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Leadership Team

David VogtDavid Vogt
Executive Director, MobileMuse.caRobitaille Professor, Learning Technologies, University of British Columbia
Director, Digital Learning Projects, University of British Columbia

Dr. David Vogt is a technology innovator with a strong leadership background in both the corporate and academic sectors.  One of David’s early careers was as Director of Observatories at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.  He then became Director of Science at Science World, a public science museum. In 1996, David founded and later became CEO of Brainium Technologies Inc., a pioneer of Internet-based curriculum and wireless devices for K-12 education.  More recently, David was Chief Research Officer at the New Media Innovation Centre (NewMIC) in Vancouver. 

David currently holds the David F. Robitaille Professorship in UBC's Faculty of Education and is Director of Digital Learning Projects.  His research focuses on the social and cultural dimensions of science and technology, particularly the "Staging of Experience". The implications for personal, social and corporate transformations are truly exciting and profound. David's family life centres on wife Tracy and four children (eldest 21).  He enjoys science, technology, big ideas, building anything, music, hiking, biking, and friends.

 

Jim UdallJim Udall
Chief Technical Director, MobileMuse.ca
President, Symphonetics Inc.

A veteran of both the personal computer revolution as well as the Internet revolution, Jim Udall’s career has spanned over 25 years in high technology research and development. During that period, Mr. Udall has participated in five startups and personally co-founded two of them.  A graduate of the University of Waterloo, Mr. Udall has a broad range of technical expertise involving a variety of disciplines including operating system design, telecommunications (both fixed and wireless) as well as data communications. 

His latest startup venture – Vienna Systems – was a pioneer in the Voice-Over IP arena, which ended in the successful acquisition of Vienna Systems by Nokia in December of 1998.  Mr. Udall moved to Vancouver in 2000 to lead the growth of the nascent Nokia Mobile phone product creation centre from 35 to over 400 people by 2003.  As Chief Architect at the Nokia site in Vancouver for four years, Mr. Udall led the drive to higher functionality mobile phones focusing on the delivery of media rich services in the mobile environment.  His latest passion is the MobileMuse.ca activity and its promise to deliver compelling social experiences based on the three technology pillars of location awareness, mobility and rich media.

 

Rodger Lea
Research Leader, MobileMuse.ca

Dr. Rodger Lea provides technical consulting services to research-focused industry and academic organizations. As a computer scientist with extensive experience in industrial and academic research Dr. Lea excels in structuring technology research programs and delivering value to participants and organizations.

Dr. Lea brings to bear over 15 years in industrial research, most recently as Vice President and Director of Sony’s US distributed system lab, located in San Jose, CA. In this capacity, he aided in developing advanced technologies to support Sony’s broadband media strategy including research and development in areas such as future media presentation formats, media delivery and caching, digital and interactive TV, home networking and peer to peer infrastructure technologies. This research generated over 100 international patents and delivered technology into a number of major products ranging from the Sony AIBO robot, to the Sony PDAs and High Definition TV systems.
Before this, Dr Lea was part of Sony’s Tokyo based Computer Science Laboratory where he led developments in the area of adaptive operating systems, and networked virtual reality systems.

Before joining Sony, Dr. Lea spent time with Hewlett Packard’s research labs where he led the definition and implementation of a distributed fault tolerant infrastructure for telecom systems. This work grew out of his previous role heading up the European research and development programs for Chorus Systems, a French start up company which spun out of the French national research labs.

Dr. Rodger Lea holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Lancaster University in the UK and has numerous publications in the area of distributed systems, operating systems and networking. He is the holder of several US patents and has published books on home networking and 3D graphics for network virtual reality systems. 

David VogtRichard Smith
Research Leader, MobileMuse.ca
Associate Professor of Communications, SFU

Director of the Centre for Policy Research on Science & Technology (CPOST), SFU
Richard Smith’s research focus is new media – as a technology, as a business, and as a factor in social change. He has an ongoing interest in technology for education, surveillance of public spaces, online communities, and the wireless information society.
His current research projects include:

  • civic engagement and surveillance environments;
  • the role of social capital in the new media cluster in Vancouver;
  • new applications for information technology in support of scholarly publishing;
  • "games" of innovation in the new media industry; and
  • the development of technologies for mobile media-rich urban shared experience - platforms for mobile social software.

Richard Smith is also working with his graduate students on “addictive” on-line games, new communication technology in the home, and information technology in support of tele-health.

With academic training in communication and law, Dr. Smith holds degrees from Carleton University (BA) and Simon Fraser University (MA and PhD).


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