North America and Oceania

Australia
Mr. Simon Goodrich
co-founder and Manging Director
Portable.

Simon Goodrich is co-founder and Manging Director of Portable. He has over a decade of experience in the community media industry in Australia, and is widely known for his work as President and Manager of the Student Youth Network in Melbourne. Simon led SYN FM's successful application for a full time community broadcasting licence in 2001, and established the SYN FM school training program.

He has served as a board member of the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia, the industry's national peak body, and conducted a number of successful national consultations to Federal Government, attaining increased support for broadcast training initiatives and the promotion of Australian music. Prior to Portable, Simon held the position of Business Development Manager of Diversitat, a community organisation in Geelong, Victoria. He is currently President of the Victorian Chapter of the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association, representing over 700 companies in the online media, advertising and interactive space; in 2008 he was recognised as one of Australia's leading entrepreneurs under the age of 30 by Anthill Magazine.

Simon sits on the board of Design Victoria and the Mobile Enterprise Growth Alliance. He is a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences the crew behind the Webby Awards, the premier international recognition for pioneering online initiatives. He is also the Australian Ambassador for the Awards.

Canada
Ms. Ana Serrano
Director
CFC Media Lab

Ana is the founding Director of CFC Media Lab, a world-renowned new media research, training and production think tank environment created in 1997 at the Canadian Film Centre (CFC).  As director of CFC Media Lab, she provides strategic and creative leadership for all of the Centre’s new media initiatives, including the development and production of a diverse range of critically acclaimed interactive narrative projects. In 2000, Ana produced Canada’s first user-generated personal storytelling project – the Great Canadian Story Engine, which has since influenced the development of other large-scale digital storytelling projects around the world. A three-time Canadian New Media Award-winner, including Visionary of the Year, Ana most recently produced Late Fragment, North America’s first interactive dramatic feature film which premiered in September 2007 at the 32nd Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).  Ana is a lead advisor in the digital media practice at MarS and is active on the boards of Artscape, Kapisanan, and several start-up companies focused on interactive entertainment. She adjudicates awards for the Webby, CNMA, and others, and frequently speaks at new media and film festivals throughout the world about the future of storytelling and entertainment.

Fiji
Mr. Ian Thomson
ICT Advisor
Secretariat of the Pacifc Community

After a long career in Ericsson Australia, Sweden and New Zealand, Ian Thomson was contracted by UNESCO and the NZ government to hold a series of Civil Society workshops to produce documents for the New Zealand Government’s input to WSIS. He is currently RICS and OLPC Coordinator for the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) where he is managing Rural Internet Connectivity Projects to provide internet access to rural and remote locations in the Pacific Islands as well as the introduction and scale up of OLPC projects to all Pacific Islands. He is providing advice on ICT policy issues in the Pacific region. Being the Chair of 2020 Communications Trust which addresses Digital Divide issues in Wellington as part of the Infocity strategy he worked with various government agencies on policies and programs and Memorandum of Understandings.

Kiribati
Mr. Ian Thomson
ICT Advisor
Secretariat of the Pacifc Community

After a long career in Ericsson Australia, Sweden and New Zealand, Ian Thomson was contracted by UNESCO and the NZ government to hold a series of Civil Society workshops to produce documents for the New Zealand Government’s input to WSIS. He is currently RICS and OLPC Coordinator for the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) where he is managing Rural Internet Connectivity Projects to provide internet access to rural and remote locations in the Pacific Islands as well as the introduction and scale up of OLPC projects to all Pacific Islands. He is providing advice on ICT policy issues in the Pacific region. Being the Chair of 2020 Communications Trust which addresses Digital Divide issues in Wellington as part of the Infocity strategy he worked with various government agencies on policies and programs and Memorandum of Understandings.

Marshall Islands
Mr. Ian Thomson
ICT Advisor
Secretariat of the Pacifc Community

After a long career in Ericsson Australia, Sweden and New Zealand, Ian Thomson was contracted by UNESCO and the NZ government to hold a series of Civil Society workshops to produce documents for the New Zealand Government’s input to WSIS. He is currently RICS and OLPC Coordinator for the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) where he is managing Rural Internet Connectivity Projects to provide internet access to rural and remote locations in the Pacific Islands as well as the introduction and scale up of OLPC projects to all Pacific Islands. He is providing advice on ICT policy issues in the Pacific region. Being the Chair of 2020 Communications Trust which addresses Digital Divide issues in Wellington as part of the Infocity strategy he worked with various government agencies on policies and programs and Memorandum of Understandings.

