ideaowl: Data + Design + Tech + Leadership
Making Beautiful & Useful Things

ACADEMICS:

  • University of Alberta MSc in Computing Science, 3.9 GPA Nov '23
    • - 3 publications on AI in games, Nominated Best Paper (Top 3 of 75+ submissions)
  • University of Alberta BSc in Electrical Engineering with the Co-op Option, 3.9 GPA Dec '08
    • - Average Graduating GPA of 3.9 (last 2 years), Graduated with Distinction (3.7 overall)

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCES:

  • - Technical Consulting, Paid Contract Roles: Multiple projects as contractor, often extended contracts by clients '23 – Ongoing
    * Contracting by choice, I've turned down permanent role offers
    - Design+Dev Co-Lead on World Bank Human Capital Index Plus (HCI+) Insights & Dashboard project
    - Design+Dev Principal of an upcoming Canada-wide funder & charity $ flow project with Imagine Canada
    - Full Stack Developer (Primarily DB + Backend) on ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) search engine with ACESHub
    - Senior Solutions Architect assessing and collaborating on critical gov tech projects through Code for Canada
    - Co-Lead Developer on app that visualizes $B of underclaimed benefit for Child Poverty Action Lab (CPAL)
    - Lead Developer on fully bilingual, accessible visualization on mineral exploration data with Natural Resources Canada
  • - Other Notable, Recent Experiences: Selected recent experiences across investment, civic tech, and community leadership '24 – '25
    - Created BI tool + mobile canvassing app covering ~750K addresses for successful mayoral campaign
    - Angel investor performing due diligence for cohort investment round, invested in 3 early-stage startups
    - Created Collaboration-focused, full-stack app for groups to safely explore, use, and learn about generative AI
    - Co-chaired the 2024 Canadian Open Data Summit, focusing on attendee outreach and pre-summit programming
  • - Full-Time MSc in Computing Science, Completion, and Streetview Project '22 – '23
    • - Completed thesis on using AI to determine difficulty in games, published and nominated for Best Paper
    • - Graduated with a 3.9 GPA and had 2 additional research publications
    • - Contributed to Coursera course on Reinforcement Learning
    • - Spent a few months creating 500km of Google Streetview footage for the cycling community
  • - Darkhorse Analytics (Edmonton), CTO & Director Feb '12 – May '22
    • - Created many interactive visualizations for key clients like Procter & Gamble to impress others and make executive decisions
    • - Handled backend work on multithreaded, multi-instance server code with load balancing, auto scaling, CDN, etc
    • - Created, helped generate and handle viral content (multiple reddit frontpages, millions of impressions)
    • - Led technical strategy, hired and managed our development team
    • - Organize company hackathons, one won top prizes for Apps for Alberta Competition 2015 ($60K of $70K prize pool)
    • - Led our hiring process, was an active mentor and advisor to colleagues
    • - Present and help teach data visualizations in the community through workshops and presentations
    • - Collaborated as co-owner to help grow Darkhorse Analytics into a multi-million dollar, internationally consulting firm
  • - BoardSuite Corp (Toronto), Director of Technology Development Feb '11 – Jan '12
    • - Assembled, trained, and managed development team. Migrated existing tech to open source platforms
    • - Took over product management, forecasting and planning responsibilities
    • - Implemented Agile processes, generated technology documentation and intellectual property
  • - nForm User Experience (Edmonton), Contracted Developer at nForm User Experience Oct '10 – Jan '11
    • - Led development and fleshed out features and functionality on new, V1 product
    • - Responsible for implementation of critical and sensitive components (such as authentication and admin tools)
    • - Delivered fully functional product ahead of timelines
  • - Firenest Innovations Inc (Edmonton), CEO & Co-founder Apr '09 – Oct '10
    • - Directed company, business strategy and execution
    • - Development of full business plan and delivered company presentations, pitches - VenturePrize runners up ($40k)
    • - Responsible for front-end UI, UX design plus initial infrastructure development
    • - Led market research, customer feedback and acquisition efforts
  • - Degree-Required Co-op + Summer 3-4 Month Work Terms, ~2 Years Total Required from 2004: Received highest possible "Excellent" grade on each of my Co-op Work Terms from employers
    * Received highest possible "Excellent" grade on each of my Co-op Work Terms from employers
    - Microsoft Startup Labs (Cambridge), Intern Program Manager Summer '08
    • - Managed three new skunkworks projects for a future product line
    • - Fleshed out concept, created deck, and presented proposed product to senior C-Level management
    • - Other interns outside of direct team voluntarily followed and helped me on a volunteer project
    - Microsoft Visual Studio Team System (Redmond), Intern Program Manager Summer '07
    • - Collaborated with various teams for research project on a future product
    • - Designed and implemented a unique, trackable online repository for project
    • - Produced award-winning project for a Microsoft-wide intern design competition
    - Microsoft Windows Live ID (Redmond), Intern Program Manager Fall '06
    • - Worked on improving partner/Live ID experience, collaborated with MS Research on internal project
    • - Delivered on functional specs for CardSpace and rich-client Windows Live ID auth integration
    • - Community Committee Member, Microsoft's 1st Asian Pacific Leadership Development Conference
    - BlackBerry (Waterloo), 3GPP Compliance Specialist Winter '06
    • - Created Asset Management System to track compliance for multi-million dollar equipment
    • - Produced a 32-page co-op report on the future of the wireless (telecommunications) industry
    • - Worked with GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS technologies, wireless industry operations
    - Mediashaker Inc (Edmonton), SW Developer Summer '05
    • - Contributed to Mediashaker's CMS (Content Management System)
    • - Liaised and met various clients' software development needs for multiple projects
    - Worldwide Link Ltd (Edmonton), Associate Summer '04
    • - Developed company site, filtering programs, represented Worldwide Link Ltd in Kuala Lumpur
    • - Planned, rolled out solutions to Worldwide Link's growing I.T. infrastructural needs
  • - Ministry of Defense (Singapore) (Singapore), Training R & Management Centre at Ministry of Defense (Singapore) Oct '00 – Feb '03
    • - Developed a multi-user DBMS, presented in conference in India, did project in Australia
    • - Won several national (Singapore) awards for safety and efficiency projects
  • - DBS Bank (Singapore), Credit Risk Policy & Monitoring at DBS Bank Sep '99 – Aug '00
    • - Developed and helped perform training for two separate corporate credit analysis applications
    • - Oversaw programs' and project completion, maintenance and enterprise/server deployment

