GC Data Conference 2024/speakers

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The 2024 GC Data Conference is brought to you by Transport Canada and the Canada School of Public Service with support from the GC Data Community.

February 21-22, 2024 | Virtual

Keynote speakers

Anil Arora

Chief Statistician of Canada

Anil Arora is the Chief Statistician of Canada since September 2016. He has led significant transformational initiatives throughout his career, with experience and partnerships spanning all three levels of government, the private sector and international organizations, including the UN and the OECD. He has led projects on high-profile policy issues, legislative and regulatory reform, and overseen large national programs. Mr. Arora is currently the chair of the OECD committee on statistics and statistical policy, Vice Chair of the bureau for the conference of European Statisticians, and the Chair of the High-Level Group on the modernization of official statistics. He was named top 25 immigrants in Canada in 2022 and is a sought-after speaker and thought leader.

Jim Balsillie

Retired Chairman and co-CEO, Research In Motion (BlackBerry)

Jim Balsillie’s career is unique in Canadian business. He is the retired Chairman and co-CEO of Research In Motion (BlackBerry), a technology company he scaled from an idea to $20 billion in sales globally. Mr. Balsillie’s private investment office includes global and domestic technology investments including cybersecurity leader Magnet Forensics.

He is the co-founder of the Institute for New Economic Thinking in New York, the Council of Canadian Innovators based in Toronto, and Digital Governance Council, as well as founder of the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, the Centre for Digital Rights, the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and the Arctic Research Foundation. He currently chairs the boards of CCI, CIGI, Innovation Asset Collective and Digital Governance Council. He is also a member of the Board of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Advisory Board of the Stockholm Resilience Centre; an Honorary Captain (Navy) of the Royal Canadian Navy and an Advisor to Canada School of Public Service.

Mr. Balsillie is the only Canadian ever appointed to US Business Council and was the private sector representative on the UN Secretary General’s High Panel for Sustainability. His awards include: several honorary degrees, Mobile World Congress Lifetime Achievement Award, India’s Priyadarshni Academy Global Award, Canadian Business Hall of Fame, Time Magazine’s World’s 100 Most Influential People and three times Barron’s list of “World’s Top CEOs.”

Chantal Bernier

Co-Chair and Counsel, Global Privacy and Cybersecurity Group, Dentons Canada

Chantal Bernier is Co-chair, Dentons’ Global Privacy and Cybersecurity Group as well as a member of the Canadian Privacy and Cybersecurity practice group and Government Affairs and Public Policy group. With Chantal on board, Dentons is proud to be the only law firm in Canada with a former privacy regulator as a practicing lawyer. During her nearly six years at the helm of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC), Chantal led national and international privacy investigations in the public and private sectors, as well privacy audits, privacy impact assessment reviews, technological analysis, and privacy policy development and research.

In her Government Affairs and Public Policy practice, Chantal leverages her many years in high-ranking positions at the Government of Canada to provide her clients with strategic counsel. Her experience as a senior executive also uniquely positions her to understand corporate management challenges in both the public and private sectors to find solutions that serve corporate interests and comply with the law. She serves clients in French, English, Italian and Spanish, and is very active at the international level.

Kristina Casey

Chief Service and Digital Officer, Transport Canada

Kristina Casey joined Transport Canada in April 2023 as Chief Service and Digital Officer.

Kristina comes to Transport Canada from Shared Services Canada where she served as Assistant Deputy Minister, Client Service Delivery and Management. In this role, she was responsible for ensuring that SSC services were well positioned to enable partners in delivering their programs and services to Canadians. This involved managing partner requests, prioritizing activities and incidents, and advocating for GC enterprise services while ensuring that partner-specific needs were met.

Kristina previously occupied the position of Chief Information Officer and Director General, Information Management and Technology at Global Affairs Canada (GAC). She led information and technology services to clients at GAC headquarters, as well as at sites across Canada and at Canada’s missions abroad.

