People
Board of Directors
President: Erik Wright
Erik Wright is a software developer who combines a passion for leading agile development teams with a broad range of technical experience. A veteran of several startups, Erik has also sat on the SOA governance committee for a major Canadian bank and led an Identity Management implementation for a global telecom. Erik currently runs a small agile development service provider, Wright Technology Solutions.
Vice-President: Andy Kaplan-Myrth
Andy Kaplan-Myrth is a Professor of Law and Manager of the Law and Technology Program at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ottawa. He is a Joint Project Lead for Creative Commons Canada and an associate of CIPPIC.
Treasurer: Erik Rungi
Erik Rungi is CFO of Openface Internet, one of Canada's largest independent internet providers and specialists. He was one of the two founders of Openface, and in the past has been responsible for diverse areas of operation including finance, budgeting, financial management, product development, and managing the company's R&D process.
Fundraising Chair: Stephanie Berger
Stephanie Berger is working toward her PhD in Organizational Behaviour at Concordia's John Molson School of Business. Stephanie is a Career Consultant for Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability for students at McGill's Desautels Faculty of Management, and is a Regional Director for Montreal for MBAs Without Borders. Stephanie is also a past Co-President of Net Impact McGill. Prior to returning to university, Stephanie Berger spent a decade on Wall Street, in London, and in Paris facilitating Initial Public Offerings and compliance filings.
Director: Alistair Croll
Alistair covers emerging web technologies, networking, and online applications at Bitcurrent. Prior to Bitcurrent, Alistair co-founded Coradiant, a leader in online user monitoring, as well as research firm Networkshop. He has held product management positions with 3Com Corporation, Primary Access, and Eicon Technology. Alistair contributes to industry events such as Interop (where he runs the Cloud Computing and SaaS tracks), Structure, Mesh, and Web2Expo. He also writes for a variety of online publications including GigaOm. He is the author of numerous articles on Internet performance and security, and co-author of Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Applications from Prentice-Hall.
Director: Will Pate
Will is a technology entrepreneur and investor, community strategist and builder. He started his first business, Infinity BBS, in elementary school. In 2005, he co-founded Raincity Studios, Vancouver's premiere community development and design firm. In 2006, he became the Community Ambassador at Flock, a web browser built for the social web. In 2008 he helped found VenCorps, an online community focused on discovering, funding and growing startups for community for NY venture capital firm Spencer Trask.
Staff
Executive Director: Jennifer Bell, jennifer@visiblegovernment.ca
Jennifer has a background in launching software startups. Prior to starting VisibleGovernment.ca, Jennifer was on the seed management team of Tungle Corporation, recently named one of Canada's top 10 Web 2.0 startups to watch. Jennifer has degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Saskatchewan, and an MBA in Entrepreneurship from McGill University.
Advisory Board
Scott Hennig -- Scott Hennig is the Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Canada's largest taxpayer advocacy organization. Prior to accepting the position in 2005, Scott was a speechwriter and policy researcher with the Government Members' Research Branch at the Alberta Legislature.
Michael McGuffin -- Michael McGuffin is an assistant professor at Ecole de technologie supérieure (ETS) in Montreal, specializing in human-computer interfaces and visualization. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science. Prior to arriving at ETS, Michael was a post-doctoral researcher at the Ontario Cancer Institute.
Claire Joly -- Claire Joly is the Executive Director of the Quebec Taxpayers League. Claire has a background in PR and communications.
Rob Collins -- Rob Collins is a former CIO of Cognos, and recent chair of Ottawa's Mayor'sTask Force on E-Government.
Christine Prefontaine — Christine works for the International Development Research Centre as a Senior Advisor to telecentre.org, a $26 million effort to network community technology activists. Prior to IDRC, Christine worked at the IRIS Center, a research and advisory group working to understand and facilitate economic growth and democratic development. Christine's areas of expertise include communication, knowledge sharing, and community-building for international development and social change initiatives.
Mark Surman -- Mark is currently Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation. Prior to joining Mozilla, he was Executive Director of the Shuttleworth Foundation.
Micheal Coulson -- Michael has worked with cutting-edge media and technology companies for over fifteen years. At a consultancy in the early nineties, he worked with some of the pioneers in social media, educating companies and individuals about online collaboration. At Sympatico, he parlayed this learning into building what was then Canada's largest online community. Michael then moved into media and TV with two industry leaders: Planetweb, which developed the browser that connected millions of Sega game consoles, and Bell Canada , which led the way in telco adoption of IPTV. Realizing that the future of video is online, he joined ExtendMedia to market this leading edge broadband video services platform. Michael currently writes a blog and consults.
Ilia Lobsanov -- Ilia is a software architect with a background in building high-volume web services. He likes the Extreme Programming methodology and test driven development. Ilia runs Nurey Networks, a Toronto-based software development house. Ilia is founder of disclosed.ca.