LEADERSHIP/VOLUNTEERING EXPERIENCE:

  • - Tech Co-Lead for Andrew Knack's successful mayoral campaign Mar '25 – Oct '25
  • - Co-chaired the 2024 Canadian Open Data Summit, focusing on attendee outreach and pre-summit programming '24
  • - Canada MSF (Multi-Stakeholder Forum) Civil Society Member on Open Government Mar '23 – Ongoing
  • - Chair of the Canadian Open Data Society Nov '22 – May '25
  • - President of the Canadian Open Data Society Nov '21 – Oct '22
  • - Executive team for Andrew Knack's successful city council re-election Sep '20 – Oct '21
  • - Founding board director of the Canadian Open Data Society Nov '19 – Ongoing
  • - Co-organizer of BetaCityYEG, Edmonton's civic tech meetup Oct '18 – Ongoing
  • - Citizen advisory group member for City of Edmonton's open data initiatives Sep '17 – Sep '20
  • - Data Director on cabinet for Don Iveson's successful mayoral re-election Jun '17 – Nov '17
  • - Committee member focused on special projects, Edmonton's NextGen Jan '17 – Dec '18
  • - Co-founded 'Volunteer with NextGen' events, providing group volunteering opportunities for new volunteers Dec '15
  • - Participant and Director at Edmonton's civic tech meetup Oct '15 – Sep '18
  • - Co-chair of the Ignite Working Group, Edmonton's NextGen Oct '14 – Dec '16
  • - Client/Mentor for University Capstone Design Project on cocktails data visualization Jan '14 – May '14
  • - Client/Mentor for University Capstone Design Project on emergency dispatcher game Jan '13 – May '13
  • - Client/Mentor for University Capstone Design Projects on video blimp and blind sonar systems Sep '11 – May '12
  • - Volunteer making Edmonton an engaging place to live for 18-40 year olds Aug '11 – Oct '14
  • - Co-founded Meaet, a microfunding initiative for grassroots projects that has run 10+ times Aug '11
  • - VP Awareness for the University of Alberta Golden Key International Honour Society Chapter Sep '08 – Apr '09
  • - Representative as student group executive at University of Alberta Student Union Leadership Summit '08
  • - Director of Programs for the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students Congress 2008 Oct '07 – Jan '08
  • - Board Director for all divisions (~2300 members and staff) Jul '06 – Mar '09
  • - Inter-Divisional Council Chair for all divisions (~700 members) at WCRI May '06 – Aug '06
  • - Committee Member on RIM Co-op Social Committee at Research In Motion Jan '06 – Apr '06
  • - Divisional Chair at Waterloo Cooperative Residence Incorporated Jan '06 – Apr '06
  • - President of the University of Alberta SPIE Student Chapter May '05 – Apr '06
  • - Cofounder and Vice President of the University of Alberta SPIE Student Chapter Sep '04 – Apr '05
  • - Associate Tech Editor for The Bridge publication Sep '04 – Apr '05
  • - VP Academics for the First Year Engineering Club at University of Alberta Oct '03 – Apr '04

