Speakers and Presenters
Welcome to Connecting the Dots!
We are thrilled to introduce the dynamic and accomplished speakers and presenters who will be sharing their expertise and insights at this year's event. From thought leaders to industry pioneers, our speakers are at the forefront of innovation, hinting at the exceptional content and connections awaiting you as we explore the intersection of education, technology, and employment.
Shawn Marsolais
Founder and Director of Programs and Community Engagement, Blind Beginnings Society
Shawn Marsolais is the Founder and Director of Programs and Community Engagement at Blind Beginnings, and a registered clinical counselor. Having grown up with a visual impairment, Shawn experienced the challenges of limited support available to families raising children who are blind or partially sighted across BC. While in University, Shawn realized a passion for working with youth, but it wasn't until an internship at a school for the blind in England in 2000 that this passion crystallized into a commitment to support children who are blind or partially sighted and their families. After returning from England, Shawn worked as the Coordinator of Children's Services at CNIB and recognized the significant need for additional support for BC families to enable their blind children to reach their full potential. Driven by this mission, Shawn initiated the process of creating a non-profit to support BC's children and youth who are blind and partially sighted, ultimately giving rise to Blind Beginnings in 2008.
Daphne Hitchcock
President, Braille Literacy Canada
Daphne, a strong advocate for braille literacy, found her vocation working with blind, low vision, and deafblind youngsters, aged 4-19, in BC and Alberta. She contributed to the development and delivery of many projects, including BC's Early Literacy for the Visually Impaired, Braille Pre-School Library Story Kits, and collaborated on the innovative series called Braille Bites. Daphne, recently retired, now enjoys mentoring and serves as President of Braille Literacy Canada. She is actively involved in the BLC program for adults new to vision loss called the Braille Zoomers.
Abby Sienko
Member, National Youth Council, CNIB
Abby Sienko is Deafblind, a member of the National Youth Council of CNIB, and a Child and Youth Care Counsellor. Abby works with children and youth with significant adversities. They are passionate about empowering, advocating, working alongside children, youth, and their families. With Abby's lived experience as a Deafblind person, they have been a role model for young children and youth by discovering their strengths, showing their unlimited possibilities, and helping break down barriers. Abby understands the complexity and systematic barriers that may occur as a marginalized individual from various communities. Abby's advocacy work has provided them with the ability to educate professionals, the community, and provide resources and connections.
Instagram: @Deaflepuff
Mia Schartau
Member, National Youth Council, CNIB
Mia Schartau is a DeafDisabled advocate who dreams of a world where everyone is equal. They currently study Child and Youth Care with a minor in Psychology. They also hold credentials in psychological first aid, trauma awareness, crisis intervention, and peer support. Mia is involved in policy advocacy and consultation at all levels of government. Their advocacy comes from a universal design, trauma-informed approach. Mia has worked as an intervenor for Deafblind children and enjoys coming up with creative ways to allow individuals to interact with their environment.
David Demers
President, CNIB Frontier Accessibility and Creative Director, CNIB Access Labs
Prior to experiencing sudden sight loss in 2010, David was an entrepreneur for over 10 years who owned and managed businesses in commercial photography, e-commerce, tech, and hospitality. David joined the CNIB leadership team as Executive Director of the Quebec division in 2017. His entrepreneurial background and passion for making the world accessible to all has led him into the role of President of CNIB Frontier Accessibility, now Access Labs, a social enterprise dedicated to helping organizations of all sizes meet their accessibility, inclusion, and equality goals.
Samantha Sherman
Owner, Homeschool Labs
Samantha Sherman is the founder of Homeschool Labs and a Master's student in Theology and Spiritual Leadership at Summit Pacific College. Samantha completed her Bachelor of Social Work, three practicums, and built a career in the healthcare and educational fields while recovering from a car accident that led to her eventual vision loss. Samantha's own recovery and educational journey has fueled her passion to support children and families choosing alternative education across Canada.
