Meet the champions, advocates and judges
The champions
Senior leaders who lend the program their public support – helping to attract ideas and team members, assisting with the development of selected ideas, and putting their weight behind the winning idea.
The advocates
Organizational and digital leaders who support the Challenge by encouraging their workforces to participate, testing submitted ideas, assisting program organisers to build suitable teams around the selected ideas, and helping teams to make useful connections or overcome obstacles.
Chris Allison
Director General & CDO,
Centre for Data Management, Innovation and Analytics, Public Health Agency of Canada
Vidya ShankarNarayan
CIO & Assistant Deputy Minister, Information Systems Branch, Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada
Elizabeth Hardy
Senior Director of Research and Experimentation,
Office of Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Joann Shields
Director General of IMIT, Chief Information Officer and Chief Security Officer,
Infrastructure Canada
Mélanie Robert
Executive Director of Open Government,
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS)
Daniel Dufour
Director General, Innovation Branch, Strategic Policy and Innovation Sector, Department of Natural Resources Canada
Capt(N) Guillaume Lafrance
Chief Data Officer and Director General, Data Analytics, Strategy and Innovation, Department of National Defence
The judges
Public service leaders with skills in fields such as digital, data and program management, who select the eight ideas to be taken forwards, hear the teams’ pitches at the Semi-Final and Final, and choose the best. In the Challenge’s later stages, they may be joined by the champions.
Wesley Yung
Director, International Cooperation and Methodology Innovation Center,
Statistics Canada
Jason Reid
Chief Information and Security Officer, Director General, Natural Resources Canada
Lucie Loignon
Chief Information Officer,
Corporate Services and Finance Branch,
Environment and Climate Change Canada
Elise Legendre
Director General, Data Policy and Transformation & Chief Data Officer, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada