Speakers

Patsy Aldana

Born and raised in Guatemala, Patsy Aldana came to Canada in 1971 after attending university in the United States. She is the founder of Groundwood Books, and is currently the President of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), and Canada’s representative to the Inter-American Publishers Group. She was the founding president of the Canadian Coalition for School Libraries and the Organization of Ontario Publishers, president of the Association of Canadian Publishers and on the founding board of the Canadian Children’s Book Centre. She lives in Toronto.

Jeannette Armstrong

An Indigenous author and activist, her published works include literary titles and academic writing on a wide variety of Indigenous issues. Awarded the 2003 EcoTrust Buffett Award for Indigenous Leadership, she is distinguished with Honorary Doctorate’s from U of St. Thomas, U of British Columbia Okanagan and the University of Queens. She holds the Okanagan College Lifetime Fellow award. She is the Executive Director of En’owkin Centre, the cultural research and education facility of the Okanagan Nation as well as being on faculty in Indigenous Studies at UBC Okanagan. She has a PhD from the University of Greifswald, Interdisciplinary in Environmental Ethics and Syilx Indigenous Literatures. She is an Okanagan Syilx culture and language specialist and traditional knowledge keeper. She currently serves on Environment Cahadefs Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge (ATK) sub-committee ofthe Committee On the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC).

Daniel Caron

Daniel J. Caron joined the federal public service in 1982. In 2009 he was appointed Librarian and Archivist of Canada and one year later launched the modernisation initiative in order to ensure the institution would be able to embrace the multiple challenges of the digital environment. This initiative is a call for collaboration, epistemologically grounded institutional policies, and policy driven decisions. In addition to his organizational experience, Dr. Caron is a seasoned author and speaker on public administration and issues related to information and memory both in Canada and abroad. Dr. Caron has also taught at several Canadian universities. He holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in economics from the Université Laval, and went on to obtain a doctorate in applied human sciences from the Université de Montréal.

Jim Diorio

Jim Diorio is the Vice President and Chief Idea Officer at Manifest Communications. He has been helping people sell things and change things for over 25 years. His favourite writers are his daughter and Walker Percy, though not always in that order. A writer, Jim has steered the work at Manifest, Canada’s leading social change agency, since 2002. As a creative he’s worked on everything from expensive cars to cheap lipstick, and has spent the last ten years helping good causes get the attention they deserve. Finally, as he believes that people at a reading summit would probably prefer to be reading something other than a speaker’s bio, he will end it right here.

Maureen Dockendorf

Maureen is currently Assistant Superintendent in the Coquitlam School District and seconded to the Ministry of Education to help support transformational change within BC education system. She is a conference speaker, workshop leader and staff development planner and facilitator. Maureen also worked as an independent staff development consultant with teachers and administrators throughout North America. Maureen has authored and contributed to a wide range of educational publications including Language Arts series, BC Ministry of Education documents such as the English Language Arts IRP, and curriculum and assessment documents such as The Primary Program; The Intermediate Program; and the Reading, Writing and Social Responsibility BC Performance Standards. Maureen is frequently called upon to provide advice on policy, process and practice in the realms of Staff Development, Collaborative Practice, Educational Leadership, and Curriculum Implementation and Evaluation. Maureen has an unwavering commitment to public education and to success for all students.

Duncan Holmes

Duncan Holmes is President of ICA Associates Inc. As a consultant, he focuses on strategic planning, leadership development within organizations and communities and community consultation. He has trained group leaders in facilitation skills, strategic planning and team leadership in ten nations. He has placed an emphasis on technologies of participation and motivation. He has administered non-profit organizations in Canada and India.
Mr. Holmes holds a B.A. degree in Biology and Chemistry from Queen’s University. His professional background includes 35 years of facilitation, leadership training, community consultation and administration. He is chair of Trinity St. Paul’s United Church in Toronto and past chair of Ecologos Environmental Organization and the Association for Creative Change in Organizational Renewal and Development. Duncan facilitated the first summit held in Toronto in 2009.

Chris Kennedy

Chris Kennedy is the Superintendent of Schools / CEO with the West Vancouver School District (West Vancouver, BC). He has taught secondary English and Social Studies, and been both an elementary and secondary school principal. One of the most progressive voices in BC education, Chris has been featured by Macleans Magazine as one of the 100 Young Canadians to Watch and his work has been featured in various local and national publications. In 2010 he was named one of the Top 10 Canadian Newsmakers in Educational Technology and in 2011 Business in Vancouver named him to their top Forty under 40 list. Kennedy is a writer and presenter on personalized learning and infusing technology in the classroom. Chris balances his professional passions with life as the father of four children under the age of ten. You can read his blog at: http://cultureofyes.ca/ and follow Chris on Twitter @chrkennedy.

Annie Kidder

Annie Kidder is the Executive Director of People for Education, an independent organization dedicated to the ideal of a publicly-funded education system that guarantees every student access to the education that meets their needs. In February 1996, she helped found the organization, which promotes greater civic engagement in the public education system; conducts ongoing research into the effects of policy and funding changes on schools; coordinates a comprehensive communications strategy focused on education issues and brings an independent voice to government policy tables. Annie is a former theatre director, who initially became involved in education through her children’s school. Annie is the recipient of numerous awards for her advocacy work. She has spoken at conferences across the country and is regularly quoted in the media as an expert on education issues.

