Jackie Simkin

Jackie Simkin is the anchor that keeps InteraXon's Bright Ideas team from being swept away in a current of challenges and deadlines. With over 25 years of marketing, sales, and executive leadership experience, Jackie's strategic input keeps the project's many facets focused on the big picture, while systematically tending to the small details. In the past, she has worked for billion-dollar global corporations like Marconi PLC, Nortel Networks, and Telstra Corporation Ltd. As a Principal at The Osborne Group in Toronto and Access Solutions in Boston, she now applies her expertise to help start ups and established clients in every sector and industry complete critical projects and deal with periods of change.

Chris de Castro Creative Director

Chris is a 2003 Sheridan Classical Animation graduate that has been working as a post production specialist for the past five years. He has worked on a myriad of television shows, commercials and music; videos including Laura Barrett's "Robot Ponies", Valery Gore's "Dancing", Belinda Brady's "Get Out", technical director on the short film "The Long Journey Home"- which won awards in Brooklyn, Germany and Spain. He is now venturing past the 2D plane into installation pieces that engage the audience with both a sense of play and purpose, like "State of Rain," presented at Copenhagen International Conference on Computer Music and the giant paper cranes that descended upon last year. Chris works in research and development at Imax 3-D films, has taught at the RMI for visual effects, and also worked on the video representing Toronto at the C20 in Copenhagen. He is interested in the recreation of human experiences and the art of storytelling.

Pantea "Pants" Razzaghi Creative Director (Marketing, Identity & Design)

Pantea "Pants" Razzaghi sweats the small stuff to assure that the final product is Big. A multifaceted graphic artist with a background in computer science and a penchant for clever communication, she's had an exhilarating ride flexing her design skills in both the commercial and non-profit realms, along with teaching technical classes to design students at the Ontario College of Art and Design. With 10 years of print, broadcast, and interactive design as well as production experience, Pantea has had the pleasure of working on projects with such established players as Molson, Virgin Media, AstraZeneca, Partners Film Company and the Government of Ontario.

Tomek Bartczak Pod Design and Engineering

Tomek holds an undergraduate degree in engineering and masters degree in architecture, both from U. of T. He has long been interested in working on creative projects that synthesize the creative and technical; encompassing theory and practice. From 1999 through 2001 he was chief engineer of the UofT solar race car team; building, testing and racing solar cars across North America and Australia. In collaboration with Chris Aimone, he designed an MP3 yo-yo player, which won first prize in a human powered design competition (published: January 2004 issue of Popular Science). In 2006, he was granted the Faculty of Architecture Landscape & Design "Professional Experience Award" and worked for OMA/Rem Koolhaas in Netherlands. In 2008 he was the Power Corporation of Canada visiting researcher at the Canadian Centre of Architecture in Montreal. He is currently involved in teaching Engineering Design Theory at U of T, and continually collaborating on interesting projects with like-minded people.

Christian Joakim Pod Design and Architecture

Christian currently works at Teeple Architects Inc. (Toronto) and has recently formed the design atelier DEVOIR(S)tudio, a constellation of architects and engineers working with digital and computational techniques that look toward a new design paradigm in which processes, parameterics and programming play a large role in the development of a fully associative architecture.

Christian holds a B.A.Sc in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters of Architecture degree, both from the University of Toronto. He has worked with several progressive architecture firms in Vienna (Delugan Meissl Associated Architects), New York (Asymp-tote), Boston (dECOi) and Toronto. Christian was part of the five-member design team for Philip Beesley's 'Hylozoic Soil' (2007 FEIDAD Design Merit Award), has appeared on the progressive design website suckerPUNCH, was published and exhibited as part of ACADIA >08: "Silicon+Skin > Biological Processes and Computation", and, most recently, exhibited as part of Nuit Blanche 2009 in Toronto.

Tom Kuo Sound Designer

Tom Kuo is an award winning designer, producer, sound engineer, technical director and installation artist. He is a versatile professional with extensive experience in creating multimedia installations for custom-designed applications. His company, Foundation Creative Studio specializes in conceptualizing and producing projects with meaningful experiences for participants. His recent professional highlights include: assisting in the complete re-design of the waiting room area for the critical care unit at Sick Kids Hospital; delivering his proprietary design, PaCuBox, a new public street-gallery system for the 2010 Canadian Olympics; curating and launching iNiT - the first "rich media" festival in Toronto; and producing an interactive digital monument for WSIB. As the creative and technical director of the Element 156 Digital Media Centre in Toronto, Tom played an important role in designing and developing an exciting new hub of digital arts activities. He remains an active advisor and designer for Pixel Gallery, Toronto Digital Art Association and many other innovative production groups.

