Emil Aite, CTO and Co-Founder of Hoppier

During this session, we'll ask and answer the following questions:

• What does it if feel like to be a remote engineer on a failing team?
• How can you know if your team is failing or succeeding?
• How can you treat processes differently as a remote engineering team?
• What does a future look like default to remote?
• What you can do to lead a high functioning engineering team?

Joe Cummins, CTO of CYBERNETIQ

In Canada, and around the world, the intersection between OT, IT, and (I)IOT has continued to converge across multiple merged and with it has come the exploding evolution of the business layers and policy enforcement, organizations have been unable to meet the demands that are placed to create safe, secure, and resilient networks.

With the erosion of the Enterprise network’s proximity to the ICS world, the conventional wisdom on the architecture and design has been fraught with challenges. As a result the corporations inability to ensure that business functions and supporting rationale and alignment with operational goals that require a deep understanding of the networks that they’re charged with protecting, and find unique ways to manage the finite resources.

Through repeatable threat modeling of Enterprise, ICS, and IOT networks, organizations can not only visualize the underlying network security deployment from the ground up, but also recoup much of the investments from the technology by cross-mapping and overlaying each dataset to enrich the full picture of the corporate environment. This method gives way to further align the operations “stack” of people, process, and technology from a grassroots level. From the link level to gateway and beyond, organizations need to see the entire environment, overlay the security dimensions and build solid architecture models to better address the critical risks within the organization.

In this session we will use real world examples of organizations that operated within the Canadian ecosystem. We will share what is occurring at a “wire” level, and how this affects the gaps and overlaps of the security program. Dissect the existing traffic to spot malware proliferation, DNS queries, and other security issues that may go unnoticed.

Judith Humphrey, Author and Leadership Communications Expert

Today leaders have a new challenge: reaching teams and partners who work remotely and speaking to them in such a way that they feel engaged and inspired. Meeting this challenge requires a new set of communication skills that this session will explore. Choosing the best medium for communicating is only the beginning. A speaker must also set the “stage,” develop the right kind of script, speak with a strong presence, shun slides that can act as a barrier between speaker and audience, and deliver in an interactive and audience-centered way (even though the audience is not in the room). The goal should be to overcome the “distance” created by the digital divide, and turn others into believers.

Cary Moretti, Founder of Proximuto, Inc.

2020 started dramatically with a pandemic that left offices empty of all but stained coffee cups and empty chairs. In March, ready or not, infected or not, physical distancing arrived and the global work from home experiment began. Despite easing restrictions and an opening economy, many offices remain empty as we begin navigating towards the “new normal” and a workplace that may have far fewer workers.

The overnight WFH shift exposed gaps in critical processes such as onboarding, mentorship and management, team communications and collaboration. Success in the new workplace has been defined by the ability to adapt and readiness to implement the remote best practices of highly performant distributed teams without losing the culture and values they have worked so hard to establish.

In this session we will contrast the current WFH environment with remote best practices through the lenses of Proximuto’s 4 Pillars: People, Process, Platform, and Place. We will discuss tactics for successfully transitioning to a new workplace norm with a focus on maintaining the flexibility necessary to deal with changing restrictions.

Liora Raitblat, Strategic Change Expert at Deloitte

Change has become a constant, and 2020 has proven to be no exception (to put it lightly). Our world has recently been thrown into virtual workplaces, however this isn’t your typical “work-from-home” situation. On top of technological barriers, a challenge exists to develop new habits and practices for our teams to adapt, behave and succeed during these times.

As we begin to embrace the environment that technology creates, it becomes more important than ever to humanize the world of work. How do we manage the change from the human perspective in the context of a growing remote presence? How do we not only operate remotely, but begin to thrive as a team in this new way of working?

In this session, we’ll explore how we can:

• Design choices that ignite change
• Remain ‘human’ in a technology-driven world
• Build a sustainable version of tomorrow

Jenn Vukojevic, 

Organizational Development & Communications Specialist at Pythian

The modern workplace has shifted and remote working is becoming the norm globally. In fact,50% of people worldwide are currently working outside their office for at least half the weekaccording to a study conducted by the International Workplace Group (IWG).

