CLOUD MATTERS. Banff, Alberta. March 11th &12th, 2013.

Speakers: Cloud Matters

William Dupley
Mr. Dupley is the Chief Solutions Officer for the Hewlett-Packard Canada Co.
He has over 34 years of experience in information system consulting, software development, and electronics manufacturing. Bill is a specialist in Information Systems Strategic Planning and IT Process Re-engineering. Bill has lead IT Transformation and Strategic planning teams for over 40 companies and governments globally. These accounts include Toyota North America, Sony Ericsson, Ikea, Raiffesen Bank, Finland Regional Health, Nova Nordisk, Dofasco, and Cenovus.

Chris C. Kemp
Chris C. Kemp is the founder and CEO of Nebula, Inc., a cloud computing company that offers an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) private cloud system that allows any business to easily build a massively scalable private computing cloud from hundreds or thousands of inexpensive servers. Prior to founding Nebula, Kemp was NASA’s first Chief Technology Officer for IT. Kemp co-founded OpenStack, an open-source cloud project with the goal of enabling any organization to create and offer cloud computing services running on standard hardware.

Robin Bienfait
Robin Bienfait is the CIO of Research In Motion. Robin oversees the Enterprise Business Unit, BlackBerry Operations and Corporate IT. Prior to joining RIM, Robin held senior leadership positions within AT&T Labs and Global Network Services. A graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology with a master’s degree in Management of Technology, Robin also holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Central Missouri State University and an associate in business degree from Maryland University – European Division.

Jeff Barr
Jeff Barr has been working in the software industry since 1976. Jeff served as VP of Engineering for a startup, worked at Microsoft, Amazon, and worked on his own. Two of his most recent projects are Syndic8.com and Headline Viewer. At Amazon.com he lead a team of evangelists. They travel the world and talk about the Amazon Web Services to anyone who will listen. His most recent explorations have taken place within Second Life, a new and exciting platform for developers and people with a creative bent. He sees some great opportunities to use this platform to bring people closer together and to reduce the need for travel.

CLOUD MATTERS. Banff, Alberta. March 11th &12th, 2013.

Message From The Chair:

Robert Hart, Founder and CEO, Canadian Cloud Council

I recently returned from the scenic mountains of Banff to the concrete jungle of Calgary, having spent two wonderfully thought-provoking days at the Canadian Cloud Council’s third national conference – “Cloud Matters”. I returned, along with 300 of my colleagues, in a weary, shaken and but incredibly optimistic state – more excited about the state of innovation in Canada than I have ever been.

For starters, the Canadian Cloud Council and Boast Capital’s “Canadian Cloud Showdown” event showcased a wildly innovative Canadian cloud startup community with Kidoodle TV (Netflix for kids), Mover (Platform for moving files) and Parley (Performance management made simple), successfully pitching for investment capital and mentorship from Saaed Amidi, Founder of Plug and Play Tech Center in Silicon Valley. The atmosphere at The Rimrock Resort was buzzing – filled with passion, excitement, purpose and vigor. Not just a few, but many, of this planet’s leading cloud thought leaders were rocking the joint – Chris C. Kemp, CEO of Nebula, Wayne Walls, Chief Cloud Strategist at Rackspace, Jeff Barr, Chief Cloud Evangelist at Amazon Web Services, and Doug Jones, senior director cloud computing at Blackberry to name a few.

The message that Canadians simply have run of out of reasons not to adopt cloud computing was delivered succinctly and in many cases, with brute force. The question is – was the audience listening?

Robust, highly scalable and secure cloud infrastructure is already available – you don’t need to build your own. Build a disruptive application to solve a business problem and deliver it from an open cloud platform. Socialize and growth hack the living hell out of the use case. Rinse and repeat – exponentially. Enable innovation. Accelerate speed to value. Commercialize your technology and differentiate against your competitors.

If you are a CIO, hiding in your own data center, scratching your goatee, trying to build a measurable cost benefit analysis or being convinced by a $500 an hour consultant that clouds are not secure, you have already missed the point. And, your competitors have already out-witted, out-innovated and out-marketed you. Canadians need to adopt cloud computing as a way of doing business, as an operating model, hell, as a global socio-economic model.

As we witnessed first-hand at “Cloud Matters,” smart Canadian kids are developing the apps and the Canadian cloud ecosystem is growing rapidly. We need the Canadian government to demonstrate leadership and introduce “Cloud First” legislation now. And, we need Canadian business leaders to stop worrying and learn to love the cloud.