Lyne Laganière

Lyne Laganière is an education specialist and a project coordinator for Quebec’s Ministry of Education. One of her mandates is to coordinate the Ministry’s Action Plan on Reading in School, for the English community. Some of the activities in the Ministry’s Action Plan include; professional development workshops on reading and information literacy for teachers, consultants, librarians and library technicians, the implementation of an on-line tool with accompanying support to school teams for the creation of their reading action plan, support to school teams with projects using technology, the recognition of teachers for outstanding teaching practices that promote reading and sharing those practices province-wide. Lyne has a master’s degree in education from McGill University. Over the last 20 years, she has taught French and English as a second language to elementary school students and to adult students in the Montreal area. She has been a resource teacher and a French language consultant. She has also offered workshops across the province to parents, teachers, consultants, librarians and administrators promoting reading, books and activities to have students hooked on reading for life.

Steven Page

Steven Page is a singer, songwriter, Canadian icon, and avid reader. He has made an indelible impression on our country’s bustling music scene as well as its cultural landscape. A witty, endearing, and introspective stage presence, Page enjoyed two decades of success as the co-founder of The Barenaked Ladies, the popular band from Scarborough, ON, who dominated MuchMusic, sold millions of albums, and received two Billboard Awards and six Junos along the way. Steven Page’s evolving artistic path now has him blazing a solo trail, where he continues to take chances and catch the public’s attention with a variety of new projects, including some of his best material yet. The fruits of this journey have borne three Stratford Shakespeare Festival scores, and three solo albums: The Vanity Project, A Singer Must Die and Page One. An articulate and mesmerizing speaker, Page is utterly at home on the stage, where he’s spent years entertaining audiences, telling stories, and carving out his place in our national conversation.

Simi Sara

Born and raised in Metro Vancouver, Simi’s career started at The Surrey Leader newspaper as a print reporter. She worked in television for almost twenty years reporting, writing, producing and anchoring various broadcasts throughout the province. During this time she covered many major events in BC and the world, including Mayerthorpe and 9/11. Simi is a two-time B.C.A.B. award winner and a news junkie who loves the news business and talking about current events whether it’s at home or at work. The most recent full time addition to the CKNW roster, Simi has been involved behind the mic as well as in the community as the 2012 champion for CKNW’s Pink Shirt Day.

Sandra Singh

Sandra became Vancouver’s Chief Librarian in December 2010. She returned to Vancouver Public Library after serving as the Director of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre at the University of British Columbia. Prior to that appointment, Sandra held two senior management positions at the Vancouver Public Library, first as the Director of Branches, followed by Director of Systems and Special Projects. While at VPL, Sandra served as the National Director of the federal government-funded national project Working Together, which sought new ways of working with socially excluded and marginalized people. Sandra also led the Library’s website redesign process, initiated and ran the province-wide Beyond Words program, served on the BC Library Association Board, was co-editor of the Pacific Northwest Library Association Quarterly, and was a member of Vancouver’s Triage Emergency Services and Care Society Board. Sandra is currently a member of the British Columbia Library Association and the Canadian Library Association.

Marcelo Suárez-Orozco

Professor Suarez-Orozco is the Courtney Sale Ross University Professor of Globalization and Education at New York University. Among other things he co-directed a study of Asian, Afro-Caribbean, and Latino immigrant youth in American society published in Learning A New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society At the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, he was the Richard Fisher Membership Fellow (2009-2010), working on education and globalization – including Educating the Whole Child for the Whole World with Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj.

Rick Wilks

Rick Wilks has been a key player in Canadian children’s book publishing since 1975 when he co-founded founded Annick Press. He is now the sole owner and Director. Annick publishes 27 to 30 books for youth annually. Rick’s vision of publishing books that are characterized by innovation and compelling storytelling define the Annick programme. As well as running a successful publishing company with employees in Toronto and Vancouver, Rick has also been very active in industry organizations. He is currently co-chair of the Reading Campaign whose mandate it is to create a culture of reading in Canada.

Max Wyman

Max Wyman is a Vancouver writer and one of Canada’s leading cultural commentators. Among his books are Dance Canada: An Illustrated History and The Defiant Imagination: Why Culture Matters, a passionate manifesto asserting the central importance of the arts and culture to modern society. He was a director of the Canada Council for the Arts for six years, and served from 2002-2006 as President of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. He has consulted widely on cultural policy for the federal and provincial governments. Deeply involved in issues of arts education, he led the Canadian delegation to the UNESCO World Conference on Arts Education in Portugal (2006), spoke at the Second World Conference in Seoul in 2010, and was a keynote speaker at the World Creativity Summits in Hong Kong (2007), Taipei (2008) and Newcastle, UK (2009). He is a member of the steering committee of the International Research Network for Arts Education. For his services to the arts he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2001 and received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Simon Fraser University in 2003.