Speakers
SQLTeach includes a top selection of speakers having a strong experience in various areas. Most of these speakers are presenting at major conferences around the world on a regular basis and in other areas as well such as user groups, corporate training and class training.
= Blog
= Talk Show
The list is completed at 98%.
Mike is the chapter president of the Winnipeg SQL Server Users Group
James Kovacs is a Technical Evangelist for JetBrains. He is passionate in sharing his knowledge about OO, SOLID, TDD/BDD, testing, object-relational mapping, dependency injection, refactoring, continuous integration, and related techniques. He blogs on CodeBetter.com as well as his own blog, is a technical contributor for Pluralsight, writes articles for MSDN Magazine and CoDe Magazine, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and user groups. He is the creator of psake, a PowerShell-based build automation tool, intended to save developers from XML Hell. James is the Ruby Track Chair for DevTeach, one of Canada’s largest independent developer conferences. He received his Bachelors degree from the University of Toronto and his Masters degree from Harvard University.
Barry is a MS MVP and a MS Regional Director.
Kate is in her fourth decade of being paid to program. Her recent programming work is almost exclusively in Visual C++, C#, and Visual Basic.NET, on a variety of projects, for both Enterprise and ISV clients. Since January 2002 she has been Microsoft Regional Director for Toronto and since January 2004 she has been awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional designation for Visual C++. In June 2005 she won the Regional Director of the year award and in 2011 the MVP of the year award. She maintains strong relationships with the C++ and Windows teams in Redmond.
Known for his dynamic and engaging style, he is a frequent speaker at major software development conferences worldwide like TechEd, DevConnections, VSLive, and others, and is a 9-year Microsoft MVP awarded on Windows Phone Development. With over 20 years of professional experience, Nick is a developer and software architect by trade and specializes in Enterprise Mobility, Location Intelligence & Geospatial development, Data Visualization, Touch Computing, Cloud Computing and Game Development with XNA. He wrote multiple technical magazine articles, published white papers, wrote several mobility courses, has been a technical editor for IT books, and holds several professional certifications.
Arnie is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP and has been a Subject Matter Expert (SME) working on SQL Server 2000 thorough SQL Server 2012 training courses and has been involved as a SME with the development of the SQL 2005 through SQL 2012 Microsoft Certification Exams. He has been a Microsoft Certified Trainer for over fifteen years, and has served as a technical editor for several publishers, including multiple SQL Sever titles in the Microsoft Official Curriculum. Arnie has served as adjunct faculty at the University and Community College levels. Clients include Multi-National and Fortune 500 companies, Federal and State agencies, Foreign governments, nationally recognized training facilities, and local enterprises –both public and private.
Since that time he has worked on projects for House of Commons, Innovapost, Bell Canada, CGI, CNSC, Kraft, and many other clients assuming the responsibility of Business Analyst, Software Architect,ETL and BI Architect, Software Developers, Analyst, Team leader and mentor. He has been and is still very active in the developers’ community by acting as a user group leader for more than ten years with the Montreal .NET community and the Ottawa IT community.
He is also the co-founder of an international developer’s conference www.DevTeach.com which is now directed by a member of his team. Jean-René Roy is a SQL Server Microsoft MVP.
You can find this developer through Twitter at @Tinytoot or through his blog at http://orangesodacode.azurewebsites.net/
Richard Buamet has been working for Phillips, Hager & North Investment Management ( now under RBC Global Asset Management Inc.) for the last 12 years as a SQL Server DBA. He has also been the local PASS (Professional Association for SQL Server) Chapter leader for the last 6 years and a member since 2002. He has spoken at the local chapter as well as DevTeach in Vancouver, Microsoft TechDays in Vancouver, and Techfest in Vancouver.
