LCol Hansen was one of two recruits selected by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) in May 2009 through the third Canadian Astronaut Recruitment Campaign. He is one of 14 members of the 20th National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut class. In 2011, LCol Hansen graduated from Astronaut Candidate Training, which included scientific and technical briefings, intensive instruction in International Space Station (ISS) systems, Extravehicular Activities (EVAs, or spacewalks), robotics, physiological training, T-38 flight training, Russian language courses, and sea and wilderness survival training.

While waiting for a flight assignment, LCol Hansen represents CSA at NASA, and works at the Mission Control Center as Capcom—the voice between the ground and the ISS.

Dr. Marianne Mader is the Managing Director of the Centres for Earth & Space/Fossils & Evolution at the Royal Ontario Museum and is a Visiting Lecturer at the International Space University. She has dedicated her career to sharing her love for space exploration through planetary science research, innovative public engagement, participatory education, and science communication. With over 13 years of field experience, Marianne has studied some of the oldest rocks on Earth in Greenland, explored impact craters across the globe, and collected meteorites in Antarctica. She has collaborated with UWO’s Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration, CSA, NASA, and MDA to plan and execute simulated lunar and planetary exploration missions. Along with Andy Forest, Marianne is the co-founder of STEAMLabs, an all-ages community makerspace in downtown Toronto.

Laith started his career as a Trade Finance Relationship Manager at a bank in Jordan. Doing research and analysis on the bank’s entire portfolio across 13 countries in the MENA region, helping them evaluate their products’ effectiveness and quality and also scout for potential clients. He was also part of a team that helped launch one of the bank’s core corporate products, an online trade finance platform.

Two years after banking he left to continue his graduate studies at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, where he did his thesis on Entrepreneurship and Innovation; basing it on an accelerator in Jordan (Oasis500).

He would later join the accelerator in March 2015 as an Investment Associate and help them develop their investment operations; enhancing the efficiency, quality, and number of investments made. He would also work very closely with the startups; coaching and mentoring them, helping them develop their business and financial models as well as prepare them to pitch for investment.

Laith holds a Bachelor in Business Administration from the American University of Beirut, as well as a Master of Science in International Business & Emerging Markets from the University of Edinburgh. His extensive experience in the MENA region and his international education gives him a unique global outlook on entrepreneurship.

Chris was born in Sri Lanka and immigrated to Canada as a refugee when he was five. Aside from a one-year stint in Brooklyn (in the 90s, before it was cool), he's spent his entire life in Toronto.

Chris has always loved technology and was lucky enough to be surrounded by it even when he was young. He built his first website when he was eleven and used CSS for the first time when he was thirteen. It was also during this time, in high school, that people started calling him Mud.

Chris attended the University of Toronto where he studied Philosophy, Architecture, English and French. Freelancing during university allowed him to hone is webdev skills, which led him to his first job at a small digital agency called Big Bang Technology.

As Director of Operations at TWG, Chris has three mandates: make our Studio one of the best places in the world to work, find and keep the most talented people, and ensure the way we work continues to evolve and lead our industry.

Chris lives in the city, in Harbor Village with his wife, Sam, and their cat, Alpha. He wears jeans and a white shirt to work everyday.

Sunil is the Managing Partner of Extreme Accelerator and a hyper-connected venture capitalist in the Toronto-Waterloo corridor. Sunil Sharma was Co-founder of Extreme Startups, one of Canada’s leading technology accelerators. Backed by 5 of Canada’s best venture capital funds, Sunil has co-lead investments into more than 18 companies. Sunil is very active in the technology ecosystem across Canada and particularly in the Toronto-Waterloo corridor, where he serves as EIR at Communitech. Sunil is Co-Director of the Founder Institute, the world’s most global accelerator program. Prior to that, Sunil was the Global Practice Lead, Venture Capital and Private Equity in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of the Government of Canada.

