Michael Thususka is a certi­fied Econo­mic Deve­lopment Practi­tioner and is Dire­ctor of Econo­mic Develo­pment for the City of Summer­side, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Mike has been working in the field of Eco­nomic Develo­pment for the past 26 years, 20 of which have been with the City of Summer­side. Mike curre­ntly sits on the Natio­nal Economic Developers Associ­ation Board of Direc­tors and is Past Presi­dent of the Associa­tion.

Ron Sege is an Opera­ting Part­ner at BGV. Ron has more than 37 years of opera­ting expe­rience with disrup­tive offerings in the Enter­prise IT market, in estab­lished public compa­nies and venture­backed start-ups. He has extensive cross-border mana­gement expe­rience, mana­ging opera­tions in China, UK, Conti­nental Europe and Israel. Ron also specia­lizes in go-to-market stra­tegy and tactics, having star­ted his career in Field Opera­tions at ROLM Corpo­ration and 3Com.

David is a reti­red internet/­digital serial entrep­reneur, tur­ned angel inves­tor with a glo­bal health, food and tech port­folio. David has 25 years of expe­rience buil­ding compa­nies and mana­gement teams from scratch and ta­king them to inter­national suc­cess, and 15 years as an inves­tor in early stage ven­tures, hel­ping them to enter glo­bal mar­kets, raise capi­tal and grow. As the founder of Entrep­reneurship Founda­tion Hun­gary, David is the crea­tive mind be­hind the Hun­garian govern­ment's INPUT Prog­ram, which is recog­nized by the United Nations as a ‘Global Best Prac­tice Program’ for foste­ring the inno­vation eco­system.

Mary Alcan­tara is a star­tup cham­pion and staunch suppor­ter of cross-­border inno­vation. She is a foun­ding part­ner of tandem LEAP, a busi­ness mana­gement com­pany with offices in Budapest and New York City. A key player in the Hunga­rian start-up eco­system, she has consul­ted and mento­red for many of Budapest's lea­ding incu­bation and acce­lerator prog­rams and is a foun­ding member of the Hunga­rian Busi­ness Angel Network. Mary is currently ser­ving as Accelerator-in-Residence at INPUT, a Hungarian govern­ment prog­ram that sup­ports star­t-ups with inter­national mar­ket expan­sion.

Jeff is a lawyer with Key Murray Law in Prince Edward Island.  Jeff is regu­larly sought out for his exper­tise on legal inno­vation, and he’s never too busy to work through prob­lems and cons­truct crea­tive solu­tions. For many clients, Jeff is the first stop for all legal ma­tters, pro­viding unfilte­red strate­gic advice on busi­ness matters of all kinds. In all matters, Jeff’s emphasis is squa­rely on the ongoing suc­cess of his client’s business. His approach is always to find the right answer to the busi­ness prob­lem at hand.

Jason Aspin co-­founded Aspin Kemp & Asso­ciates (AKA) in 1996. Since gra­duating in ma­rine enginee­ring from the Cana­dian Coast Guard College in 1987, he has specia­lized in power engi­neering and sys­tems integ­ration and built over 30 years of prog­ressive expe­rience in sys­tems enginee­ring in the Industrial, Marine, and Offshore environ­ments. As an inno­vator, he dedi­cates his time to desi­gning solu­tions which are both socia­lly and environ­mentally respon­sible with a fo­cus on impro­ving relia­bility for mission cri­tical sys­tems while redu­cing the carbon emmi­sions asso­ciated with opera­tions.