Richard Campbell has been involved with microcomputers and software since 1977. His career has spanned the industry both on the hardware and software sides, from manufacturing to sales, service, game development, line-of-business software and large scale systems. Today Richard is on the board of directors for Telerik (www.telerik.com), a leading vendor of development, team productivity, automated testing tools, UI components and content management solutions in the Microsoft space. He's a partner in PWOP Productions, creating a variety of multimedia programs including '.NET Rocks!, the Internet Audio Talk Show for .NET Developers' (www.dotnetrocks.com) a podcast produced twice a week for more than 250,000 listeners in 150 countries. In addition he's the host of 'RunAs Radio' (www.runasradio.com), a podcast for the IT Professional using Microsoft technologies. In the fall of 2011, he helped launch a third podcast called 'The Tablet Show' (www.thetabletshow.com), focused on the emerging tablet and mobile market. Richard is also a Microsoft Regional Director, MVP and speaks at conferences around the world.
Michael DeFehr is an independent SQL Server consultant doing business through MDD Solutions Ltd. based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His career has focused on database administration and development using Microsoft SQL Server.
A SQL Server MVP, Professional Engineer and Microsoft Certified Information Technology Professional in both Database Development and Administration, Mike has spent the past 15 years producing and maintaining database solutions. Mike specializes in the relational and storage engines and his solutions emphasize performance and simplicity.
Matt Masson is a Software Development Engineer working with the SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) team. Matt has worked on many aspects of the SSIS product including upgrade, performance, and overall user experience. He is a frequent presenter at Microsoft conferences, and maintains the SSIS Team blog. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2006, Matt was a developer on a number of BI Reporting and Analytical products.
Reza is an author, a six-time SharePoint MVP and a co-founder of Knowledge Artisans, a collective of SharePoint MVPs.Reza and his team have helped many customers architect and build large-scale, mission-critical SharePoint applications since 2001.
For more on Reza's recent publications, see http://amzn.to/Yvfj11.
Mark Arteaga is Founder of RedBit Development which specializes in helping customers implement mobile based enterprise and consumer facing solutions. Mark has an extensive background in software development and has dedicating the last 10+ years to the trade delivering solutions to customers such as Microsoft, Bell Media (formerly CTVGlobeMedia), The Globe and Mail, MTV, City of Brampton, Art Gallery of Ontario, Museum of Vancouver, Verizon, Canadian Tire Corporation as well as others. Mark is often speaking to the developer community at various events about mobile based solutions throughout Canada. You can contact Mark via his blog at www.markarteaga.com, mark@redbitdev.com or follow him twitter.com/MarkArteaga on Twitter.
Guy Barrette is a freelance Solutions Architect based in Montreal, Canada. He is the Microsoft Regional Director for the Montreal region and a Windows Azure MVP. He's been working and developing with Microsoft development tools since the launch of VB 3 in 1994. His focus is helping organizations build better software using Microsoft technologies. He's been a speaker at developers' conferences like Microsoft TechDays and DevTeach. Guy leads the Montreal .NET Community and he is the Visual Studio Talk Show podcast co-host.
Amir Barylko started his career in 1994 working for IBM as a senior developer while he was finishing his Masters degree in computer science. Since then he worked as team leader and architect for the past 15 years.
Having started with languages like C++ and Java he spent many years coding in C# and training other developers in topics such domain modeling, abstractions, patterns, automation, dependency injection, testing, etc.
Being an incurable geek, always thirsty for knowledge, his passion for technology moved him towards Ruby on Rails a few years ago, becoming an advocate of RoR web development. Also following he's teaching passion he did his first RoR training a year ago, and recently a TDD training with great reviews.
Amir is a rare combination of high technical skills, lots of experience in a wide range of platforms, exceptional presentation skills and great sense of humor. His presentations are always rich in content and fun to attend.
Colin Bowern is an avid technologist, technology coach, and solutions architect based in Toronto, Canada. Colin's work on pragmatic solutions spanning technology, financial, music, and public sector industries for organizations such as Microsoft, Meridian Credit Union, officialCOMMUNITY, and more. Recognized by the community for interactive contributions in public speaking, community building, and writing Colin is a Microsoft MVP for ASP.NET. You can read more about and contact Colin through www.colinbowern.com.
Known for many years as an agile coach specialized in software architecture, Mario Cardinal is the co-founder of Slingboards Lab, a young start-up that that brings sticky notes on smartphones, tablets and the web to empower teams to better collaborate. Visionary and entrepreneur, he likes to seize the opportunities that emerge from the unexpected. He is the author of the book Executable Specifications with Scrum. His friends like to describe him as someone who can extract the essence of a complicated situation, sort out the core ideas from the incidental distractions, and provide a summary easy to understand. For the ninth consecutive year, he has received from Microsoft the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award. MVP status is awarded to credible technology experts who are among the very best community members willing to share their experience to helping others realize their potential.