David Bouchard

David is an omnivorous New Media artist, technologist and educator. His work explores the expressive potential of computation, both in software and hardware forms. His interests include interactive and responsive environments, display technology for public spaces, electronic music interfaces, wireless sensor networks and generative art, to name a few. He is also interested in the politics and aesthetics of Open Source and Free Software in the context of media art practice. David has worked as a freelance consultant on a wide range of multi-disciplinary interactive projects at the intersection of art, design and engineering. He is currently a part-time faculty at Ryerson University in the School of Image Arts, New Media option and at the Canadian Film Center in the TELUS Interactive Art and Entertainment Program. He has a degree in Computer Science from Concordia University and a Master of Science from the MIT Media Laboratory. More information on his work can be found online at www.deadpixel.ca

Connor Dickie

Connor Dickie is a scientist, artist, inventor and entrepreneur. His most recent project brought him to Tajikistan where he built and deployed a phone-answering/blogging robot in support of a national call-in poetry contest. His work has exhibited in international venues including Wired Nextfest, PepsiCo World Headquarters, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Animamax Biennial at Shanghai Museum of Modern Art, Siggraph, Gamania Inc. and Gadgetoff. In media, his projects have been featured on Good Morning America, SPACE TV, Discovery Channel, NHK, CBC, CNN, BBC, TechTV, BoingBoing, Engadget, Gizmodo, Slashdot, Scientific American, ScienceWorld, Wired Magazine, The Globe and Mail, The Guardian and DesignVerb. He studied Film & Human Computer Interaction at Queen's University before joining the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently an Experience Director of the "Changing the World" conference for young innovators, and Creative Director at Kameraflage Inc., a company he founded to commercialize a new display technology.

Alexander Ho

If at 2am your neighbour just took a breather from ripping vicious guitar riffs only to start furiously pounding on an IBM Model M keyboard, then saturates with a cacophony of hammering, drilling, barking and oboe, you're likely living next to Alexander Kon-i Ho. Hailing from Hamilton, Ontario, Alexander is a collector of skills and junk, who enjoys electronics, computers, hand crafts, extreme music and the company of a pug named Benji. Alexander aims to create opportunities in technology where there was none before.

Chris Gahan

Chris Gahan is a creative and curious software developer with many years of experience and a degree in computer science. The scope of his interests are quite broad; they range from music, to philosophy, computers, humour, math, nonlinear dynamics, biology, neuroscience, psychology, politics, economics, information theory, and physics. This breadth of interests, combined with many years of experience with computer systems--from the metal up to the interface--has made him an excellent problem solver as well as a producer of elegant solutions. He also has a genuine desire to engage in constructive solutions to important problems.

Tom Rathborne

Tom Rathborne's cross-disciplinary problem solving skills come from over twenty-five years of experience in programming, system management, telecommunications, and computer graphics. Building web sites since the early days - from hardware assembly and operating system tuning through application frameworks and client-side interaction - brought him a broad and deep understanding of the technological techniques and human factors involved in the invention, design, deployment, and management of new systems. Tom enjoys expressing his understanding through teaching, tool building, and making art. When not connected to the internet, Tom waters plants, makes sandwiches, does dishes and practises yoga, non-confrontational conflict resolution, and rock climbing.

Evan Dickson Technical Writer

While he began his writing career as a music journalist, Evan is now transitioning to technical communication. After founding a student magazine at York University, Evan went on to become content editor for wavelengthtoronto.ca, and write for Chart Magazine. To the attention to detail, concise organization, and interview skills he learned as a journalist, Evan has added an education in technical writing from George Brown College. He is now pursuing his new field with interest.

Jennifer Fong-Adwent Web Developer

Jennifer has been developing and designing web applications for the past eight years. She specializes in managing and designing information processes, database architecture and web application development. She has worked with clients such as Teranet, The College Compensation Council of Ontario, Crush & Lovely and the Heart & Stroke Foundation. Currently, she contributes to open source projects involving Python and Ruby. Her latest projects include implicit data analysis of social language interaction and collective intelligence research. Her project updates and blog articles can be read at ednapiranha.com. She is a Director at Red & Black Groupe and an Owner at Type Again Gamesin Toronto, Ontario.

