News : DigiBC announces an expanded board to promote global positioning

The Digital Media and Wireless Association of BC, DigiBC, has added 10 additional directors to its board, bringing the final board strength to 24 executives. The new board is representative of all five key sectors: mobility and wireless, video games, animation and visual effects, web 2.0, social media and interactive marketing and e-learning and will work to transform BC’s digital media and wireless industry into a global leader.

Vancouver, BC, January 11, 2010

The ten new directors are as follows:
• Dr. Boris Wertz, Partner, W Media Ventures
• Bruce Tattrie, Partner, Fasken Vancouver
• Frenny Bawa, VP, Global Business Development, RIM
• Dr. Gerri Sinclair, Executive Director, The Centre for Digital Media
• Glenn Entis, General Partner, Vanedge Capital and President Vancouver SIGGRAPH chapter
• Jason Cohenour, CEO, Sierra Wireless
• Matthew Peters, Partner, McCarthy Vancouver
• Owen Matthews, Vice President, Wesley Clover
• Rob McGarry, Director R&D, NOKIA Vancouver
• Steve Hnatiuk, Partner, Yaletown Venture Partners

The board also unanimously approved Michael Bidu for the position of the President of DigiBC. Mr. Bidu was previously the Executive Director of WINBC (Wireless Innovation Network of BC) and is the Executive Producer of VX 2010 (Vancouver Experience), the BC Wireless & Digital Media Showcase designed to promote the BC wireless and digital media industry to the world before, during and after 2010. He is a serial entrepreneur who brings more than 20 years of experience in executive management, business development, branding, direct marketing, CRM and strategic communications across traditional, web and wireless platforms on the agency, client and not-for-profit side.

Bidu acknowledges that the new volunteer board is larger than you would expect, even in an industry this size, “but we are a highly diverse industry, and we need to make sure there are enough board members from each of our five key sectors to properly represent their interests and to get us all pulling together.”

“There will be tremendous opportunities over the next few years, especially in such areas as entertainment, health and education,” says Bidu. “We want to be in a position to seize those opportunities. In just a few weeks, the world is coming to Vancouver for the Winter Olympic and Paralympic games, and that’s a priceless opportunity for our country, our province and our industry to make a big splash on the world stage.”

The new board is structured as an executive team of seven, plus four working groups to deal with industry development, sponsorship, events and advocacy. DigiBC’s Executive Committee currently consists of the following directors; the remaining two seats will be filled shortly:
• Paul Lee, Chair (General Partner, Vanedge Capital)
• Parminder Singh, Vice Chair (President, Intellectual Ventures Canada)
• Warren Franklin, Vice Chair (CEO, Rainmaker Entertainment)
• James Mutter, Secretary (Partner, Benson Salloum Watts LLP)
• Rick Griffiths, Treasurer (Partner, PwC)

DigiBC represents more than 22,000 people in 1,300 companies that generate combined annual revenues of more than $3 billion making it one of the largest industry associations of its kind in BC and Canada. DigiBC's vision is to make BC the most recognized and admired centre of digital media and wireless excellence in the world. Its mission is to promote, support and accelerate the growth, competitiveness and sustainability of BC's digital media and wireless industry.

Posted on 2010-01-11 by Philippe Filiatreault

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