Keynote Address (May 17th)
The recent merger between Blackboard™
and WebCT™ has raised many questions about
the future of learning at K-12 and Post-secondary institutions. Course
Management Systems (CMS) like Blackboard and WebCT have become a mission
critical services in the online delivery of education. The Canadian
Blackboard Community in association with Seneca College (Toronto) and the
University of Alberta (Edmonton) are pleased to welcome Todd Gibby, Vice
President Operations (Blackboard) and Peter Segall, Senior Vice President
Education Strategy (WebCT) to deliver our key note address on Wednesday, May
17th. Todd and Peter will provide insight to these questions, discussing
the direction and development pathway of the world's leading learning systems,
as they merge into one.
Peter Segall
Senior Vice President Education Strategy
 Peter has over 20 years experience in higher education management and strategy.
Most recently, he was the Executive Vice President and a Board Member at WebCT,
in charge of global business development for this leading e-learning provider.
Before joining WebCT, Peter served as the Executive Director of Harvard
University's Project ADAPT, the first university-wide project to deploy a common
financial management and operating system to all of Harvard's schools and
central units. Previously, he was a Partner in the National Higher Education
Consulting Group for Coopers & Lybrand L.L.P. While at Coopers & Lybrand, Segall
lead the development of enterprise-wide operations improvement projects and
information technology strategies at many leading research universities
including Harvard, Yale, Penn, UCLA, Boston University, and many others. He
received his B.A. in Physics at Brown University and his Masters of Education
from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Todd Gibby
Executive Vice President Operations
 Todd Gibby, is responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of Blackboard,
with an emphasis on ensuring that the company balances and exceeds the
expectations of clients, employees and shareholders. Todd's responsibilities
include Sales, Marketing, Global Services, Client Support and Product
Development at Blackboard. He guides the overall company strategic planning and
drives execution of Blackboard's vision and commitment to process excellence, as
Blackboard seeks to scale its growing business.
Prior to his role as executive vice president of operations, Todd served nearly
three years successfully shaping and managing the Blackboard global sales team;
building it into one of the most successful sales organizations in the education
industry. Before leading the sales team, he served as General Manager for the
Blackboard Learning System(TM) and Blackboard Community System(TM) product
lines. Under his leadership, Blackboard completed two acquisitions and
organically grew to become a leading provider of course management systems in
the U.S. postsecondary education market.
Prior to joining Blackboard, Todd served as Director of Business Development at
Campus Pipeline, where he led that company's partnering efforts. He also served
as a senior business analyst for Dole Food Company, where he initiated and led
Dole's interactive business development efforts. While at Dole, Todd oversaw the
consolidation of acquired businesses and conducted strategic projects on behalf
of the company's president. He has worked for Lehman Brothers in New York City
and served as a financial analyst for Viking Graham, a boutique merchant banking
firm specializing in mid-sized acquisitions.
Todd holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a BA from Dartmouth
College.
Keynote Address (May 18th) - Edmonton
What is the future of teaching and learning at three of Alberta's premier
post-secondary institutions?; What role will information technology play?;
What are the barriers to adoption, use and development of innovative eLearning
technologies?; How can they be overcome?; and why is it important to build
and foster community between Canada's teaching and learning institutions?
We are also pleased to welcome Dr. Paul Sorensen, Vice-Provost and Associate
Vice-President Information Technology (University of Alberta), Harold Esche,
Chief Information Officer (University of Calgary) and Brian Stewart, Chief
Information Officer (Athabasca University) to deliver a panel discussion
on the above topics and more. The panel discussion will be followed by a
brief Question and Answer period. Don't miss your chance to speak
one-on-one with three of Alberta's key decision makers.
Dr. Paul Sorenson
Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President (Information Technology) - University of Alberta
 Paul
Sorenson is Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President (Information Technology)
and Professor of Computing Science at the University of Alberta in Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada. As Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President (Information
Technology), Dr. Sorenson has overall responsibility for information technology
planning and plan execution for the University in support of teaching and
learning, research and administration. He reports directly to the Provost and
the Vice-President (Finance and Administration) and actively supports the
information technology needs of the other Vice-President portfolios.
Dr. Sorenson has previous administrative experience as Head of the Department of
Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan (1981-86), Chair of Computing
Science (1989-98) at the University of Alberta, and Associate Vice-President
(Research) (2000-2003) at the University of Alberta. Dr. Sorenson has served on
several Boards and Committees including the NSERC Committee on Research Grants,
ASERC (Alberta Software Engineering Consortium), TRLabs, Netera, ASI (Alberta
Synchrotron Institute), CCI (Canadian Circumpolar Institute), and the NINT
Management Committee. His research interests include software engineering,
software quality, software reuse and software product line development. He is
also interested in software innovation and has co-founded two University of
Alberta spin-off companies: Avra Software Lab and Onware Software Systems.
Harold Esche
Chief Information Officer - University of Calgary
 Harold Esche is the Chief Information Officer at the University of Calgary, with
a responsibility for the planning and provision of all centralized technology
for the campus. Harold has over 15 years of experience in design and
implementation of a large variety of technology solutions in an academic
environment, including managing Help Desks, High Performance Computing systems,
and designing and providing web-based services to the campus. Harold has a MASc
in engineering as well as an MBA.
Brian Stewart
Chief Information Officer - Athabasca University
 Brian
Stewart emigrated from Ireland to Canada in 1988 and settled with his family in
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. They moved to St. Albert, Alberta in 2003 when Brian
joined the staff of Athabasca University's Centre for Innovative Management.
Brian spent most of his career in the printing and publishing industry where he
was responsible for leading the adoption of information technology to printing
processes. His most notable achievements were the development of an automated
Internet-based print system; a suite of colour management software tools; and
the development of industry leading production systems.
Brian graduated from Athabasca University's MBA program in 2000 and also holds
an MA in Economics (first class honours) from University College Cork in
Ireland.
He joined Athabasca University in 2003 as Director of Operations at the Centre
for Innovative Management and was appointed to his current position of Chief
Information Officer (CIO) in 2004. As CIO, Brian's role is to provide strategic
leadership to the application of Information technology (IT) to the activities
of the University. Brian is charged with identifying and resourcing appropriate
technologies to improve administrative effectiveness and efficiency; to assist
the academic community's use of IT to develop programs which improve students'
learning and success; and to facilitate the research and development of world
class e-learning initiatives.
Brian has a passionate interest in the use of IT to improve learning, research
and organizational performance. As CIO, Brian supports the development, adoption
and utilization of leading edge technologies to improve student experience.
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