Peter Tucic
Director of Strategic Partnerships, HumanWare
Peter Tucic graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History. Peter is currently the Director of Strategic Partnerships for HumanWare. He works closely with key partners throughout the field of vision loss as it relates to assistive technology. Peter has presented at the National ACB and NFB, in addition to the CSUN and ATIA conferences amongst many others. Peter has also been published in Closing the Gap magazine and regularly creates written and video tutorials for a wide array of HumanWare blindness products.
Marc Low
Director of Innovation & Emerging Technology, KPMG
Marc leads KPMG Ignition, KPMG's hub for innovation, digital, and emerging technologies, including Generative AI, digital twins, and corporate venturing. He has had the good fortune to work with clients across public and private sectors in North America and across Africa, giving him a unique perspective on technology and innovation as forces for good.
Marco Tomassetti
Managing Director, Corporate Finance Inc. & Partner, Deal Advisory, KPMG
Marco Tomassetti is a Managing Director in the Corporate Finance practice and leads Deal Advisory Services in the Greater Vancouver Area. With close to 25 years of corporate finance experience, Marco has advised companies across a broad spectrum of industries with deal sizes ranging from Enterprise Values of less than $20 million to over $1 billion. He has worked across a range of corporate finance transactions, including financings, acquisitions, divestitures, board advisory, valuations, and fairness opinions. Marco has also been an instructor and co-author on courses in financing, mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, valuations, and transaction due diligence.
Vince Tomassetti
Program Manager, Assistive Technology BC
Vince Tomassetti is a dedicated and passionate advocate for the inclusion and empowerment of individuals with disabilities. With a career spanning three decades in the disability services field, Vince currently holds the position of Program Manager at Assistive Technology BC. As the Program Manager of Assistive Technology BC, he is responsible for overseeing innovative service delivery solutions aimed at empowering students living with disabilities through the provision of assistive technologies and related services in the post-secondary environment. Throughout his tenure, he has led Assistive Technology BC through pivotal changes, implementing best practices to align program delivery with the increasing demand for assistive technology services in British Columbia.
Ailsa Leen
Senior Design Program Manager, AI Platform
Ailsa is a Senior Design Program Manager working at the intersection of AI and accessibility at Microsoft. She helps drive awareness of how Microsoft's Azure AI can be used to drive inclusion. She also works to make sure that AI tooling is accessible for developers and data scientists with disabilities, so that everyone can be part of building and using the technology of the future.
Nate Toevs
Marketing Manager, WorkBC Assistive Technology Services Program, Neil Squire Society
Nate is the Marketing Manager at Neil Squire-WorkBC Assistive Technology Services. Neil Squire is a non-profit social impact organization that has been revolutionizing the lives of Canadians with disabilities since 1984 through accessible technology. Nate has a longstanding background in Retail, Wholesale, and Business to Business sales and marketing activities. His talk at our event today will focus on a unique program that can benefit British Columbians seeking employment or training access to the tools they need to overcome their barriers to these activities called WorkBC Assistive Technology Services.
Dr. Patrick Hung
Director, International Programs; Graduate Program Director - CS, Professor, Ontario Tech University
Patrick C. K. Hung is a Professor and Graduate Program Director of Computer Science at the Faculty of Business and Information Technology at Ontario Tech University, Canada. Dr. Hung worked with Boeing Research and Technology in Seattle on aviation services-related research with two U.S. patents on the mobile network dynamic workflow system. Before that, he was a Research Scientist with Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) at Canberra, Australia.
Jen Jesso
Outreach Coordinator, Provincial Resource Centre for the Visually Impaired (PRCVI)
Jen has worked with children, youth, and adults with visual impairments for the past 15 years, in addition to being a braille reader herself. Currently, Jen works within the K-12 sector as the Outreach Coordinator at PRCVI in British Columbia and also serves as Secretary on the board of Braille Literacy Canada. Jen has been actively involved in the creation of Braille Bites and also contributes regularly to the Braille Zoomer program.
