An award-winning university computer-science instructor, passionate about video games, digital media, artificial intelligence and people. Specializing in knowledge representation, transfer & discovery, natural language processing & understanding, software development, and human-centric design for information transfer in interactive media and teaching.

She is a Faculty member at The Centre for Digital Media and former member of the Faculty in the  Department of Computer Science at University of British Columbia. She has a Ph.D in Computer Science from UBC.

Kim is also interested in social media as a fledgling social platform and how it’s taken over in such a short space of time. This has a lot of implications for us socially and psychologically as we learn to integrate our digital selves with our real selves.

@zanytomato

Eli fell in love with volunteers in 2000, and has been working to build community ever since. He’ll take any title: Production Manager, Tour Director, Volunteer Wrangler, Wagon Master, Outreach Coordinator… even “Marketer”…just as long as he gets to hang out with enthusiastic people who are working together on a project because of a consuming passion. He also helps to co-host the ever popular Net Tuesday Event in Vancouver, these gatherings provide a chance to connect for all those interested in the intersection of social technologies and social change in your local community.

Eli spent five years working for the David Suzuki Foundation managing their web team and advocating for their online community, and has just recently started in a new role at NetSquared, As the Community Curator for NetSquared at TechSoup Global, he fosters online and offline network involvement through community management and content curation.  He works closely with NetSquared Local organizers to launch, grow, and support local community groups in over 50 cities around the world.

Eli will be talking about social media and its role in fundraising from his work at the David Suzuki Foundation and about his work with Net Tuesday

@NetTuesdayYVR

Amber has recently joined the 6S Marketing team as a Social Media Project Manager. She’s been working in the content space for nearly 10 years; beginning her career in journalism and shifting her focus to marketing as a public relations specialist, social media strategist and blogger. Amber has moved to Vancouver from Whistler, where she was a well-respected marketing professional and social media leader in the community. Amber spent five years in the Whistler Blackcomb marketing division, where she was the company’s social media strategist.

Amber is thrilled to be back in Metro Vancouver – where she grew up – and spends her days, walking her dog Mickey, paddling, snowboarding, surfing, and playing roller derby. You can read about her latest adventures in the Unplugged column on vancouverisawesome.com.

@amberturnau