PNWS 2008

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Welcome to the Pacific Northwest Wireless Summit!


This three-day Summit is several events in one: It’s a leadership summit meeting, a wireless conference and tradeshow, and a Service Provider Investment Forum (SPIF).

The Summit focuses on the four top wireless growth areas: Social networks, location-based services, mobile advertising and mobile entertainment.

This event brings together technology and application innovators, service providers and other companies and stakeholders in the wireless industry from BC, the Yukon, Alberta, Alaska, Washington, Northern California and Idaho.


View the Summit Schedule at a Glance

Guest of Honour

Honourable Colin Hansen
Minister of Economic Development and Minister responsible for the Asia-Pacific Initiative and the Olympics


Colin Hansen was appointed Minister of Economic Development and Minister Responsible for the Asia-Pacific Initiative and the Olympics on June 16, 2005. He previously served as Minister of Finance (2004-05) and Minister of Health Services (2001-04). Minister Hansen was first elected to the provincial legislature in 1996 to serve the constituency of Vancouver – Quilchena.
During his time in the legislature, he has also served as health critic for the Official Opposition, as well employment and investment critic, and critic for labour. He currently serves on Treasury Board, Agenda Development and the Government Caucus Committee of Natural Resources and the Economy.

Before his election to the legislature, he and his wife Laura ran a small business in Vancouver. Mr. Hansen also served as vice-president of finance and administration for the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. He has also been involved in a number of community organizations, having held such positions as director for the Vancouver-Yokohama Sister Society and chair of the Vancouver Museum board of trustees.

Born and raised on Vancouver Island, Colin has a bachelor of arts degree in political science from the University of Victoria. He and his wife have two children and live in Vancouver.

Keynote Speakers

Suhayya (Sue) Abu-Hakima
CEO, Amika Mobile


She is CEO of her second start-up Amika Mobile which focuses on mobile content, specifically, enterprise critical email alerts or Email-SMS. Her first company, AmikaNow!, was spun-off from NRC in 1998. Its compliance business was acquired by Entrust in 2004. As VP Content Technology at Entrust, she transitioned the compliance business. Sue started her career at Nortel Labs.
Sue holds a B.Eng. from McGill University and M.Eng. and Ph.D. from Carleton University. She is on the Board of Directors of Ontario's Centers of Excellence. She has given countless invited talks on technology, entrepreneurship, security and AI drawing on her 26 years in technology. She holds numerous patents in messaging and content analysis and is widely published in AI. Her companies have won many awards including the CATA WIT Leading Woman Entrepreneur & Technology Innovator Award in 2007.
 
Fred Ghahramani
Co-Founder, AirG


Frederick founded AirG in 2000, and has grown the business to being the largest mobile community in the world - with over 20 million users in over 40 countries globally. Frederick works closely with AirG's team of 100+ professionals advising on matters related to product management, business development, and operations.
AirG works with over 100 leading mobile operators and media brands to build, deploy, and maximize the value of mobile communities. Ghahramani is a passionate advocate of mobile content, and has presented and debated on countless industry panels and tradeshows across North America and Europe. Ghahramani studied engineering at Simon Fraser University.
 
Peter Howley
Chairman, Success Generation Systems


Peter A. Howley is a serial entrepreneur with unprecedented experience in building high growth disruptive service companies in the telecom sector. He has the distinction of leading his first venture backed company through IPO and acquisition into the pages of American business history as CEO of Centex Telemanagement.
It was recognized as one of the fastest growing, best managed, most profitable companies in America. It retains a cult status in the service industry. As the CEO/co-founder of IPWireless, Inc., Howley raised more than $120 million in venture capital. His leadership was instrumental in the company’s acquisition by Nextwave last year.
 
Terry Hughes
CEO, Redwood Technologies


Terry Hughes has been in the wireless industry for over 20 years, almost all of it being spent in Europe. He has been part of the full evolution of mobile communications, from radiopaging, to two-way paging, to analogue cellular, to digital cellular, to circuit-switched data, to text messaging, to packet data, to remote access, to mobile internet, and now to value-added wireless services.
Terry has worked at large organizations including 7 years at Vodafone in Europe and several years at Cable & Wireless and Motorola Paging. He has also worked at start-ups including a UK company that is still going strong 10 years later and a dot.com in San Francisco that disappeared in 2002 ! Terry has also worked at Zi Corporation, selling predictive text to handset manufacturers for 5 years, with responsibility for Europe, Americas and Asia. During that time he won a multi-million dollar deal with Nokia.
 
Joseph Verschueren
Co-Founder/CEO, Formotus Inc.


Verschueren is a leading proponent of click-and-deploy solutions for mobile business applications; his company, Formotus, is helping drive that concept into today’s mobile device marketplace. Verschueren is a serial entrepreneur and has more than 20 years of experience developing successful technology companies.
As an original member of one of the nation’s first cellular companies, US WEST NewVector Group (now part of Verizon Wireless), he is regarded as a pioneer in the wireless industry. Verschueren's entrepreneurial accomplishments include founding ImageX in 1995 with an initial venture capital investment of $3.5M. During his tenure at ImageX, the company raised more than $160M and completed its successful IPO in 1999. Verschueren has twice been recognized by Ernst & Young as an Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist.
 
 
 
PNWS 2008