Adam Wilton
PhD. Program Manager, Provincial Resource Centre for the Visually Impaired (PRCVI)
Adam Wilton, PhD, is the Program Manager of the Provincial Resource Centre for the Visually Impaired (PRCVI) in Vancouver. He is a teacher of students with visual impairments and Certified Orientation and Mobility Specialist and has worked in the field for the last 16 years. Adam serves as the Vice Chair for Canada in the North America and Caribbean Region of ICEVI and as an Associate Editor for AER's new peer-reviewed journal, The New RE:view. He also serves on the Board of Directors for Braille Literacy Canada. Adam lives in Vancouver, BC with his partner and two cats.
Caireen Sutherland
Head of the Children and Education Department, RNIB
Caireen Sutherland is Head of the Children and Education team at RNIB in the UK. She is a qualified teacher of vision impairment and multisensory impairment. Her role at RNIB includes working directly with families, young people, professionals, and other key personnel nationally and internationally who support young people with vision impairment to achieve their potential. Caireen is Project Sponsor for the Curriculum Framework for Young People with VI across the UK, a member of ICEVI, and a board member/chair of other key sensory impairment organizations. She also tutors on the course to become a QTVI.
Carter Bobbie
Outreach and Engagement Officer, Pacific Region, Procurement Assistance Canada (PAC)
Carter has been working with the Federal Government for over two years, beginning with the Office of the Procurement Ombudsman (OPO), a neutral and independent organization of the Government of Canada that helps resolve contracting disputes between businesses and the federal government. Carter has now transitioned into a position with Procurement Assistance Canada (PAC). He is directly addressing the front end of procurement help services, where PAC represents the views of smaller businesses and encourages their participation in federal government procurement. Carter holds a BSc in Political Science from Acadia University and a Masters of Global Business from the University of Victoria - Gustavson School of Business.
Dr. Rafiq Ahmad
PhD, P.Eng Associate Professor, Faculty of Engineering - Mechanical Engineering Dept, University of Alberta
Dr. Rafiq Ahmad is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alberta. He is the founder and director of the "Smart & Sustainable Manufacturing Systems Laboratory (SMART Lab)," which focuses on systems design and engineering. Dr. Ahmad is also the founder and director of "Aquaponics 4.0 Learning Factory (AllFactory)," a unique learning factory researching system design and development for plants and fish production in an indoor, vertical, symbiotic ecosystem soil-less environment. Dr. Ahmad is an expert in smart manufacturing and remanufacturing technologies, systems design and engineering, methods-and-algorithms based on artificial intelligence and computer-vision, automation/robotics, sensor-based data and knowledge modeling. Dr. Ahmad is a leading expert in sustainable and smart manufacturing systems/technologies to enable innovations in industries through digitization (Industry 4.0), smart additive manufacturing, and clean and green technologies (Industry 5.0). Dr. Ahmad is the recipient of the prestigious Edmonton's 2022 Top 40 under 40 Award by Edify Magazine for his serial innovation and streamlined technology development to impact our society. He is also the director and founder of the Canadian not-for-profit ProBEEs Digital Education Society.
Jennifer Alejandra Cardenas Castaneda
MSc. Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta
Jennifer Cardenas is a Design Researcher from Mexico, with a background in human-centered design and product innovation. Currently pursuing a Master's in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta and holding a bachelor's degree in Industrial Design, she has diverse experience ranging from marketing research in Germany to user testing in Taiwan. Jennifer merges design thinking with science and technology, emphasizing user-centric solutions in her work.
Ray Choi
Real Estate Clerk, Vancouver Fraser Port Authority
Ray Choi is currently a Real Estate Clerk with the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. He is a talent pool member with CNIB's Come to Work program. Ray is an immigrant from South Korea, a proud father of his 10-year-old son, and a loving husband of an amazing wife.