PUBLICATIONS:

  • - "Entropy as a Measure of Puzzle Difficulty", AIIDE '23
  • - "Learning Curricula for Humans: An Empirical Study with Puzzles from The Witness", IJCAI '22
  • - "Image-to-Level: Generation and Repair", AIIDE '20

TECHNICAL WORK SHARED IN THE MEDIA:

  • - This is Edmonton Coverage: 3D Map + Storytelling + Demographics tool covered across multiple outlets
    - 3D Map + Storytelling + Demographics tool, on Taproot Edmonton '22
    - 3D Map + Storytelling + Demographics tool, on CBC Edmonton News '22
    - 3D Map + Storytelling + Demographics tool, on CityNews '22
    - 3D Map + Storytelling + Demographics tool, on Radio Active '22
  • - "Project adds hundreds of kilometres of bike paths to Google Street View", Taproot Edmonton '22
  • - TrackTheRecovery.org Coverage: Citations of TrackTheRecovery.org on the U.S. economy from COVID in real time
    - Citation of TrackTheRecovery.org, by Vox '20
    - Citation of TrackTheRecovery.org, by NPR '20
    - Citation of TrackTheRecovery.org, by Bloomberg '20
    - "How have students fared in the coronavirus pandemic? New data sheds some light.", ABC News '20
  • - Opportunity Atlas Media Coverage: Worked as tech architect, lead developer on OpportunityAtlas.org released to major outlets
    - Worked as tech architect, lead developer on OpportunityAtlas.org that was released to New York Times Oct '18
    - Release coverage of OpportunityAtlas.org on NPR Oct '18
  • - "Edmonton data fanatic animates a century of city growth in 6 seconds", CBC '18
  • - "Population growth visualized: Century of sprawl in Edmonton", Global News '18
  • - "Mapping expert makes detailed census data available to all Edmonton election candidates", Edmonton Journal '17
  • - "Don Iveson using new tool to reach voters", CTV News '17
  • - "Hundreds of thousands of polygons rendered on the fly", Mapbox's Blog '17
  • - Property Assessments Coverage: Dynamic map of over 300k buildings by property assessment values
    - Dynamic map of over 300k buildings by property assessment values, Edmonton Journal '17
    - Dynamic map of over 300k buildings by property assessment values, MetroNews (now The Star) '17
  • - LinkYEG Coverage: "Edmontonian creates app to help people in need find Edmonton services"
    - "Edmontonian creates app to help people in need find Edmonton services", MetroNews (now The Star) '15
    - "Edmontonian creates app to help people in need find Edmonton services", Global News '15

PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE, ONLINE PROJECTS:

