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Daniela Bassan, K.C. (B.A., LL.B., LL.M.) is a Partner at Stewart McKelvey, a full-service law firm with offices throughout Atlantic Canada.  She is Chair of the firm’s Intellectual Property practice group and certified as a legal project manager. Ms. Bassan works with a diverse range of clients in complex litigation including cross-border proceedings and IP dispute resolution. She has served on independent boards and advisory committees in private, public, and charitable sectors. She is currently Director and Committee Chair of Innovation Asset Collective (Canada) and Member of the Digital Finance Project Team at Bretton Woods Committee (Washington). 

Karima Bawa the chair of the Board for IP Ontario and a member of the Board of Directors for the College of Patent Agents and Trademark Agents. She is the co-author of The Intellectual Property Guide: IP Literacy and Strategy Basics for Supporting Innovation and the Foundations of IP Strategy MOOC. Karima is the former general counsel and chief legal officer for Research In Motion Limited (now BlackBerry) where she oversaw a global legal team and managed the global legal function and the company’s vast IP portfolio. In addition to her work on various boards, she is the CEO and founder of a technology start-up and advises and supports other technology start-ups. 

Dan Ciuriak is Senior Fellow with the Centre for International Governance Innovation (Waterloo), where he writes on the economics of the data-driven economy and the implications of the digital transformation for trade, innovation, industrial policy, and geopolitics. He is also a Distinguished Fellow with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada (Vancouver), holds a fellowship with the C.D. Howe Institute (Toronto) and has a consulting practice, Ciuriak Consulting Inc., specializing in quantitative trade analysis (Ottawa). Previously, he had a 31-year career with the Government of Canada, retiring as Deputy Chief Economist at Global Affairs Canada. He is widely published and comments frequently in the media. 

Peter has 20 years’ experience in IP strategy, working in both the private and public sectors related to innovation. He has worked on the business operations side of IP to plan, create and lead the IP programming, and brings a deep technical expertise as a named inventor on almost 70 patents in the clean energy sector. Peter has advised on IP policy, operations, and strategy in numerous areas including start-ups, scale ups, technology transfer offices, accelerators and incubators, venture capital groups, and governments (provincial, federal, international).

He is currently a board member for Innovation Asset Collective and on the governance committee for the College of Patent and Trademark Agents. Peter holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) and an MBA (Entrepreneurship; research focus in IP strategies for SMEs) from the University of Victoria, and an LLM (Intellectual Property; research focus on IP and board governance) degree from Osgoode Hall.

Robert (Bob) Fay is a highly accomplished and respected leader in the field of digital economy research. With more than 30 years of experience working in the public and private sectors, he has developed expertise in economics, policy analysis and strategic planning.

Currently, Bob serves as managing director of digital economy at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), where he leads a network of researchers focused on the intersection of technology, trade, innovation and governance. In this position, he has played a key role in shaping the discourse around the digital economy and has contributed to numerous policy debates and research initiatives on topics such as data governance, digital innovation and the future of work.

Before joining CIGI, Bob held various leadership positions at the Bank of Canada (BoC), where he was responsible for the assessment of digital technologies for Canada’s economy and international economic developments, and provided short-term forecasting, structural analysis and policy advice. He was also special assistant to BoC Governor Mark Carney and his chief of staff, playing a key role in delivering policy direction. Bob began his career as an economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, where he worked on labour market issues and country-specific analyses.

Bob holds an M.A. in economics from Queen’s University and has published numerous research papers and policy briefs on a range of economic and policy topics.

Konstantinos Georgaras is the Commissioner of Patents, Registrar of Trademarks and Chief Executive Officer at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO). In this role, Mr. Georgaras provides strategic direction and leadership to CIPO and ensures the provision of world-class intellectual property (IP) services by granting IP rights and providing IP awareness and information. He also represents CIPO and Canada’s interests, both nationally and internationally.

Suzanne S. Harrison is an author, patent futurist, and economist. She works with companies both large and small to help them utilize their patent data to make more informed decisions and realize the true value of their intellectual property.
She is currently the Chair of the Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC) for the USPTO. She is also the Founder and Principal of Percipience LLC, a board-level advisory group focused on IP and innovation strategy, management, and quantifying and mitigating IP risk.

Since 1995, she has led a group called the ICM Gathering, an invitation-only group of 20 companies that meet regularly to define, create, benchmark and test best practices in IP management. Her books draw on her work with the Gathering, and feature success stories of companies leading the way in innovative IP management.
She is a Board member of the USIPA and co-chair of the Diversity & Inclusion committee which launched the Diversity Pledge to assist companies in increasing diversity in inventorship. She is also a Board member and North American Regional Chair of the Global IP Alliance.