Mexico
Mr. Alejandro Machorro Fernández
Co-Founder
U-TOUR

Alejandro Machorro Fernández, age 34,  is Mexican born in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas. Since very little showed interest in music and technology. When he was a teenager he got involved in a rock band and from that moment he has devoted a great deal of his time to investigate the use of technology on live shows. He studied Economics at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM), leaving his studies on the last year of his bachelor’s degree to start a company.
Alejandro has been a self-lerner student on information technologies, its extensive experience and his deep understanding on ITC's led him to develop products that have won international contests for world renowned companies such as Phillip Morris International and Phillips.


From a very early age, Alejandro has been an entrepreneur starting projects and companies that are always ahead of the market. In 2000 he and Rudy Laddaga founded Media Innovations, a digital signage company that became the 4th worldwide and the most important in Latin America. The company was sold in January 2007. Since then Alejandro has founded four new companies: NERD, a specialist in interactive digital lighting; Modern Media Technologies, a leader in implementing ITC's for Below the Line marketing strategies; Mandalah, the first trend research firm in Mexico and Poink Technologies, a Studio that helps new media talents to start their own companies by providing offices, communication services and finance and legal advice. He is also, with Rudy Laddaga, the co-founder of  U-TOUR.

Nauru
Mr. Ian Thomson
ICT Advisor
Secretariat of the Pacifc Community

After a long career in Ericsson Australia, Sweden and New Zealand, Ian Thomson was contracted by UNESCO and the NZ government to hold a series of Civil Society workshops to produce documents for the New Zealand Government’s input to WSIS. He is currently RICS and OLPC Coordinator for the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) where he is managing Rural Internet Connectivity Projects to provide internet access to rural and remote locations in the Pacific Islands as well as the introduction and scale up of OLPC projects to all Pacific Islands. He is providing advice on ICT policy issues in the Pacific region. Being the Chair of 2020 Communications Trust which addresses Digital Divide issues in Wellington as part of the Infocity strategy he worked with various government agencies on policies and programs and Memorandum of Understandings.

New Zealand
Ms. Jan Bieringa
Director
BWX Productions

Jan Bieringa works independently as a creative producer in both new media and with feature documentaries. The opportunity to work across both sectors is immensely satisfying & provides the best of both worlds. Jan has primarily worked in and around the cultural sector and during the 90s she was Programme Director at Creative New Zealand, responsible for programming and funding short film, documentary and new media. Jan, with a small dedicated team, set up and ran (e)-vision Digital Media Centre for Communication Art and Technology in the late '90s.
From (e)-vision came her engagement with WSA in '03 and she is now working with both New Zealand & the Pacific to ensure submissions from both regions are available. In September last year she took the WSA Roadshow to Rarotonga to the PacInet conference. Simultaneously she is working to realise a Digital Content Showcase in 2009 in NZ. The WSA Roadshow will provide a central component to this event which will seek to engage with a broad cross-sector audience with the aim of showcasing new media practice beyond the parameters of the ICT world. The philosophy of the WSA makes it the perfect vehicle to encourage and demonstrate digital content in the fullest sense. She is currently the programme coordinator for an ideas forum - see http://www.7x7nz.net/ - a forum for people ambitious for what the world might be and New Zealand’s role in this framework.

Palau
Mr. Ian Thomson
ICT Advisor
Secretariat of the Pacifc Community

After a long career in Ericsson Australia, Sweden and New Zealand, Ian Thomson was contracted by UNESCO and the NZ government to hold a series of Civil Society workshops to produce documents for the New Zealand Government’s input to WSIS. He is currently RICS and OLPC Coordinator for the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) where he is managing Rural Internet Connectivity Projects to provide internet access to rural and remote locations in the Pacific Islands as well as the introduction and scale up of OLPC projects to all Pacific Islands. He is providing advice on ICT policy issues in the Pacific region. Being the Chair of 2020 Communications Trust which addresses Digital Divide issues in Wellington as part of the Infocity strategy he worked with various government agencies on policies and programs and Memorandum of Understandings.

Solomon Islands
Mr. Ian Thomson
ICT Advisor
Secretariat of the Pacifc Community

After a long career in Ericsson Australia, Sweden and New Zealand, Ian Thomson was contracted by UNESCO and the NZ government to hold a series of Civil Society workshops to produce documents for the New Zealand Government’s input to WSIS. He is currently RICS and OLPC Coordinator for the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) where he is managing Rural Internet Connectivity Projects to provide internet access to rural and remote locations in the Pacific Islands as well as the introduction and scale up of OLPC projects to all Pacific Islands. He is providing advice on ICT policy issues in the Pacific region. Being the Chair of 2020 Communications Trust which addresses Digital Divide issues in Wellington as part of the Infocity strategy he worked with various government agencies on policies and programs and Memorandum of Understandings.