Peter is President of Envision IT, a Microsoft SharePoint MVP, and Virtual Technical Specialist with Microsoft Canada. Leading his team at Envision IT in the use and deep customization of SharePoint since 2001, he is also the VP of the Toronto SharePoint Users Group and Past President of the International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners – Canadian Chapter. He is well recognized as an evangelist in the SharePoint community, speaking regularly at SharePoint user group meetings, conferences, Microsoft events such as SharePoint Conference, Tech Days, Convergence, and local universities.
Ken Cenerelli is a senior software developer specializing in designing and creating effective solutions for both the web and desktop environments. With over 12 years of experience in software design, development, and support, he has engineered strong, data-driven web applications using the Microsoft .NET Framework for large and small companies throughout North America. Ken also works with mobile technologies and has built apps for both the Windows Phone and the Android OS.
Ken is also currently Technical Reviewing the forthcoming book Pro Windows Phone App Development from Apress Publishing.
Visit his developer’s blog at kencenerelli.wordpress.com to see what he is currently exploring and to learn more about him. You can also follow him on Twitter: @KenCenerelli.
Daniel is a lead software designer and he's delivered for the web's biggest brands, creating open source functionality for millions of users along the way. He helps organizations unlock their technology potential, with a focus on delivering for the public-facing web, and cross-platform mobile applications and games. He is a practicing front-end engineer and service-oriented architect.
Rob Daigneau has more than 20 years’ experience designing and implementing applications and products for a broad array of industries from financial services, to manufacturing, to retail and travel. Rob has served in such prominent positions as Director of Architecture for Monster.com and Manager of Application Development at Fidelity Investments. He is currently a Practice Lead for Application Development at Slalom Consulting. Rob has been known to speak at a conference or two.
Rob’s book on Service Design Patterns was recently released in the prestigious Martin Fowler Signature Series.
In his free time, Rob plays guitar with his daughter, hits the slopes when there's snow, and enjoys long walks in his woodsy corner of the world.
Kathleen Dollard is .NET Coach for Crystal MEF Lab. She has been a Microsoft MVP since 1998 and has given hundreds of speeches around the world. She has worked extensively with compositional architectures in relation to specific development platforms. Her experience includes HTML5/Javascript, Silverlight, and WPF in both C# and Visual Basic. She’s interested in making core .NET technologies available to all coders to enable them to write better software faster. Her newest adventures include Windows Azure and SQL Azure. Kathleen is also a long-time advocate of generative techniques and is the author of Code Generation in Microsoft .NET (from Apress). She has published numerous articles on a range of .NET technologies. Kathleen is active in the Northern Colorado .NET SIG, the Denver Visual Studio User Group, and the Northern Colorado Architect's Group.
Chris Dufour (MVP ASP .NET, MCAD, IBM Certified Database Associate - DB2 UDB V8.1) is a Toronto-based software architect. He is currently working as a software architect for Compuware, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Chris is passionate about the developer community and has contributed projects like the ‘Code Camp Event Module’ to the open source community on CodePlex. He is the president of the East of Toronto .NET User Group and co-founder and organizer of the Toronto Code Camp. He is also the Web Development chair for DevTeach, one of Canada’s largest independent developer conferences. Chris has been recognized as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for his involvement in the developer community.
Carl Franklin has been a figurehead in the VB community since the very early days when he wrote for Visual Basic Programmers Journal. He authored the Q&A column of that magazine as well as many feature articles for VBPJ and other magazines. He has authored two books for John Wiley & Sons on sockets programming in VB, and in 1994 he helped create the very first web site for VB developers, Carl & Gary's Visual Basic Home Page.
Carl is also the Microsoft Regional Director for Connecticut, an MVP for Kinect, co-host of .NET Rocks! and The Tablet Show, a .NET Rocks! spin-off dedicated to developing for tablets, phones and other mobile devices, as well as mobile web.