She holds an undergraduate degree in economics from UC Davis, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. She lives in San Francisco, CA, with her husband and two children.

Senior Manager, Legal Counsel in the Commercial/International sector of Legal Affairs at the National Bank of Canada. She advises on all aspects of commercial lending and taking security across Canada and oversees the Bank’s commercial policies and procedures on such matters.

She is Vice-Chair of the Intellectual Property Financing Subcommittee of the Commercial Finance Division of the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section and a Fellow of the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers. She is a member of the Board of Directors of IAC.

Kiriakoula has published several articles on cross-border secured transactions, as well as on intellectual property financing transactions. She is a course lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Montreal and is a lecturer on these topics at several conferences. She published Secured Lending in Intellectual Property with LexisNexis, Butterworths in 2017.

James W. Hinton is an IP lawyer, patent agent and trademark agent with his firm Own Innovation. He is a senior fellow at CIGI, where he contributes expertise on intellectual property (IP) and innovation. He has worked closely with the Council of Canadian Innovators on Canada’s innovation initiatives and national IP strategy. James is co-founder of the Innovation Asset Collective and a proud supporter of Canadian technology companies. He is also an assistant professor at Western University, where he teaches on the commercialization of innovation.

Rafal is the Chief Operating Officer at Xanadu. He manages business operations and leads organizational growth on a product and company level. He specializes in commercializing deep tech projects and has over ten years of experience in leading software and machine learning teams in both large enterprises and high-growth startups. Rafal holds an MSc in Biophysics from the University of Guelph.

Derek is President and CEO of HaiLa. HaiLa is a very low power RF semi design and solutions company focused on developing sustainability focused, ultra power effiecient ambient IoT radio chips resulting in the reduction of 100s of millions of batteries from landfill.

Prior to HaiLa, Derek held technology and management advisory roles at QN4, Acerta, Arcane Software and Panasonic. He is the past president of Sciemetric, an IIoT company. Derek was also Senior Vice President of BlackBerry’s IoT business unit and VP of Sales and Marketing for QNX Software Systems, an embedded computing company.

Prior to BlackBerry, Mr. Kuhn held senior positions at Alcatel-Lucent, including Vice President of Emerging Technology and Media, and Vice President of Strategy in the office of the CTO. In 2010, he won Alcatel-Lucent’s CEO award.
From 2003 to 2006, Mr. Kuhn served as chairman of the Broadband Content Delivery Forum. From 2008 to 2010, he sat as a board member of the University of Southern California’s Entertainment Technology Center in the School of Cinematic Arts.
Mr. Kuhn was on the Board of Directors of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association (APMA) from 2012 to 2016 and again from 2019 to 2020.

Lewis Lee is CEO and Global Head of Aon Intellectual Property Solutions, a business focused on enhancing enterprise value by executing IP-based value creation strategies and minimizing the cost of IP risk. With IP being a valuable asset class, Aon IP Solutions provide advanced business and data analytics to help financial and insurance industries assess and value IP assets.

Lewis is recognized by Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) as a top 300 IP strategist worldwide, and is an experienced IP attorney, entrepreneur, author, inventor and educator. Lewis is also active in development of advanced IP tools, analytics, and processes. He recently served as a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Economic Advisory Council.

Prior to Aon, Lewis co-founded and led Lee & Hayes, a leading US patent and business law firm. He has co-authored two books, Intellectual Property for the Internet and Managing Intellectual Property Rights.

A frequent speaker on IP topics, Lewis has presented at institutions including Harvard University, the University of Washington, Peking University and the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi. He is a former adjunct professor for Gonzaga University’s School of Business.

Lewis serves on the Washington State University Foundation Board of Advisors, a member of the WSU Carson College Entrepreneurship Advisory Board, and WSU Honors College Advisory Board.
Lewis has a JD from the George Washington University School of Law, a BSc in electrical engineering and a BA in business administration from Washington State University.

Before founding Eagle Forest, Paul was the Vice President of IP Strategy and Global Business Development at Xiaomi Corporation. Paul established Xiaomi’s long term IP strategy and the patent licensing and acquisition teams at Xiaomi. He completed many complex deals with high profile licensors that demonstrated genuine creativity and a collaborative approach striving for win-win outcomes, including Qualcomm, Microsoft, Nokia, Via Licensing, MPEG LA, and many others. Paul is widely recognized within the industry as “problem solver” for highly contentious disputes. He led the team to successfully end multi-year litigations with Ericsson, InterDigital, Sisvel, and Philips. Paul was the architect for many patent acquisitions that expanded Xiaomi’s IP portfolio by thousands of patents. In addition to his IP role at Xiaomi, Paul was responsible for global business development. He formed strategic partnerships with major technology companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Netflix. Paul also led negotiations with major telco carriers and distributors to expand Xiaomi’s business in Europe.

