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CDMN Canada 3.0 2013, Canada’s only national digital media conference focused on the commercialization of innovation, will feature world-class speakers, a wide-ranging program and showcase of Canadian entrepreneurship when it gets under way May 14 and 15, 2013 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The conference, organized by the Canadian Digital Media Network (CDMN) and featuring host Amber Mac, is expected to draw more than 2,500 attendees from industry, government and academia to advance Canadian innovation.

“This is the fifth annual Canada 3.0 conference being staged for the first time in Toronto, and it’s an event not to be missed by anyone interested in leveraging innovation for commercial success,” said Kevin Tuer, CDMN Managing Director. “CDMN has a national mandate to grow Canadian digital media companies and jobs in Canada, and the annual Canada 3.0 conference is a major contributor to that goal.”

This year’s keynote speakers include:

Chris Anderson – former Editor-in-Chief, Wired Magazine and bestselling author of Makers: The New Industrial Revolution, The Long Tail and Free

Jane McGonigal, internet game designer, futurist and bestselling author of Reality is Broken

Lane Merrifield, co-founder of Club Penguin, a Canadian startup acquired to become Disney Online Studios Canada based in B.C.

NASA’s Deputy Social Media Manager Jason Townsend, who will share a case study about the Curiosity rover launch

The program will inspire excellence, showcasing Canadian innovation success stories and providing companies with tools to successfully commercialize their digital media products. There will be up to 65 mentoring roundtables within five topic streams that include: productivity; connectivity; access to capital; access to talent; and the mobilization of digital content.

The conference also features a showcase of more than 100 companies involved in Canadian digital media and ICT innovation. The Canadian pavilion within the showcase will feature CDMN’s 20 member hubs from across the country. A Grow Global Pavilion will feature Canadian government, private organizations and international guests, displaying all the connections and information a company needs to grow globally, including CDMN’s own Soft-Landing Program.

Winners of CDMN’s new national award program, the CDMN Moonshot Awards, recognizing companies that have accelerated growth, innovation or productivity through adoption of digital media will be announced on the opening day. And this year’s Canada 3.0 will feature a conference within a conference – GRAND’s 2013 annual conference – which will further increase industry-university networking at Canada 3.0.

A unique feature of Canada 3.0 is use of collaboration tools to connect attendees and enable collaboration:

• Using a crowdsourcing platform, Canada 3.0’s SoapBox is helping to engage Canadian digital media companies and enabling attendees to create and vote on session topics
• Pathable for Canada 3.0 2013 will allow attendees to create and view their conference schedule, check availability of fellow attendees, request meetings and more; successful completion of conference registration will trigger automatic registration for the Pathable feature.

Canada 3.0 2013 programming updates, registration details, partnership and sponsorship opportunities will be posted to the conference web site. Follow @can3_0 and @cdmn on Twitter, like the Canada30Forum page on Facebook and join the LinkedIn Canada30Forum Group for updates.