Carl is the creator of GesturePak ($99), the first gesture recognition library for Microsoft Kinect for Windows. GesturePak records your motion as .you create gestures, then notifies your app when your user has performed one or more of your gestures.
Stéphane Fréchette is a Database & Business Intelligence Professional who is very passionate about architecting, designing and building solutions that matter.
Specialized in SQL Server and the Microsoft BI Stack, he also has worked with several other database platforms as well as several application development platforms.
A self proclaimed Open Data Hacker/Advocate Stéphane founded Gatineau Ouverte a citizen led initiative which aims to promote open access to civic data of the city of Gatineau.
Adam Gallant is the national developer technology specialist with Microsoft Canada. In his 17 years at Microsoft Canada, and has focused on the Microsoft developer platform, and in his current role spends his time helping customers and partners across the country understand the capabilities of the Microsoft Application LifeCycle Management platform, Visual Studio 2010. His specific areas of focus include Team Foundation Server, Microsoft Test Professional, and Visual Studio 2010
Barry Gervin is a Director with Navantis, MS Gold Partner of the Year 2012. At Navantis, Barry leads the Mobile Practice area and the Enterprise Delivery group. Barry, a technical leader with over 20 years experience, has helped many development teams architect and build large-scale mission critical applications.
Kate Gregory is the Microsoft Regional Director for Toronto and a founding partner of Gregory Consulting. Based in rural Ontario, Gregory Consulting has been providing consulting and development services throughout North America since 1986, specializing in software development with leading-edge technologies, integration projects, and technology transfer. They also provide training, mentoring, and technical writing services. Kate is the author of over a dozen books including Microsoft Visual C++ .NET 2003 Kick Start. She teaches .NET, XML, UML, and C++ and is in demand as an expert speaker, with numerous cross-Canada tours for Microsoft Canada, and sessions at DevDays, DevTeach, TechEd (USA, Europe, Africa) and VSLive Toronto, among others. Kate is a C++ MVP, a founding sponsor of the Toronto .NET Users Group, the founder of the East of Toronto .NET Users group, a member of the INETA speakers bureau, and a member of adjunct faculty at Trent University in Peterborough.
Erez Harari (MCT & MCPD) is the CTO of Sela Canada, and has spent time as a CTO, Senior Architect, Consultant and.NET specialist, specializing in both Server side and Client side technologies.
This is supported by a deep knowledge of the Microsoft .NET infrastructure and architecture.
In the year 2000, Erez already had 10 years of mastering C++ (for various operating systems) and 2 years of Java experience when he willingly took the deep dive into the beta version of Microsoft .NET.
Erez specializes in a wide area of server-side technologies, such as: Entity Framework (and ORM in general), WCF, Azure, a variety of database engines, and in developing Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Kinect apps.
Erez is the co-author of Microsoft Official Curriculum for the Windows 8.
I’ve been the CTO of three innovative organizations over the last decade, and I’ve learned a lot from the each of them. Over the last seven years, I’ve built large scale web applications in .NET, and learned several other languages including JavaScript, Java, Ruby, Scala, PHP, Perl and Python. I've fallen in love with developing software along the way.
Atley Hunter is a passionate developer with over 15 years’ experience. As one of the most prolific Modern UI developers in the world, he has more than 100 apps in the Windows Phone Store and 50 apps currently in the Windows RT Store. As a Microsoft Windows Phone MVP, Telerik MVP & Insider and Nokia Ambassador, he is constantly working with developers worldwide to improve both skills and the platforms themselves. Atley is always sharing his knowledge and connecting with developers through events, his blog, email Twitter, Skype and LinkedIn.
Joel Hebert is a Software Architect who resides in Ottawa. He is passionate about Security and Architecture. He is a five time ASP.Net MVP and is one of the User Group Leaders in Ottawa. He would like to share his knowledge of hacking, penetration testing and continuous audit with you to allow you to think about the modern attack vectors that are present.