Before joining Xiaomi, Paul was the co-founder and president of Zhigu, an IP investment and advisory firm in China. He raised the first IP investment fund in China, Ruichuang. Zhigu was named the Best IP Firm in China in 2014. Zhigu was acquired by Xiaomi in 2016. Prior to his entrepreneurship, Paul was a licensing executive at Intellectual Ventures, where he was involved in many major licensing negotiations. Before Intellectual Ventures, he worked as the business development director at Microsoft.

Mike McLean is CEO of Innovation Asset Collective (IAC), a membership-based not-for-profit organization. IAC is funded by the Federal Government of Canada to empower the sustained success of Canadian SMEs through leadership in IP strategy and its use to create global business advantage and is a key pillar of Canada’s IP strategy. Mike brings more than two decades of IP expertise to IAC, having worked extensively with technology practices of major law firms, in-house counsel of global technology companies, and licensing agencies. Mike has a BSc in Engineering from Queen’s University and has been recognized as a member of IAM’s Global Strategy 300.

Didier Patry is a recognised IP expert with strong experience in the strategic management, optimisation, valuation and monetisation of intangible assets and IP rights. As France Brevets’ CEO, Mr Patry has managed several multimillion licensing programmes, launched support initiatives for tech start-ups and SMEs, and provided strategic expert advisory services to the French government and several public organisations. In this role, Mr Patry and his team have assisted the Office of the Prime Minister to build and execute a set of IP strategies in more than 20 high-priority technology sectors including 6G, cloud computing and cybersecurity. As lead IP adviser and coordinator, Mr Patry works regularly with Members of Parliament and major industry organisations to advance IP and data-related matters in France and in Europe. Mr Patry is a qualified European patent attorney with considerable experience in the industry (Eaton, HP, Swatch) and in private practice (Baker Botts LLP). In 2018, Mr Patry was listed as one of the Top 40 World IP Deal Makers by IAM.

Mr Patry holds an MS in materials science from the Polytech School of Engineering in Angers, France. He graduated in law (LLM) from the Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies of the University of Strasbourg with a specialisation in IP, patent law, tech law, digital law and contract law. He also studied business strategy and innovation management at the UCD Graduate Business School in Dublin, Ireland and regulatory and data protection law at the London School of Economics. Mr Patry lectures on the master’s course in management and on the executive MBA at the ESCP Business School in Paris and on the LLM course in law of Internet technology at Bocconi University in Milan, where he is an academic fellow. Mr Patry is regularly invited to speak at conferences and media events in France and abroad on strategic management of intellectual property and economics, and he is often asked to take a position on public policy matters relating to innovation.

Devashish Paul founded BluWave-ai in 2017 and has built out one of the world’s premiere renewable energy and transport electrification companies, based in Ottawa, Canada. In his role at BluWave-ai, he has taken AI concepts to live working systems from Asia to Europe to North America, successfully navigating the growth of the company through the critical COVID-19 pandemic, onboarding new customers worldwide and growing the team with an international employee group from 15 different countries. Devashish has taken the company to multi-million dollar SaaS revenue and has been an inventor on several of the company’s patents.

Prior to BluWave-ai, Devashish had an extensive career in the semiconductor industry focused on supercomputing, artificial intelligence, and networking. During his 20+ years in the tech world, Devashish has led successful innovations in a diversity of markets at Canadian start-ups, Toronto Stock Exchange-listed, and Silicon Valley public companies. He has grown businesses in Europe, Asia, and North American from the startup level to $110M annual revenue. In industry leadership roles, he ran the High Performance Computing Group in the Open Compute Project (started by Facebook) to create open industry computing platforms for low-latency workloads. Devashish also served as an advisory board member for the CERN Open Lab. Devashish earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Royal Military College followed by a Masters in Electrical Engineering (Digital Signal Processing) and an MBA in Marketing, both from the University of Ottawa. He is a veteran of the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Devashish is a life-long cyclist and nature enthusiast using human powered energy for personal transportation to explore the world. He is a 31-time Ironman triathlon finisher, has coached masters athletes to 100+ finishes, was a coach for 14 years with the Kanata Nordic Ski Club, and has raced for Canada in 10 world championships. He is also a world traveler who loves connecting with people in diverse cultures both for personal interests and driving BluWave-ai’s goal to become the premier global renewable energy AI company.