  • - Canadian Minerals Exploration & Development Visualizations: Federal government visualizations that are responsive, bilingual, and accessible '24
  • - Public Engagement Visualization Prototype: Visualizing public engagement on Canada's 6th National Action Plan '24
  • - MSc Thesis Materials: Academic publications, code-driven slides, interactive plots + data '23
  • - This is Edmonton: Interactive 3D map and dashboard visualizing Edmonton demographics using Tableau '22
  • - 500km of Google Streetview: A project to cover bike routes with Google Streetview footage '22
  • - TrackTheRecovery.org: Track the economic impact of COVID on people, businesses, communities across the US in real time '20
  • - The Opportunity Atlas: Visualizing upward mobility by location, race, and gender for 20M Americans across 30 years Oct '18
  • - The MDP Playground: Generating, analyzing, and visualizing Markov Chains for debugging and more robust benchmarking '18
  • - A Century of Growth in 6 Seconds: A 6 second animated GIF showing a century of city growth, covered by the CBC '18
  • - AI vs Human Puzzle Choices: Web version of puzzles from The Witness game for comparing human performance with AI-selected puzzles '18
  • - Comparing Property Assessments: Storytelling and dynamically visualizing hundreds of thousands of buildings '17
  • - MapInSeconds.com: Create choropleth maps in seconds by pasting spreadsheet data '16
  • - A Million Baby Names: A storytelling approach in highlighting patterns of baby names in Alberta '15
  • - LinkYEG.ca: A fork of Link-SF connecting homeless and low-income residents with critical resources nearby '15
  • - World Chat Clock: Schedule meetings across continents without needing to know anything about time zones '14
  • - #hackYEG Budget Visualization: A unique visualization showing the net revenue/costs for each department and branch '14
  • - Hockey (NHL) Impact: Do metrics like payroll, penalty minutes, save % impact NHL performance? '13

PRESENTATIONS, TALKS, WORKSHOPS:

  • - Hands-on, Half/Full-Day Technical Workshops for Non-Technical Audiences: Hands-on Generative AI Workshops
    - "Build Your Own Dashboard, App, or Game Using Generative AI", Tech Yukon AI & Data Series, Whitehorse, Yukon '25
    - "Build your own Beautiful, Detailed, and Interactive Map in 4 Hours", OpenVisConf, Paris '18
    - "Generative AI Learn & Create-a-thon", Canadian Open Data Summit, Edmonton '24
    - "Build Your Own Dashboard or App Using Generative AI", Canadian Open Data Summit, Fredericton, New Brunswick '25
  • - "Generative AI Create-a-thon", AI + Data Learning Series for Tech Yukon, Whitehorse, Yukon '24
  • - "Data, AI, and Art: Viral + Impactful Visualizations", AI + Data Learning Series for Tech Yukon, Whitehorse, Yukon '24
  • - "AI Goldilocks and the 3 Billion Puzzles", AAAI Conference on AI and Interactive Digital Entertainment, Salt Lake City '23
  • - "AI & the Creative Impulse: An Opportunity & A Dilemma", Capital City Art '23
  • - "Exploring ChatGPT *Live*, with Useful, Wacky, and Scary Examples", International Open Data Day '23
  • - "Impactful Visualizations and How to Create Them", Canadian Open Data Summit, Victoria, BC '23
  • - "How to Use Visualization to Get Your Work Noticed (and Understood)", Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute Talent Program '23
  • - "What I Wish I Knew as a Grad Student", Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute as Part of the U of A CompSci CMPUT 603 '23
  • - "Crowdsourcing Ideas for a National Hackathon + Learn-a-thon", Canadian Open Data Summit, Whitehorse, Yukon '22
  • - "From Idea to Perfect Pitching and Feedback", Data-Driven Entrepreneurship & Innovation Program, Whitehorse, Yukon '22
  • - "(Top) 30 Visualizations that Blew My Mind and Will Inspire You", Canadian Open Data Summit, Virtual '21
  • - "How to Get People Excited (About Your Data)", Canadian Open Data Summit, Virtual '21
  • - "Outcomes and Learnings from Five Years of Local Civic Tech Innovation and Engagement", Code For Canada Showcase '19
  • - "Achieving Sustainable, Transparent, and Efficient Outcomes with AI", OGP Global Summit '19
  • - "Visualizing Python Data using Socket.io", EdmontonPY Meetup '19
  • - "Getting Started with Open Data Workshop", International Open Data Day at the Edmonton Public Library '19
  • - "Hands-on Workshops on d3 and Tableau", StudentDevCon (Conference for Post-Secondary Students) '18, '19, '20, '21, '22
  • - "Mapping the Crisis in Affordable Housing", Locate (Mapbox conference), San Francisco '18
  • - "JS to D3", Exchange.js (Edmonton's Javascript Meetup) '18
  • - "mdp.ai: Dancing, Colourful MDPs for Research & Fun", Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute Tea Time Talk '18
  • - Best Lightning Talk, International Open Data Day at the Edmonton Public Library '18
  • - "Visualizations Driving Decisions", Canadian Open Data Summit, Niagara Falls '18
  • - "Making Boring Charts Beautiful Workshop", International Open Data Day at the Edmonton Public Library '18
  • - "The Hidden Ways Open Data Transforms Society through Innovation", Canadian Open Data Summit '17
  • - "A Taste of D3: Why, What's Possible, and... How!", BetaCity YEG, Jobber, Grant MacEwan University '16, '17
  • - "Make Your Open Data Dance with D3 Workshop", Alberta Open Data Summit & University of Alberta '16
  • - Presenter, Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations Academic Conference, Beijing Aug '07
  • - Presenter, International Convention for Quality Control Circles (ICQCC), Lucknow, India '02