An international speaker, Microsoft MVP, MCSD, CSM, and CSP, and a passionate member of the developer community, Phil Japikse has been working with .Net since the first betas, developing software for over 20 years, and heavily involved in the agile community since 2005. Phil works as a Senior Developer Evangelist for Telerik's RadControls for Windows 8 as well as the Just family of products (JustCode, JustMock, JustTrace, and JustDecompile), and serves as the Lead Director for the Cincinnati .Net User’s Group and the Cincinnati Software Architect Group, co-hosts the Hallway Conversations podcast (www.hallwayconversations.com), and founded Agile Conferences, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to advancing agile in all aspects of software development. Phil also serves as Cub Scout Committee Chair for his sons’ Cub Scout Pack, volunteers for the National Ski Patrol, and is a recently retired Firefighter/Paramedic. You can follow Phil on twitter via www.twitter.com/skimedic and read his blog at www.skimedic.com/blog.
Bruce Johnson is a Principal Consultant with ObjectSharp and a 25-year veteran of the computer industry. He spent half of that time working in the MultiValue database and UNIX marketplace, but the past 14 years have been spent on projects at the leading edge of Windows technology, including using .NET since the introduction of version 1.0. His experience includes the creation of commercial web applications using AJAX, the implementation of Web Services in a financial institution and the building of various Windows-based applications for software vendors. As well as his experience in system design and development, he has also given over 200 presentations at user conferences all over North America and is the co-author of three Microsoft Press Pro Certification Training Kit books (Windows Forms, Web Development and Distributed Applications)
Noorez Khamis is a Microsoft recognized MVP in SharePoint Technologies. He has a background as a Senior Information Management Consultant & Senior SharePoint Architect with comprehensive experience in enterprise scale information solutions and portals. His technical background involves the project management, envisioning, architecting and hands-on development of complex IT solutions. He has 13+ years of industry experience in a consulting capacity while having been directly involved in over 100+ different projects spanning the entire SharePoint spectrum including collaboration, document management, records management, business process management as well as web and enterprise content management solutions. Noorez is also an active blogger and an evangelist of the SharePoint platform.
Paul is a Developer Advisor with Microsoft Canada, based in Mississauga, Ontario. Paul brings over 12 years of technical experience working with some of the largest North American Fortune 500 companies to the role and has been with Microsoft for almost 5 years. His experience includes being a lead developer, development manager, lead application architect and IT management for a wide variety of technical solutions. Currently, Paul leads Microsoft’s developer engagement around Windows Phone 7 and in that role, he can be found working with mobile developers of all walks of life, speaking at events, providing information on various social networks and, of course, driving the great Canadian developer ecosystem to building amazing Windows Phone apps. Paul is also passionate about Microsoft’s cloud computing strategy and HTML5 as a way to drive great cross-platform experiences. In other words, if you have a question about Microsoft’s leading edge platforms, Paul is someone you can talk to.
"Nick Landry (@ActiveNick) is a Senior Product Manager for Infragistics, the world leader in user interface development tools that empower developers to build and style immersive user experiences and rich data visualization in line of business applications across all .NET platforms, the Web and mobile devices (www.infragistics.com).
Nick is at the helm of Infragistics’ mobile, data visualization and geospatial developer tools across multiple technologies and platforms. He previously spent a total of 16 years of his career in IT consulting and services organizations across various technical and business roles, designing, building, managing and selling innovative software solutions for some of the world's top brands and Fortune 500 companies.
Wei-Meng Lee is a technologist and founder of Developer Learning Solutions (http://www.learn2develop.net), a technology company specializing in hands-on training on the latest mobile technologies. Wei-Meng has many years of training experiences and his training courses place special emphasis on the learning-by-doing approach. His hands-on approach to learning programming makes understanding the subject much easier than reading books, tutorials, and documentations. Wei-Meng wrote Beginning Android Application Development (Wrox, forthcoming 2011) and Beginning iOS 4 Application Development (Wrox).
Andrei Marukovich is an agile coach at AB SCIEX, Toronto. He has been developing software professionally for over 15 years and during this time he has designed and developed applications in such diverse areas as semiconductor device manufacturing, robotics, game development, Web and hosting solutions.