In earlier work at Natural Resources Canada, Kristina was known for her leadership in advancing the department’s information management and information technology transformation. She has more than 15 years of experience in developing, managing and delivering information management and information technology.

Timnit Gebru

Computer Scientist

Dr. Timnit Gebru is a researcher in artificial intelligence, working to reduce the potential negative impacts of AI. Until her recent firing from Google which ignited a labor movement resulting in the first union to be formed by tech workers at Google, Timnit co-led the Ethical Artificial Intelligence research team. Prior to her work at Google, she did a postdoc at Microsoft Research, New York City in the FATE (Fairness Transparency Accountability and Ethics in AI) group, where she worked on algorithmic bias and the ethical implications underlying projects aiming to gain insights from data.

Timnit received her PhD from the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where her thesis used large-scale publicly available images to gain sociological insight, and addressed computer vision problems that arise as a result. This work won the 2017 LDV Capital Vision Summit competition.

Prior to her PhD Timnit worked at Apple designing circuits and signal processing algorithms for various Apple products including the first iPad, and spent one year as an entrepreneur. After experiencing the dire lack of representation in the field of artificial intelligence, Timnit co-founded the nonprofit Black in AI, which works on initiatives to increase the presence, visibility and wellbeing of Black people in the field of AI.

Timnit’s work has been covered by outlets ranging from the New York Times to The Economist, and she has been named to notable lists such as the Bloomberg 50, Wired 25, and Forbes 30 inspirational women. Most recently, she was awarded the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s pioneer award along with Joy Buolamwini and Deborah Raji.

Valerie Gideon

Deputy Minister, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada and President of the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario

Dr. Valerie Gideon is a member of the Mi’kmaq Nation of Gesgapegiag, Quebec and a proud mother of 2 young girls.

She became Deputy Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada on November 25, 2023, and kept her position as President of the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario. From September 2020 to October 2022, Valerie was the Associate Deputy Minister of Indigenous Services Canada. From 2018 to 2020, she was the Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB), Indigenous Services Canada. From 2012 to 2017, Valerie held the position of Assistant Deputy Minister, Regional Operations, Health Canada. From 2011 to 2012, she was Director General, Strategic Policy, Planning and Analysis at FNIHB. From 2007 to 2010, she held the position of Regional Director for First Nations and Inuit Health, Ontario Region, Health Canada.

Before working at Health Canada, her experience consisted mainly of working in First Nations health advocacy as Senior Director of Health and Social Development at the Assembly of First Nations and Director of the First Nations Centre at the National Aboriginal Health Organization. She was named Chair of the Aboriginal Peoples’ Health Research Peer Review Committee of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in 2004.

She graduated from McGill University (Montreal) in 2000 with a Doctorate (Dean’s List) in Communications (dissertation on telehealth and citizen empowerment). She previously completed a Master of Arts in 1996 at McGill. She’s a founding member of the Canadian Society of Telehealth. She’s also a former board member of the National Capital Region Young Men’s Christian Association and Young Women’s Christian Association.

John Hannaford

Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet

John Hannaford was named the 25th Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet on June 24, 2023.

Prior to becoming Clerk, John served as Deputy Minister of Natural Resources Canada, from 2022 to 2023, where he helped advance some of the government’s signature clean energy initiatives.

He contributed to the public service for the preceding two decades representing the Canadian government on key international files, from free trade to foreign and defence policy.

After graduating from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in history, he earned a Master of Science in international relations at the London School of Economics, before completing a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Toronto.

John joined the federal public service’s Department of Foreign Affairs as a newly minted lawyer in 1995, working on a range of issues including maritime jurisdictions, environmental law and trade.

His following career included being Deputy Minister of International Trade at Global Affairs Canada from 2019–2022, after having served in several high-profile senior leadership positions in the public service, including:

• Foreign and Defence Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister (2015–2019);
• Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet of Foreign and Defence Policy in the Privy Council Office (2012–2015); and
• Ambassador of Canada to Norway (2009–2012).

John’s first act as Clerk was to launch a broad discussion on public service values and ethics to ensure the civil service is equipped to serve Canadians’ changing needs in today’s dynamic and increasingly complex environment.

