CANADIAN FEDERAL SAAS USER GROUP
Transforming Enterprise Through Data Platforms
Building the Foundation: The Role of Data Platforms in Modernizing Public Services
A Federal SaaS User Group Event
Join us on October 29th at the Atrium in Gatineau Zibi House for a transformative thought leadership event, hosted by the Federal SaaS User Group. Titled “Transforming Enterprise Through Data Platforms – Building the Foundation: The Role of Data Platforms in Modernizing Public Services,” this event will dive deep into how data platforms, AI, and digital transformation are reshaping public services. With sponsorships from Snowflake, F5, AWS, Deloitte, and more, the day will feature compelling presentations, expert panels, and breakout sessions designed to inspire innovation in federal digital strategies.
Event Details
Sponsors
Additional Information
Audience
This is a federal-only event, exclusively for federal clients and departments. It is aimed at architects, cloud managers, directors, and senior directors interested in learning about data platforms, governance, AI deployment, and security.
Event Structure
The event will feature customer presentations on data platforms, securing AI workloads, and legacy transformation, followed by a lunch with WeatherSource discussing data platforms for federal and private sectors. The afternoon includes two breakout sessions with concurrent presentations on key data and AI topics.
Sponsors
The event is proudly sponsored by leading SaaS and technology companies, including Snowflake, F5, AWS, Deloitte, Qlik, Yubico, Infostrux, and Prodago. These sponsors bring cutting-edge expertise in data platforms, AI security, and digital transformation.
Location
Zibi enjoys an unrivaled waterfront location, rich in cultural heritage and history. Zibi is located on the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin- Anishinaabe Peoples.
Event Agenda
- General Registration and Continental Breakfast 8:15 - 8:45
- Introduction and Welcome 8:45 - 9:00
Federal SaaS User Group
- Enterprise Foundation Modernization (Cloud, Data, AI) 9:00 - 9:30
Rob Silva, Director, Snowflake
- Industry Insight 9:40 - 10:10
Casey Price, SVP and Nader Shureih, SVP Public Sector, Environics Analytics
- Morning Break 10:10 - 10:30
- Putting AI into Production with Trust and Confidence 10:30 - 11:00
James Kierstead, Senior Solutions Architect, AWS
- Bridging the Gap Between Innovation and Compliance 11:05 - 11:35
Pierre Cliche, President InfoStrux
- Government of Canada SaaS Supply Arrangement 11:40 - 12:10
Elizabeth Quenville, Manager, Public Services and Procurement Canada
- Lunch 12:15 - 1:15
- Working Lunch: Big Weather = Big Impact 12:45 - 1:15
Craig Stelmach, Senior Vice President, Weather Source
Breakout Sessions
- Breakout #1: Delivering Data Capabilities in a Dynamic Operating Environment 1:20 - 2:00
Andrew Churchill – VP Public Sector – Qlik
- Breakout #2: Deploy, Secure & Accelerate Generative AI Workloads 1:20 - 2:00
F5 Networks
- Breakout #3: Data Mesh/Data Hub & Data 2:05 - 2:45
Deloitte / Salesforce
- Breakout #4: Governing Data & AI with Limited Resources - GC Use Cases 2:05 - 2:45
Mario Cantin - CEO - Prodago
Speakers
James Kierstead, Senior Solutions Architect @ AWS
AI has rapidly emerged as a transformative technology with far-reaching applications across public sector. At 10am during "Putting AI into Production with Trust and Confidence" James will explore how organizations can leverage their existing data infrastructure and practices to accelerate the adoption of AI and drive innovation. Key topics include building a comprehensive data foundation, integrating machine learning and automation, and ensuring responsible data governance
Stephen Hillier, F5 Networks
As the world races to explore and adopt the incredible power of Generative AI technology – training more and more LLMs using a combination of both public and confidential data sources – securing these workloads and the underlying data fabric is a critical priority. Accelerating the LLM training process as well as inference bot API interactions can help control operational costs. F5 has been using AI to enhance the efficacy of our security products for many years. Breakout Session #2 at 1:20pm, Stephen will present an overview of how F5 is utilizing AI today, where we are going with AI and how we can help our customers on their own journey to adopt generative AI technologies.
Mario Cantin, CEO @ Prodago
Departments must deliver AI solutions and data products despite limited budgets and personnel. It often leads to large inventory of ungoverned data products that cannot be shared or reused. In this interactive session, we will review how Prodago SaaS solution automatically brings GC policies and governance best practices into data product creation process.
Andrew Churchill – VP Public Sector @ Qlik
Delivering mission supporting data capabilities in any large and diverse organization is challenging enough. Doing so in a U.S. national security agency, where global and national events shift your mission priorities on a near daily basis, takes the job to an entirely different level. Join us to hear how a large U.S. agency prepares for tomorrows mission imperatives and meets the information needs of all end users, from senior leadership to the front lines, leveraging Qlik solutions to enable real-time, continuous data ingestion and exploration capabilities, maximizing value from their enterprise data platform.
Pierre Jr Cliche, President @ InfoStrux
As generative AI and sophisticated data sharing use cases are becoming increasingly foundational to modern data strategies, public sector organizations need to walk a fine line between innovation and compliance. This presentation will demonstrate how modern data platforms can be leveraged to facilitate next-generation data and AI use cases without compromising regulatory requirements.
Craig Stelmach – SVP @ Weather Source
Climate Change is having a significant impact on global weather and anomalous weather is increasing in frequency, duration and severity resulting in a massive strain on government resources. Global governments need to be armed with the necessary weather and climate data to prepare for this new “normal” in order to successfully mitigate weather risk and navigate weather uncertainty now and into the future. Weather Source will showcase how advanced weather and climate data solutions empower governments to anticipate and respond to these evolving challenges.