In his current position, Andrei leads development of software for life science applications, coordinates company knowledge sharing processes and facilitates adoption of new software technologies. He blogs at http://lunarfrog.com/blog and can be found on Twitter at @amarukovich
Beth Massi is a Senior Program Manager on the Microsoft Visual Studio BizApps team who build the Visual Studio tools for Azure, Office, SharePoint as well as Visual Studio LightSwitch. Beth is a community champion for business application developers and is responsible for producing and managing online content and community interaction for the BizApps team. She has over 15 years of industry experience building business applications and is a frequent speaker at various software development events. You can find her on a variety of developer sites including MSDN Developer Centers, Channel 9, and her blog http://www.bethmassi.com/. Follow her on twitter @BethMassi
Colin Melia is known as an architect, trainer, speaker and author with deep and broad knowledge of the latest Microsoft technologies, proven problem solving skills, hands-on solution creation ingenuity and the ability to communicate rich and complex ideas at both the developer and board level. He also has the role of Microsoft Regional Director and has received the Microsoft MVP award for several years.
Using his XAML and .NET expertise, his company Ace of Clouds, put apps in the Windows Phone Store and Windows Store for Windows 8, and now offers app development and developer training for Windows 8. In recent years he also developed and delivered the first Windows Phone 7 boot camp tour in North America and has solutions running live on Windows Azure.
Over the last decade he has developed award-winning simulation technology with rich UI, cloud-based learning portals and workflow-driven BI systems.
Colin has 18 years of hands-on experience delivering solutions across finance, e-learning, telecoms and Internet communications industries in areas of rich UI with Windows Store Apps, WPF & Silverlight, cloud development with Azure and BI with SQL Server, and with in-depth knowledge of core technologies such as .NET, OData, WCF, WF, LINQ and WIF. His work is used by companies such as O2, HP, Intel, Microsoft & WPP. He also created the first streaming video community site with Windows Media.
He speaks regularly with his British accent at conferences, events and code camps for Microsoft and community organizations as well as being a college academic advisor. His sessions, video tutorials, interviews, articles and reference materials have been featured on .NET Rocks, dnrTV, Microsoft TechDays, DevTeach, Microsoft webcasts, Mobile Developer Magazine, DZone and his blog.
Ed Musters, SharePoint MVP, is a SharePoint Architect for Infusion Development. Ed has instructed the exclusive Critical Path SharePoint Training courses extensively across North America over the last several years. Ed holds all certifications in SharePoint including WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 for Development and Administration. Ed also teaches Microsoft Official Curriculum Developer .NET training. Ed has been a featured speaker at DevReach in Sofia Bulgaria (2009/2008), at the SharePoint Summit in Montreal (2010/2009), at SharePoint Saturdays (2009) in Toronto and Birmingham, at Microsoft Tech Days 2009, at the Great Indian Developer Summit (2008) in Bangalore India, the Toronto SharePoint Camp (2010/2009), and the Toronto Code Camp (2010/2009). Ed also speaks to user groups across Canada, including Toronto, Winnipeg, Halifax, and Vancouver.
Tom Opgenorth is an IT consultant with a diverse background in IT that spans 20 years and a wide variety of technologies and platforms. In 2008 he picked up the first Android phone, the ADP1, and has been hooked on mobile technologies every since then. Currently he is on contract to Xamarin, the maker of the the world's best cross platform mobile solution. At Xamarin he spends his days on the documentation team, fusing the wonderful world of mobile and C# into samples and tutorials that make it easier for others to tackle cross platform development When not working, Tom is busy being dragged around by his trusty Samoyed dog.
Jeffrey Palermo is a Managing Partner & CEO of Clear Measure, Inc., a custom software company in Austin, TX. At Clear Measure, Jeffrey manages the custom software practice which includes new system development, legacy system upgrades, audits, consulting, training, and professional services. Many businesses rely on custom software, and he helps it work better and deliver more value. Before that, Jeffrey was President/COO of a nationally-recognized software engineering firm.
Jeffrey has been recognized by Microsoft as a “Microsoft Most Valuable Professional” (MVP) since 2006. He has spoken and facilitated at industry conferences such as VSLive, DevTeach, the Microsoft MVP Summit, various ALT.NET conferences, and Microsoft Tech Ed. He also speaks to user groups around the country as part of the INETA Speakers’ Bureau. A graduate of Texas A&M University and the Jack Welch Management Institute, an Eagle Scout, and an Iraq war veteran, Jeffrey holds too many certifications to list, has published many magazine articles , and he has written three editions of his book.
