Faten of WeUsThem Inc.

Too often there is a disconnect between what is taught to what is real. Whether you are heading into the workforce or whether you are looking to build your own company, the reality is there is a gap from what you may know to what you may not. Be empowered by information and knowledge and be ready for the challenges and the opportunities. The talk is a guiding light to how you navigate the barriers, while you seize the opportunities and stay away from the clichés that define entrepreneurship and the job market today. 

Biography:

Faten Alshazly is the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of WeUsThem, an award-winning advertising agency known for its innovative campaigns with major clients like Telus, Nestlé, and the Canadian Space Agency. Faten’s creative leadership has earned WeUsThem multiple prestigious accolades, including Webby Awards and MarCom Awards.

In addition to her work at WeUsThem, Faten is the CEO of HealthEMe, a groundbreaking health-tech startup designed to improve access to healthcare, especially for mental health and chronic conditions. Through HealthEMe, Faten is transforming the healthcare experience for patients across Canada, the U.S., Mexico and beyond.

Faten is a passionate advocate for women’s leadership and diversity, having served as the first female immigrant Chair of the Halifax Chamber of Commerce while currently serving on the Boards of Efficiency One, The Prosperity Project, Breast Cancer Canada and the Downtown Halifax Business Commission. She has been recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women for her contributions to business and social impact and invested into their Hall of Fame. Faten has also been named Business Leader of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, a Woman of Inspiration, a Global Enterprising Woman, an International Diva of Colour, a Woman of Excellence, and an Entrepreneurial Woman of Impact, to name a few.

Most recently, Faten has also founded The Leaders Breakfast, bringing together women leaders from across the Province to drive impact within the communities we live, work and play in. This year, the work remains focussed around empowering marginalized young woman across Nova Scotia by inspiring them with stories from leaders from all walks of life, while also providing them access to gain direct insight, mentorship and guidance from these celebrated leaders.

Address:Halifax, Canada

James of InterTalk Critical Information Systems

As a student, your colleagues are often your competition.  After graduation, Industry success is all about teamwork.  This talk will touch on highlights from 30y+ of experience working in teams about how to be a good leader, be a good follower, and be a good colleague. 

Biography:

James Birchall, I.S.P. received his BSc (Hon, Co-Op) in computing science from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada in 2003 and his Information Systems Professional (I.S.P) designation from the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) in 2008.  He has been a Software developer, Team lead, and Director of Technology for over 27 years with multiple companies in Canada including Corel Corporation (Ottawa, ON), Pason Systems (Calgary, AB), and InterTalk Critical Information Systems (Halifax, NS). He holds patents in radio over IP and automatic failure recovery and an honours thesis in quantum computing. 

Address:Halifax

Evan of Tailscale

The questions at the start are often the same: Do I belong here? What if I make a mistake and confirm everyone's doubts? What if I don't know enough yet? 

Those aren't signs you don't belong. That's just what the beginning feels like. What actually carries a career isn't a flawless start or the right credentials. It's the decision to care; to notice what needs doing, to own your mistakes without carrying them, to seek context, and to learn
the difference between feedback worth taking seriously and noise.

This is how good work gets done, though there are some dangers to be aware of ...

Biography:

Evan is a Member of Technical Staff at Tailscale, where he focuses on the security and architecture of modern networking. Over a 20-year career he's designed enterprise security platforms, scaled distributed systems, founded a startup, and led a large corporate engineering department.

His background in competitive programming tournaments and offensive hacking competitions offers a clue to his approach: Evan is drawn to environments where the rules are fixed but the solutions are entirely unwritten. He spends his time breaking systems to understand their
vulnerabilities, then fixes them so the right thing is also the easy thing. 

He applies that same pragmatic, adversarial mindset to navigating the software industry, giving this talk because most career advice leaves out the realities of how work actually gets done

Address:Halifax