Erin Pisko is an experienced Intellectual Property (IP) Strategist and registered patent agent in Canada and the US with decades of experience working both in-house, building out ecosystems for innovation, and at top-tier Canadian law firms. She has assisted companies from diverse industries in building and transforming their innovation strategies. As VP of IP Strategy at IAC, Erin provides strategic leadership, education, and advisory services for companies in the data-driven cleantech sector to help them build strong IP roadmaps that align with their business objectives. Erin stumbled across IP while wrapping up her master’s degree in engineering and has never looked back.

Natalie Raffoul is a world-renowned IP lawyer and a partner of BRION RAFFOUL LLP, a law firm specializing in intellectual property (IP) law that she co-founded in 2008. In 2020, she co-founded a software company, launching Fortress IAMTM, a platform that helps innovative SMEs manage their IP. Since 2020, Natalie has been recognized in the IAM Strategy 300: The World’s Leading IP Strategists as a Global Leader, leading the way in the development and implementation of strategies that maximize the value of IP portfolios. In 2019, Natalie was appointed to Ontario, Canada’s first Expert Panel on IP. In 2021 and 2022, she led and taught several Train-the-Trainer courses for the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) internationally, and, in 2021, Natalie contributed to a new WIPO pilot program for assessing the IP strategy of green technology companies in Europe and Brazil.

Mark Schaan is the Senior Assistant Deputy Minister for Strategy and Innovation Policy at the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED). In this role he is responsible for advancing the government’s microeconomic policy agenda; supporting the development of the department’s horizontal policy and strategic priorities, including by ensuring robust marketplace frameworks telecommunications policy, and the deepening of external relations; and, providing support to regional economic development.

Mark’s public service career has included roles across the policy spectrum, as well as leading on revitalizing the public service through innovative recruitment models.

Mark earned his BA (Honours) from the University of Waterloo in Political Science with an Honours Option in Peace and Conflict Studies in 2002, where he studied as a Loran Scholar. Mark earned his MPhil in Comparative Social Policy, conferred in 2004, and his DPhil in Social Policy, conferred in 2010 from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. Mark is also actively involved in his community: chairing the board of the Ottawa Art Gallery; former leadership in the Ten Oaks Project, including helping to launch Project Acorn, a community building space for youth of LGBTQ+ identities, families, and communities; and continued involvement with the Loran Scholars Foundation.

Jesse Vincent-Herscovici is CEO of Axelys. He has over 15 years of experience in building partnerships with government, academic institutions and industry in the innovation community.

Jesse Vincent-Herscovici is passionate about driving innovation ecosystems, collaborative research, and connecting talent and opportunities. His expertise helps companies, organizations and universities to successfully navigate in a very competitive world to sustain the knowledge economy and the creation of new strategic partnerships for the benefit of an ever more innovative and thriving Quebec society.

Before joining Axelys, he was Vice-President, Business Development of Mitacs since 2009. He was also President of the management team. Jesse Vincent-Herscovici has been a member of multiple advisory committees and boards of directors such as: the Concordia Institute for Water, Energy, and Sustainable Systems as Chair of the Board of Directors, the Centre for Applied Mathematics in Bioscience and Medicine of McGill University, and the BioFuelNetCanada Network. He is currently a member of the Institute for Mobility and Aerospace in Canada.
Jesse Vincent-Herscovici holds a B.A. in Psychology and an M.A. in Human Systems Intervention from Concordia University.

Joff Wild is a journalist who has specialised in covering IP since 1992. During that time he has written for a number of IP-focused titles, as well as publications such as The Times, The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal. He was editor-in-chief of the IP and Data Division of Globe Business Publishing and then Law Business Research from 2003 to 2021. He is now editor-at large for IAM and WTR

Chris works with family offices to invest in promising Canadian technology companies. He currently mentors over a dozen entrepreneurs and C-level executives on strategies that helps them scale up globally as well as serving on 7 Boards.

He also advises many larger companies on corporate development and product development activities. He writes and distributes ‘Waterloo Tech Highlights’, a monthly e-newsletter about Waterloo region private tech companies.
Chris has over 20 years of experience as a senior technology leader. He is a co-founder of IAC and as head of corporate development at BlackBerry, he was part of the team that built the most valuable patent portfolio in Canadian business and he successfully led the sourcing, negotiation and integration of over 40 acquisitions totaling over $1.5B and including close to 2000 people. He is one of the original inventors of BlackBerry Messenger, and a named inventor for 33 granted patents. He has negotiated hundreds complex licence agreements worth tens of billions of dollars.

Chris lives in Waterloo with his wife Lynda and their three teenagers. He enjoys running, swimming Nordic skiing and cycling.