Erik Renaud is a software architect and president of Modelon Solutions, a Montreal company whose mission is to help his partners develop tactical applications. With a world in continuous change, Erik uses his 12 years of experience in order to build cutting edge solutions all while following agile management principles. He participates through the entire software development cycle to verify that the solution is innovative and offers real advantages to clients. Erik is a certified ScrumMaster, as well as a MVP (Microsoft Most Valuable Professional), which ensures that he can lead teams to success. Finally, he is a renowned international speaker and can be contacted at erik.renaud@modelon.net, or seen anywhere kendo is practiced.
Graham Robertson is an advocate for all things web; HTML, CSS, and, of course, JavaScript. He has a passion for fast, scale-able, and efficient JavaScript with over 5 years of experience working with web technologies and building awesome web applications.
"Eli is a six-time SharePoint MVP and a co-founder of Knowledge Artisans, a collective of SharePoint MVPs. He specializes in implementing SharePoint as an enterprise solution platform and building great teams to manage the service. As a thought leader and educator, Eli co-founded the ASPInsiders, launched the Toronto SharePoint User Group in 2005, launched the first free Saturday SharePoint event in 2007, and is the author or technical editor of many popular SharePoint books. Eli is based in Toronto, Canada.
Contact: +1.416.317.6729
Twitter feed: @erobillard
"
Eden Rohatensky is someone who is fascinated by every aspect of the tech industry. After leaving her position at GasBuddy.com as a mobile and web designer, she now works on their sister product, OpenStore, as a web developer. She is highly passionate about the development community, and works with her university and the various employers around her to help it grow.
During his career as a outspoken architect and application developer with very large databases, Arnie realized that most issues between Developer and DBA comes from incomplete communication and a misunderstanding of each other’s primary directive. As a frequent Trainer and Mentor for Developers and Database Administrators, he has nurtured a knack for helping to ‘bridge the gap’. Arnie is a rare mix of expert developer and gifted database administrator, bringing both sets of skills to better communicate with development teams to create a working solution.
Jean-René Roy has been developing IT solution for large and small enterprises since 1987. In 1991 he founded the consulting firm Technologies SoftDesign Inc.
Jonathan Rozenblit is a technology advisor at Microsoft Canada focused on arming developers, architects, and development managers with the information, skills, and tools they need in order to leverage the power of the Cloud. When he’s not talking Cloud, he’s blogging on the Canadian Developer Connection blog (http://aka.ms/cdndevs); hosting online shows such as D³: LIVE & INTERACTIVE (http://devs3.ms/devscubed, and the AlignIT Manager Tech Talk (http://microsoft.ca/alignitshow; and networking with Canadian developers in the Canadian Developer Connection group on LinkedIn (http://linkd.in/CdnDevs).
Edwin Sarmiento is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP from Ottawa, Canada specializing in high availability, disaster recovery and system infrastructures running on the Microsoft server technology stack. He is very passionate about technology but has interests in music, professional and organizational development, leadership and management matters when not working with databases. He lives up to his primary mission statement - "To help people grow and develop their full potential as God has planned for them"
He wants the whole world to know that the FILIPINO is a world-class citizen and brings JESUS CHRIST to the world.
Joel Semeniuk is a founder of Imaginet Resources Corp; a Canadian based Microsoft Gold Partner. He is also a Microsoft Regional Director and MVP in Team System, and INETA speaker, and has a degree in Computer Science. With over 18 years of experience, Joel specializes in helping organizations around the world realize their potential through maturing their software development and information technology practices. Joel is passionate about Application Lifecycle Management tooling, techniques, and mindsets and regularly speaks at conferences around the world on a wide range of ALM topics. Joel is also the co-author of "Managing Projects with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System" published by Microsoft Press as well as dozens of other articles for popular trade magazines.
