Sylvia MacSpadyen

Chief Creative Officer / Designer,
Design Health

As Founder of FOCUSED Communications Inc. and Design Health, Sylvia has over 2 decades of experience in education, service and experience design.  She has a Masters degree in Design; Strategic Foresight and Innovation from OCAD U and has taught at the Design for Health Masters program at OCAD U. She speaks at conferences, and most recently  had her research abstract accepted at the prestigious ATTD, (March 2025) in Amsterdam and also accepted at the Behaviour Change Conference 2025, Health & Sustainability (April 2025) Lisbon, Spain. The research looks at shifting the dynamics of power in health care to the empowerment of people for disruptive innovation.   In her work, she collaborates with healthcare providers, patients and industry partners. Her focus with industry partners  is to help them  adopt design principles to identify deep needs of customers and find the right problems to solve that are desirable, feasible and viable for all interest holders. Conducting foresight workshops for scenario planning enables improved strategy formulation by industry clients.  Central to her work are COM-B and JTBD frameworks.  She is a certified instructional design and learning professional, accredited medical education experience designer and professional facilitator.

Sylvia offers certification in COM-B for those who have an interest in how behavior change models for innovation can be used for assessment, intervention and evaluation in design.

She facilitates over 60 workshops or co-creation each year and approximately 40 training sessions.

Ethel Zlotnik

Senior UX Designer,
TD Bank

Ethel is a Senior UX Designer based in Toronto, currently working at TD Bank.

Her expertise lies in user-centered design, strategic thinking, and the art of storytelling. She embraces the world of visual thinking and enjoy mentoring emerging designers.

Her career journey includes crafting digital experiences for finance, education, and retail. Ethel strives for usefulness, meaning, and inclusivity.

R.J. (Bob) Huggins

Chair / Entrepreneur in Residence,
Neuralign.org

An Arts Grad UofW 81', Innovator recognized for pioneering digital technology using historical images of Newspapers, sold to Google in 2008. Currently a Children's Advocate, Advisor, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario. Currently Chair of Neuralign, a neurocognitive therapy for Children with Dyslexia and other reading comprehension issues.

Deanna Ritchie

Senior Product Designer,
Tulip

Deanna is a Senior Product Designer with deep expertise in mobile app design and systems thinking. She has modernized apps across industries—including banking, insurance, and retail—creating intuitive experiences that have positively impacted millions of users.

Currently at Tulip, Deanna is focused on leveling up the Clienteling experience for luxury fashion retailers such as Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, and Ferragamo. She is also building of Tulip’s Design System, ensuring consistency and scalability across the entire product suite.

Deanna is a graduate of a the inaugural Global Business and Digital Arts class at the University of Waterloo.

Andreea Demirgian

Digital Accessibility SME,
CPA Canada

Andreea Demirgian is a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) with over eight years of experience advancing digital accessibility. She specializes in creating inclusive digital experiences and educating others on accessibility best practices. Andreea is a passionate advocate for inclusivity, teaching accessibility principles to students in graphic and web design, and guiding organizations toward compliance with accessibility legislation. Her work combines technical expertise, creative problem-solving, and a commitment to fostering equitable access for all users.

Erin Helcl

Managing Director,
New Helio

Erin Helcl is an award-winning leader with over 25 years of experience in customer and employee experience, organizational transformation, and team development. Known for her ability to create high-performing teams and foster collaboration, Erin helps teams build psychological safety to drive meaningful change. She is the founder of Hello Helio, a consultancy focused on improving customer and employee journeys while helping organizations build stronger, more inclusive cultures.

Marcelo Halpern

Product Design Lead,
Loblaw Digital

Megan Cheung

Content Designer,
Loblaw Digital

Jacob Hanania

Director of Product Design,
Loblaw Digital

Kim Wright

Senior Product Designer,
Loblaw Digital

Stacey Jiang

Product Designer,
Loblaw Digital

Mojgan Fay

Director of Product Design,
RBC

Valerie Gelinas

Director of Experience Design,
RBC

Kareen Sarhane

Senior Manager, Workforce Engagement & Enablement,
RBC

Jeff Towers

Designer,
MedTech Group

Jeff has led innovation and design programs in the insurance and healthcare industry. He is a GBDA alum and has an MBA from Wilfrid Laurier, he is currently based in New York City.

Chris Borth

Senior Partner,
MedTech Group

Chris is an MD with 20 years' experience as a medical/surgical specialist, peer assessor, lecturer, and researcher. He partners with MedTech companies to help them navigate the healthcare ecosystem and scale more quickly.

Krysta Traianovski

Associate Director, Founder Development
Velocity, University of Waterloo

Krysta is a former founder who now specializes in transforming people from "dreamers" to "doers" without losing their passion and imagination. Her mission at Velocity, the University of Waterloo's incubator, is to develop students into founders by designing engaging programs and opportunities that move founders further, faster. Her team helps early-stage startups with practical business advice, product development expertise, space to build, and funding. She brings her perspective from entrepreneurship, coaching and the tech world to create unique experiences for self-development.

Val Maloney

Manager, Programs and Events
Velocity, University of Waterloo

Luke Brodie

Client Innovation Services Lead,
Accenture

Luke is a dynamic facilitator who has led innovation experiences with leaders of Fortune 500 companies on four continents and lectured on design thinking and organizational change at some of the world’s leading business schools including Rotman, ESADE, and Harvard. Luke has also worked internationally in a variety of professional roles including airline management and as a professional musician. Luke is passionate about innovation, organizational culture, employee experience, yoga, and cooking, speak English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese (and pride myself on having memorized hilarious phrases in countless other languages).

Luke is passionate about innovation, organizational culture, employee experience, yoga, and cooking, speaks English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese (and prides himself on having memorized hilarious phrases in countless other languages).

Kim De Laat

Assistant Professor,
University of Waterloo Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business

Kim de Laat is an Assistant Professor of Organization and Human Behaviour at the University of Waterloo's Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Toronto.

As a sociologist of work and culture, Kim is interested in how culture and work design shape inequality and uncertainty in organizational and mass media contexts. Her current research examines the unintended consequences of formal and informal social policies aimed at reducing workplace inequalities. Her work appears in such outlets as Cultural Sociology, ILR Review, Poetics, Socio-Economic Review, and Work and Occupations, among others, as well as in op-eds for the Globe & Mail, and Policy Options.

Wayne Chang

Associate Professor, Teaching Stream,
Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business,
University of Waterloo

Wayne has been teaching at Conrad for undergraduate course on Venture Creation and co-op workterm program called Enterprise Co-op each term Winter, Spring and Fall over 12 years for students developing their own business or not-for-profit ideas.  His students learn to develop entrepreneurial mindset by researching and analyzing impactful problem spaces and creating new solutions for user/customer testing in process-driven environment by leveraging many entrepreneurship centres at UW and outside campus.  He's currently Faculty representative in the UW Teaching Innovation Incubator (TII) BETA 3 year project - 2023 start for experiential learning called SLICC (student-led individually created course). Wayne received the UW Distinguished Teacher Award in 2018, and the Faculty of Engineering Teaching Excellence Award in 2017.

Adanna Amechi

Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) Student,
Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business,
University of Waterloo

Sarah Cestnick

Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) Student,
Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business,
University of Waterloo