AWARDS:

  • - Nominated for Best Paper, Top 3 (of 75+ submissions) with Entropy as a Measure of Puzzle Difficulty '23
  • - Winner, Unorthodox Prize at Hack-GPT Edmonton '23
  • - Winner, Single-Button Category, BCI Game Jam 2022 '22
  • - Shortlist, Information is Beautiful Awards '18
  • - Best Lightning Talk, International Open Data Day '18
  • - Best Overall and Audience Pick, Exchange.js Showcase '17
  • - Longlist, Information is Beautiful Awards for MapInSeconds.com '16
  • - Winner, Edmonton's Open Data Hackathon '16
  • - 3rd Place, Battlehack Singapore Hackathon (of 40+ teams) '15
  • - Top Prizes, Apps for Alberta Competition 2015 '15
  • - Shortlist, Information is Beautiful Awards for WorldChatClock.com '14
  • - Winner, Apps4Edmonton 2010 '10
  • - Runners Up, TEC VenturePrize 2010 '10
  • - Golden Geer Award '09
  • - 2nd Place, Western Engineering Competition '08
  • - Microsoft Popfly Prototyping Design Competition Winner '07
  • - Shell Top-Valued Engineering Undergraduate Leadership Award '05 – '07
  • - National In-Course Millennium Excellence Award '04 – '05

INTERNATIONAL, NATIONAL EXPERIENCE:

  • - World Bank, Design+Dev Co-Lead '25 – Ongoing
  • - World Bank Human Capital Index Plus: Insights and dashboard for the World Bank's new Human Capital Index Plus (HCI+) initiative '25 – Ongoing
  • - Co-chaired the 2024 Canadian Open Data Summit, focusing on attendee outreach and pre-summit programming '24
  • - Canada MSF (Multi-Stakeholder Forum) Civil Society Member on Open Government Mar '23 – Ongoing
  • - Chair of the Canadian Open Data Society Nov '22 – May '25
  • - President of the Canadian Open Data Society Nov '21 – Oct '22
  • - Founding board director of the Canadian Open Data Society Nov '19 – Ongoing
  • - "Achieving Sustainable, Transparent, and Efficient Outcomes with AI", OGP Global Summit '19
  • - 3rd Place, Battlehack Singapore Hackathon '15
  • - Student Delegate, 1st Canadian Engineering Summit 2009, Montreal May '09
  • - Nationals Competitor, Innovative Design, Canadian Engineering Competition 2009 Oct '08 – Jan '08
  • - Presenter, Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations Academic Conference, Beijing Aug '07
  • - Selected delegate, Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations Business Conference, Hong Kong Aug '07
  • - Delegate, Cyberposium 12, Harvard, Massachusetts Nov '06
  • - Selected delegate, Harvard College Asian Business Forum (HCABF), Mumbai, India Aug '06
  • - Delegate as chapter executive, Optics & Photonics 2005, Photonics West 2006, San Diego, San Jose '05 – '06
  • - Represented Worldwide Link Ltd (Canada), K-Link International Convention, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia '04
  • - Presenter, International Convention for Quality Control Circles (ICQCC), Lucknow, India '02
  • - Environmental Management Group, Environmental Management Group, Australia '01
  • - Represented Canada, Hewlett Packard Global Business Challenge '98 – '99
  • - Edmonton-Harbin Sister City Exchange, Edmonton-Harbin Sister City Exchange, Edmonton/Harbin '98 – '99
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