He believes the values of the public service are the cornerstone of our democracy and the compass to ensure “the peace, order and good government” it provides remain relevant and real to every Canadian, every day.

He is married to Anne Lawson. Together they have two adult children.

Jennifer Pahlka

Founder, Code for America

Jennifer Pahlka is the former deputy chief technology officer of the United States and the founder of Code for America, a nonprofit that believes government can work for people in the digital age. Pahlka is the winner of a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, among others, and has been selected by Wired magazine as one of the people who have most shaped technology and society in the past twenty-five years.

Gina Wilson

Deputy Minister, Indigenous Services Canada

Gina Wilson is a grandmother, a proud Algonquin and is the Deputy Minister of Indigenous Services Canada.

Gina began her career in her First Nation community of Kitigan-Zibi as Director of Health and Social Services. She was also Child Welfare Advisor, Director of Health & Social Services and then Chief Executive Officer when she is with the Assembly of First Nations.

She joined the Federal Government in 1996 and held several senior executive positions at various departments, including the Privy Council Office, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) and the Correctional Service of Canada.

One of her career highlights was as Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM), Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada where she oversaw the implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement and the Prime Minister’s Apology to Survivors of Residential schools in 2010.

She then became Senior ADM of Regional Operations at the then Indian & Northern Affairs Canada, until she moved to Public Safety Canada as ADM, Emergency Management.

Gina was ADM of Treaties and Aboriginal Government at INAC before joining the Deputy ranks in 2014 as Associate Deputy Minister (DM) at ESDC, Associate DM at Public Safety, then Deputy Minister of Women & Gender Equality in 2017. She was appointed DM of Public Safety Canada in 2019.

Gina was in the role of DM, Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, Canadian Heritage, and rejoined Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE) as DM on September 1, 2021. She previously served at WAGE from 2017 to 2019, where she led the establishment of the new department.

Gina is the recipient of the 2020 Indspire Award for her leadership and her lifelong work on Indigenous issues and support for Indigenous employees. She holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences from the University of Ottawa.

Shoshana Zuboff

Author, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School

Scholar, writer, activist Shoshana Zuboff is the author of three major books, each signaling a new epoch in technological society. Her recent masterwork, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, available in 26 languages, has been hailed as the tech industry’s Silent Spring, the Das Kapital and the Wealth of Nations of the 21st Century. Her work has been recognized with the Axel Springer Award (2019), the EPIC Lifetime Achievement Award (2021), and the inaugural Global Privacy Assembly Giovanni Buttarelli Award (2021).

Professor Zuboff has received honorary degrees from the University of Amsterdam and the Copenhagen Business School. She is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor Emeritus Harvard Business School, a faculty associate at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights, and the Co-chair of the Prefiguration Committee of the International Observatory on Information and Democracy.

Speakers

Kara Beckles

Director General, Data Integration, Privy Council Office

Kara Beckles is Director General of Data Integration at the Privy Council Office, a position she took on during the summer of 2020. Kara previously held several positions across the Government of Canada, most recently at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada as Director General of the Economic Research and Analysis Directorate and Departmental Data Lead. Kara holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) in economics and business from the University of Winnipeg and a Master of Arts from Dalhousie University.

Emcee for Data Conference 2022

Moderators

Stephen Burt

Assistant Deputy Minister, Data, Innovation, Analytics, Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces

Stephen Burt is the Assistant Deputy Minister (Data, Innovation, Analytics) for the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces. He is also an active member of data community of the Government of Canada, and led the creation of the Chief Data Officer Council. As an organization, ADM(DIA) works to ensure that data are leveraged in all Defence programs to enhance capabilities and decision-making, and to provide an information advantage in military operations. Mr. Burt holds an undergraduate degree in history from the University of Ottawa, and a Master’s in Public Administration from Queen’s University.

Participating in Information-enabled data sharing

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The program and list of speakers are available at Canada.ca/data-conference.

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