Karen King Copy Writer

Inspired by almost any string of words: copy on dish soap, novels, novellas, short stories, flash fiction, 100 character stories, words put in air quotes, words left unsaid. Karen has a BDes in Advertising Copywriting and has worked for clients that include: Dan Aykroyd Wines, Sleeman, YUM! Brands, H&R Block, Journalists for Human Rights, as well as smaller emerging brands doing kickass things, like InteraXon. www.sheisking.com twitter.com/she_is_king

Madison Matthews Video Artist

Madison Matthews has a B.F.A. in Film and Video Production from York University, with a minor in philosophy. He freelances in Toronto on independent, commercial, and outreach-centered projects, as editor, D.O.P. and project coordinator. Currently, he is completing his first feature documentary film, about the growing international marketplace of assisted suicide, euthanasia and cryonic suspension. In addition, he has recently directed and edited a TV pilot for National Geographic about a travelogue-adventurist-explorer in search of solutions to the impending perils of climate change. Madison specializes in cinematography, lighting design, editing, and has directed seven short films to date.  He currently resides in High Park in Toronto Canada.

Markos Tesome Photographer

Originally from Ethiopia via the U.S. Markos worked as a mechanic for an international company. There he met a few Canadians who were influential in his decision to come to Canada. At his first Canadian job he stumbled into photography, which he went on to study at Sheridan College and Ryerson University. Building on his photo skills, Markos studied advertising at the Ontario College of Art and Design. He now resides in Toronto and works as a photographer & art director. 

Gavin Whelehan Audio Mastering

Gavin Whelehan is a Toronto-based musician, songwriter and producer. Currently employed by Grayson Matthews Audio Design, he has composed a wide array of music for film, television, and advertising. Past work with Grayson Matthews has included music composition for the Lexus "H", Lexus "ISF" and the upcoming Lexus IS "Hangar" ad campaigns, as well as numerous other spots for Ford, Kellog's, Tim Hortons, The Royal Canadian Mint, Haagen Dazs, and Rogers, to name a few. Gavin has also written music for the opening credits of the Gemeni Awards telecast, as well as for other CBC productions such as "The Hour", and "The National".

Kyra Savolainen Social Media

Kyra earned her diploma in Creative Advertising at Toronto's Centennial College. Before attending Centennial, she studied at the University of Western Ontario in the Media, Information, & Technoculture program. Upon graduation, Savolainen joined Isobar North America's digital strategy department at Toronto, where she established herself as a young leader in the, then nascent, arena of social media marketing. In 2009, Savolainen was recruited by OgilvyOne Toronto to help in the development of the agency's recently established social marketing department.

Kelly Bergeron Search Engine Optimization

With over eight years of web development experience, Kelly is applying her web knowledge and taking InteraXon to the top of the search engines. Her expertise in SEO comes from many years developing and managing sites for the RCMP, DND, the Ontario Ministry of Health, and Oxford University Press Canada. Her diversity of interests help her see things from different angles. Her unique background also includes database management for the Liberal Party of Canada, PR for an indie-pop band from Iceland, and working as a music writer for the National Post.

Marta Zacharowska Co-ordinator

Marta is an ESA graduate and an Art and Science graduate of University of Toronto who has a passion for design from architecture to furniture. She has been involved in creative endeavours, both her own as well as others, including Weathering Architecture and Funtain.

Shiri Levshtein

Shiri, a York University grad in Fine Arts Cultural Studies and community arts practice, has interned at the Ministry of Culture and Ontario Arts Council. Her Drum and Base jungle track played on the Radio in Russia.

Candice Luck

Candice, an Architecture student at U of T, is a Building Code consultant specializing in low-rise buildings. She currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Homeowner Protection Centre.

Giacomo Grisanzo

Giacomo, an independent filmmaker and producer, has worked on many high-profile events in Toronto, including L'Oréal Toronto Fashion Week, Bloor Street Entertains, FIFA U-20 World Cup and Fringe Festival.

Richard J Lam

Masters of Architecture student at the University of Toronto, with a background in Biology, Richard won the 2007 Steel Structures Education Foundation design competition. Collaborative projects include the Blue Sky Solar Racing program.