Day 2

Gain insight into today’s sessions so you can get the most out of your conference experience.

Senior decision-makers are increasingly relying on data-driven insights to inform high-stakes decisions, but too often, critical information is lost in translation between technical and business domains. Take away specific solutions to:

• Understand the executive lens: what defines “value” in a boardroom context.
• Bridge key disconnects and learn how technical outputs need to be translated into strategic, actionable narratives.
• Structure conversations around risk, opportunity, and outcomes — not just models and metrics.

Advance your understanding of boardroom expectations and gain strategies to elevate the role of data in organizational decision-making. 

As data becomes the backbone of decision-making, trust becomes its most critical asset. This session introduces Smart Routes, a modern approach to data engineering that applies supply chain principles to automate, streamline, and build confidence throughout the data journey. Leave with a blue-print for:

• Automating the Data Journey from Source to Insight. Discover how standardized connectors, automated quality checks, and reusable ingestion pipelines reduce manual effort and improve reliability.

• Building Confidence with Observability and Governance. Execute telemetry, lineage tracking, and policy-as-code for creating a control tower for your data estate—ensuring every data product is traceable, compliant, and trusted.

• Focusing on Strategic Impact, Not Operational Overhead. Shift from reactive troubleshooting to proactive optimization, enabling teams to deliver trusted insights faster and with greater efficiency.

Engineer trust into your data journey to unlock smarter decisions, reduce technical debt, and create a self-improving data supply chain.

Take a deep dive down the innovation rabbit hole in one of our roundtable discussions. Share common challenges and best practices with your big data and analytics peers on a topic of your choosing:

1. Monetizing Data as a Strategic Asset: Explore proven frameworks for turning enterprise data into revenue-driving products and services, including data marketplaces, APIs, and insight-as-a-service models.
2. From Silos to Synergy: Enabling Scalable DataOps: Share strategies for building a robust DataOps practice that unifies data engineering, analytics, and governance to support business agility and cross-functional insights.
3. Accelerating Time-to-Value with Generative AI: Discuss practical use cases for GenAI in customer experience, internal operations, and product development, while managing expectations and maintaining brand trust.
4. Embedding AI Responsibly: Discuss the role of AI in government and non-profit delivery, with a focus on fairness, transparency, and explainability in alignment with provincial AI use standards.
5. Modernizing Legacy Infrastructure for Real-Time Decisions: Tackle the challenges of migrating from on-prem or hybrid legacy systems to real-time cloud-native architectures that empower AI and advanced analytics.

With traveller preferences changing by the minute, tourism organizations must keep pace with dynamic visitor needs — even with limited resources. Capture value from every conversation by transforming AI chatbot interactions into actionable, real-time insights. Walk away with a blueprint for:

• Turning questions, curiosities, and complaints into a goldmine of intelligence.
• Leveraging chatbot data to reveal hidden visitor needs and behaviours.
• Aligning AI analytics with strategic priorities in real time.
• Building intuitive dashboards that democratize insight across teams.
• Scaling conversational data into an engine for smarter decision-making.

Build stronger products and experiences using analytics and chatbot technology.

Build internal momentum by pinpointing and delivering low-risk, high-reward use cases. Take back to your office strategies to:

• Define clear criteria for evaluating and prioritizing use cases across risk and return.
• Identify functions or departments best suited as early adopters.
• Design proofs of concept that are built to scale.
• Communicate impact effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Amplify your early wins to build trust, secure buy-in, and accelerate adoption of analytics across the organization.

How do you innovate with AI when the stakes are high and trust is everything? Introduce AI in a sensitive, nonprofit environment, leveraging automated testing, red teaming, and ongoing monitoring to safeguard outcomes. Meet “Rosey,” an AI initiative at Covenant House, from early buy-in and risk assessment to safe, responsible deployment. Get a blueprint for:

• Securing buy-in and managing risk for AI in high-trust sectors.
• Practical methods for automated testing, red teaming, and ongoing AI performance monitoring.
• How strategic partnerships can accelerate responsible AI delivery and expand impact.

Stepping into an established data team as a new leader is one of the most challenging transitions in tech. Whether you’re replacing a beloved predecessor, inheriting technical debt, or navigating team dynamics you didn’t create, the first 90 days set the tone for everything that follows. Gain a blue-print from three seasoned data leaders for

• Executing strategies that built trust
• Balancing continuity with necessary change.

Enjoy a conversation  about data leadership succession that rarely happens in public

Review the key solutions and takeaways from the conference. Source a summary of action points to implement in your work.