Canadian Cloud Council Announces Inaugural National Cloud Conference
Robert Hart, President of the Canadian Cloud Council, announced today that the organization will be hosting their first semi-annual national conference titled “A Call to Action – Awakening Canada’s Cloud Agenda” (PDF) on March 12 and 13, 2012 in Edmonton at the Matrix Hotel.
The conference will bring together a diverse group of senior business and technical leaders to discuss the state of cloud computing in Canada and how innovative technologies and best practices can be applied to achieve business transformation and economic development. This initial conference will focus on four major key focus areas:
- Government Cloud Computing
- Cloud Implementation Best Practices
- Data Security and Privacy
- Corporate Culture Change Management
“Canada has been one of the slowest nations to adopt cloud computing and has not yet effectively leveraged local data center facilities to deliver value through shared technology services. As a result, the country is quickly losing its global competitive advantage to other nations that have more assertively invested in and commercialized cloud infrastructure and technology,” noted Mr. Hart.
“We plan on tackling this critical issue head-on and leaving this conference with a clearly defined action plan related to the acceleration of Canadian cloud adoption,” concluded Hart.
The keynote speakers listed below aim to provide practical solutions to attendees, along with the proper planning, deployment and support of critical cloud infrastructure to assist enterprises in dramatically improving their competitive advantage, operational continuity and top line revenue.
A Call to Action – Awakening Canada’s Cloud Agenda
March 12th:
Opening Remarks – Canada’s Cloud Ecosystem
– Brian Fry, Chief Marketing Officer and Co-Founder – RackForce
Shared Services – The Case of Government Cloud Computing
Jirka Danek, Chief Technology Officer – Shared Services Canada
Rob Meikle, Chief Information Officer – City of Brampton
Vijai Karthigesu, Director Technology Planning – eHealth Ontario
John Cousens, Manager Public Sector Canada – Salesforce.com
Doug Hodgson, Chief Information and Technology Officer – City of Calgary
Cloud Implementation Best Practices – Real Life Lessons Learned
Doug Jones, Senior Director Blackberry Cloud Infrastructure – RIM
Justin Webb, Vice President Western Canada – Bell Canada
Malcolm Smith, Cloud Business Development Executive – IBM
David Toonders, Director Systems Engineering – VMware Canada
March 13th:
Opening Remarks – Shaping Canada’s Data Strategy
– Perry Kinkaide, President – Alberta Council of Technologies
The Cloud Paradigm
David Booth, Chief Information Officer – North American Construction Group
Robert Lam, President – Calgary Council for Advanced Technology
Leonard Hendricks, CEO – BlackBridge Networks
Robin Winsor, President – Cybera
Cloud’s Great Barrier – Information Security and Privacy
Ed Rebane, Senior Security Practice Lead – Bell Canada
Jeff MacMillan, Chief Executive Officer – Dark Matter Labs
Prashant, Manager IT Security and Compliance – The Brick
Liam Lynch, Chief Information Security Officer – Inkuru
Omkhar Arasaratnam, Global Lead Security Architect – IBM SmartCloud Enterprise+, IBM
Closing Remarks
– Patrick Pushor, Canadian Regional Organizer – Cloud Camp and Founder – CloudChronicle.com
5:00 PM Cloud Camp– An “un-conference” for cloud developers
Event Sponsors Include:
- VMware Canada
- IBM
- Bell
- Dell Canada
- Salesforce.com
- Awarebase