But besides equipping your employees with a laptop and having video call meetings, what arewe really doing to make our remote employees feel connected to the company and how do weovercome the us versus them mentality between remote workers and those working in the office? It’s time organizations take on the heavy lifting by building initiatives into their businessstrategies that will help our remote workforce stay connected and engaged.

Here’s how you canmake remote work, work:

• Create a culture of inclusion and belonging
• Build Trust. It’s at the heart of employee engagement
• Share stories to cultivate empathy & understanding

Steve Cadigan, Talent Hacker, Advisor and Author

Covid-19 has caused dramatic change across the globe. In fact for the first time in history EVERYONE is facing massive changes in their lives on every dimension: work, family, home. We continue to learn even today of new impacts and changes from this pandemic. While there are many reasons to be concerned, there are also many opportunities that this new reality presents to all of us. For those of us engaged in the world of change, influence and innovation there is reason for hope. You are invited to an engaging talk to be delivered by Steve Cadigan, a talent expert and global thought leader on the future of work. Steve is the former VP of Talent at LinkedIn and for the past 10 years had dedicated himself to helping individuals and organization build compelling talent strategies. Come join us for 45 minutes of inspiration where Steve will discuss why now is a great time to innovate and why history has shown us that in times of massive change and even anxiety, greatness can be born.

Hassan Jaferi, CEO of Bitnobi

Meredith Brianna Lazowski, Head of Product Design at Bitnobi

Now more than ever, enabling secure data sharing in organizations is essential to effectively enable businesses, research and so much more. These initiatives can be very large and daunting for organizations and networks to manage and get started, but with the challenges come with exciting opportunities. As a secure data sharing platform, here at Bitnobi we have been exposed to some fairly large data sharing initiatives such as collaborations between big pharma organizations and hospital networks teaming up to make cancer care data more accessible for research and care plans.

In this session we will cover:

• The current challenges of data sharing we are facing
• The opportunities for data sharing initiatives in this changing landscape
• An overview of some very complex data sharing initiatives we are working on in healthcare and government
• Our learnings & takeaways to help get started on data sharing initiatives in your organization

Dan Pontefract, Leadership Strategist and Author 

If anything needs to be learned from the pandemic, it is that we should not be afraid to change. Our long-term recovery depends on it. Best-selling author and leadership strategist Dan Pontefract will outline 9 insightful yet super-practical leadership lessons that will help you with your personal leadership during and after the pandemic. Every human interaction is crucial. Every exchange can be mutually beneficial. It's time to change. It’s time to start becoming a more caring leader.

• Recognize the need to be both a leader of self and of others, regardless of your role or title.
• Discover ways in which to apply a more empathic and genuine form of leadership.
• Design a new model of leadership for yourself that focuses on getting tasks accomplished, but in a kinder, collaborative, and giving way.

Anastasia Valentine, VP of AI Technology Commercialization, Rhonda.ai

In this session with Anastasia Valentine, you will: 

• Identify what matters most. Create your non negotiables and stand by them.
• Define your vision of the “new normal.” What does it include for you and yours and what do you want to let go.
• What steps do you take to create a positive, compassionate company culture to see us into the future

Logan Ouellette, Community Builder, CodeControl

CodeControl's mission is to support a community of over 650 top digital freelancers from all across Europe by enabling them to realize fulfilling work. Keeping an international community of freelancers engaged and feeling connected both to their core team and each other was already a considerable task before Covid-19, hence the crisis brought about its own unique set of challenges.

But innovation is born out of necessity, and this period also provided them the opportunity to experiment with new tools and engagement formats.

In this talk, Logan will share some of his learnings on creating spaces for online interaction as well as community building in times of social distancing, with a focus on how to deliver value for all your stakeholders.

Nada Awad, VP of Client Relations, RemoteDesk

This session will explore what organizations need to do ahead of time to mitigate associated risks with retrofitting their security to be suitable for working in remote environments.

You'll learn:

• What are effective methods of deploying remote access for staff not accustomed to the security implications of remote working.
• How to prevent the loss of productivity when switching entirely to a remote workforce.