Moderator: Ana Serrano | Chief technology Officer – Canadian Film Centre

Ana Serrano, Chief Digital Officer, Canadian Film Centre (CFC) & Founder, CFC Media Lab. Educator, producer, entrepreneur and recipient of numerous digital media, film & theatre industry awards. Frequent speaker at international media & film festivals including TEDx about the creation & business of digital entertainment.

Nick Bicanic | Director, CEO – RVLVR

A filmmaker and a technologist who mixes left brain and right brain stuff on an ongoing basis, Bicanic is a serial entrepreneur and has run multiple technology startups – funded by Silicon Valley luminaries including Google Ventures. He also wrote, directed and produced “Shadow Company” the 4 time LEO award winning documentary about the secret world of modern day mercenaries and produced “The War Against Boko Haram” for VICE News and published his first book – “Executive Outcomes” – a graphic novel based on his script of the same name. He is now focusing on developing storytelling technology and content for Virtual and Augmented Reality.

Khayyam Wakil | Live Planet

Khayyam Wakil is an award winning media and technology innovator with a savvy side of agency chops. Khayyam served as the Chief Innovation Officer at Immersive Media and since then, has forged his way into the realm of 360 and VR experiences.

Rose Troche | President – Alfrobel Inc.

Rose Troche is a writer, director and producer of film, television, digital media and virtual reality. Her work includes Perspective Chapter 1, The Party, Chapter 2, The Misdemeanor and The Donnies The Amys music video, Runaround. She is currently casting LGBTQIA a comedy VR series.

Russell Wu | Creative Director – Dirtywork VR

Alpha tester for After Effects, content producer for Sennheiser, and recently produced the animation for the biggest design conference in Canada. Dirtywork VR is a new venture, pushing technical horizons and taking the time to do things right. Loves learning, loves teaching.

Usually you’ll find me buried somewhere under 40 layers named “black solid”. When that isn’t happening, I research motion sickness in simulated environments at the University of Toronto.

J. Lee Williams | Occupied VR

An award-winning VFX + Animation Director who has had many alter egos over his years in production: Illustrator, Animator, VFX Supervisor, Commercial + Film Director and Immersive Experience Designer. He is a co-founder of 1188 Films, one of Canada’s Top Commercial Production companies that marries, film, visual effects, animation and design into compelling multi-platform experiences for brands and artists. He directed the award-winning Body/Mind/Change a CFC Media Lab and Tiff co-production, with creative direction by Lance Weiler and starring David Cronenberg. His latest company, Occupied VR, is a Presence company with a strong focus working in VR, AR and Holographic Telecommunications. Occupied has developed Immersive Experiences for such brands as: Nike, Intel, Mad Decent, Sony, NBC Universal Media, David Cronenberg and VICE.