ed is the Senior Manager of Automobility and Innovation, leading the Simulation Team at Invest WindsorEssex. He completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Windsor, specializing in Political Science and Economics. Upon graduating, Ed worked for TD Bank Financial Group in a variety of roles, including management and as a licensed investment advisor. Today, Ed leads a dynamic team at Canada’s largest publicly accessible VR CAVE that was designed for the testing of C/AV technologies. Having accurate simulation testing capabilities and high-fidelity test tracks supports companies and academics pursuing mobility technologies that will shape the future of what the next generation of infrastructure and vehicles will look like, especially as they relate to crossing international borders.
Hanna Haponenko - Axcessiom Technologies - Product Design, Operations (Moderator)
Hanna Haponenko is a third-year PhD student studying Human Cognition and Perception at McMaster University, from where she also obtained her Bachelor of Health Sciences Degree in 2013. Her undergraduate honours thesis focused on enhancing community connectedness through business development ventures in the north end of Hamilton. Hanna has most recently married her love of researching human attention with her business interests into managing a startup called Axcessiom Technologies. At Axcessiom, Hanna applies principles of human and computer vision to lead the development of a facial gesture recognition device used by drivers with disabilities to activate functions like windshield wipers and turn signals with simple facial expressions. Hanna is most passionate about designing effective human machine interfaces, wrangling and analyzing data to make valuable insights, and exploring ways to increase trust between humans and autonomous vehicles.
Raed Kadri - Head of Ontario's Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Network Senior Director, Automotive Technology and Mobility Innovation, Ontario Centre of Innovation (Remarks)
Raed Kadri is Head of the Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Network (AVIN) and Senior Director of Automotive Technology and Mobility Innovation at Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE). In his role, he is responsible for leading AVIN, an initiative by the Government of Ontario which drives economic growth, creates high-quality jobs and strengthens Ontario’s competitive advantage in the automotive, transportation and mobility sector. Raed received his Bachelor of Applied Science (Industrial Engineering) from the University of Windsor, his Master of Science (Industrial Engineering) from Wayne State University in Detroit and his Master of Science (Business and Management Research) from Henley Business School in Henley-on-Thames, U.K. He is currently pursuing his Doctorate in Business Administration from Henley Business School in partnership with Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
Chris Gillis, P. Eng. - Manager, Applied Research Business Development, Office of Research Services, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Durham College (EMCEE)
Chris has been focused on operational performance improvement, innovation and customer satisfaction for over 25 years in a wide variety of industries and sectors in Canada, the United States, Mexico and the United Kingdom. In his current role as Manager, Applied Research Business Development, he is the college lead for connected and autonomous vehicles. As well, Chris works to connect companies in the advanced manufacturing and craft brewing sectors with funding and expertise needed to realize their innovations.