Dylan Smith is a Microsoft MVP (ALM), and an ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) consultant for Imaginet where he spends his time helping teams become more successful at delivering software. In addition to over 15 years experience designing and architecting mission critical applications, Dylan helps run the .Net User Group and Agile User Group in his hometown of Winnipeg. In the past 7 years Dylan has focused on agile development techniques and practices. He has led the shift to agile and lean development practices across multiple teams, projects and companies.
Michael Stiefel, principal of Reliable Software, Inc. is a consultant on software architecture and development, and the alignment of information technology with business goals. He was a member of the OASIS Technical Committee that developed the SOA Reference Model. He was a Lecturer in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where his research and teaching focus was understanding how people build mental models in order to solve problems. As Adjunct faculty, Stiefel has taught graduate and undergraduate software engineering courses at Northeastern University and Framingham State University. Michael Stiefel's education is from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a Interdisciplinary Ph.D degree in Nuclear Engineering, Political Science, and History of Technology; M.S. in Nuclear Engineering; and B.S. in Electrical Engineering. He is an active member of the IEEE Consultants Network.
Steffan Surdek is currently a senior consultant and agile coach at Pyxis Technologies. Steffan worked in IT for over eighteen years in collaboration with many distributed teams around the world. In the last few years, Steffan was an agile trainer and coach in large companies such as IBM and the TD Bank Group. Steffan speaks at many conferences and user groups about agility with distributed teams. Steffan is co-author of the book « A Practical Guide to Distributed Scrum » written in collaboration with the IBM Scrum Community. He blogs on his website at http://www.surdek.ca.
Craig Utley is a Senior Architect with CTS and a former Program Manager with the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT) where he focused on Business Intelligence. Craig has been involved in the Microsoft BI space since the betas of SQL Server 7.0, when he helped write Microsoft's first data warehousing course. Since then he has consulted at a variety of businesses worldwide on their BI solutions as an independent consultant, a ProClarity consultant, and a member of SQLCAT. Thanks to his time on SQLCAT, Craig has seen some of the largest Microsoft data warehouses in the world and has worked directly with the Analysis Services development team. Craig is also a former MVP in both SQL and C#. He is the author of over 35 articles and 3 books, the most recent of which is about PerformancePoint Server 2007.
Tom Walker is a senior software developer with over 15 years of experience in the .NET stack. He specializes in building software that enhances people’s lives in their day-to-day activities be it work or play. His current goal is to combining his passion for art and development into beautiful useful apps for both the Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 Store platforms.
David Wesst has been working with web and user experience development for the past 5 years and currently works for the University of Manitoba in the Faculty of Medicine as a Systems Analyst in Winnipeg, Manitoba. After finishing university, David has continued to follow his passion for the future of web development, experience design, technology, and game development both in and outside of the workplace. David has spoken at a number of conferences across Canada about HTML5 development and has been awarded the MVP award in the area of Internet Explorer since 2011.
Rob Windsor is a Lead SharePoint Consultant with Portal Solutions - a Microsoft Gold Partner based in DC and Boston. He has twenty years experience developing rich-client and web applications with Delphi, VB, C# and VB.NET and is currently spending a majority of his time working with SharePoint. Rob is a regular speaker at conferences, code camps, and user groups across North America and Europe. He regularly contributes articles and videos to MSDN, TechNet, and the Pluralsight On-Demand library and is the co-author of Professional Visual Basic 2012 and .NET 4.5 for Wrox. Rob is the founder and past-president of the North Toronto .NET User Group and has been recognized as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his involvement in the developer community.
Chris Woodruff (or Woody as he is commonly known as) has a degree in Computer Science from Michigan State University’s College of Engineering. Woody has been developing and architecting software solutions for almost 15 years and has worked in many different platforms and tools. He is a community leader, helping such events as Day of .NET Ann Arbor and West Michigan Day of .NET. He was also instrumental in bringing the popular Give Camp event to Western Michigan where technology professionals lend their time and development expertise to assist local non-profits. As a speaker and podcaster, Woody has spoken and discussed a variety of topics, including database design and open source. He is a Microsoft MVP in Data Platform Development. Woody is the co-host of the popular podcast “Deep Fried Bytes” and blogs at www.chriswoodruff.com. He has been the President of the West Michigan .NET User Group and also was a co-founder of the software architecture online portal nPlus1.org.