David Pellerin is a Toronto based full-stack software developer and mentor. In his current role, Senior Technical Lead at digital product studio TWG, David's current favourite technologies include Chef, ElasticSearch, and Node.JS. In his role he builds scalable technical solutions for start-ups and enterprise. He loves bad horror movies, retro video games, and hopes to make it to Japan this year.

Aaron McLeod is a Software Engineer working at TWG full time building full stack web applications. In his spare time he works on game development projects, plays guitar, and video games.

Bernd has a strong entrepreneurial mindset and is a passionate NewSpace advocate. He graduated in Computer Science from Heilbronn University, participated in a executive space studies program at International Space University, and is part-time working on a LLB in International Law and Policy. After six years in charge of the new media and IT department at a German insurance, he launched a consulting company. Since then, he is providing strategy and technology advice and software engineering services for startups and SME’s.

Bernd believes in an inevitable human future in space and in the necessity to provide more career opportunities, including non-space disciplines and to people with a non-university degree. For him, supporting startup ideas and the use of space technology in new applications is equally important as connecting interested candidates and space-related companies.

Hello World! My name is Angus. I love space. I'm a proponent of science, of technology and, reaching from my roots having grown up on a small farm, of the natural world. I'm an electrician and I've recently started a path into the business world as a project coordinator. I'm a member of the Canadian Space Society and I volunteer with them regularly. My favourite things to do are to laugh, to solve problems and to talk. I'm super excited to be involved in NASA's Space Apps Toronto Hackathon 2017 and I hope I'll be able to keep up with the brilliance I'm sure I'm about to encounter - live long, and prosper!

Dr. Kelly is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, where he directs the Space & Terrestrial Autonomous Robotic Systems (STARS) Laboratory. Prior to joining U of T, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Robust Robotics Group at MIT. Dr. Kelly received his PhD degree in 2011 from the University of Southern California, where he worked primarily on hybrid visual-inertial navigation systems. Prior to graduate school, he was a software engineer at the Canadian Space Agency in Montreal. His research interests lie in the areas of sensor fusion, estimation, and machine learning for navigation and mapping, applied to a variety of robotics tasks. He has had a long-standing interest in space science and space engineering, and is an active member of the Planetary Society.

Software Developer at IBM Watson Health Imaging, and MASc. candidate in blockchain research at York University. I also did my undergraduate at York University in Computer Engineering. And studied User Interface Design at University of Crete, Greece. With 6 years experience in graphic design business, I have worked with designers and artists from 4 continents: Canada, Greece, Egypt and Kuwait.

Eric Shear is currently undergoing a Research Assistantship/Master’s in Earth and Space Science at York University in Toronto, where he is investigating a small spacecraft mission around Saturn and an imager that selectively blocks sunlight for increased contrast.

He studied mechanical engineering at Tacoma Community College and, in 2010, interned at Tethers Unlimited where he helped develop the HYDROS thruster for CubeSats. He then led an experiment on board NASA’s parabolic aircraft in 2011, investigating the behavior of water droplets on fuel-cell membranes in microgravity.

In the same year, he transferred to York to pursue a broader interest in space science. There, besides studying physics and space mission design, he used his mechanical engineering expertise to design a lightweight chassis and special joints for the university’s rover. The resulting performance advantage ensured a first-place victory at the Mars Society’s University Rover Challenge in 2012.

During his last year of undergrad, he worked with a veteran of the Curiosity Rover science team to produce a peer-reviewed paper on a balloon mission to explore the Martian northern polar cap.

In his spare time, he has developed and built a cryogenic carbon dioxide scrubber that promises to reduce astronaut life support logistics over existing chemical-based scrubbers. He has tested it three times at NASA Ames Research Center.

Eric obtained a PADI open-water scuba diving certification in 2013 and has completed six dives in Washington state and Hawaii, including a shipwreck at 100 feet. He completed aviation ground school while in high school, and plans to get a private pilot’s license in the near future. Eric is bilingual, fluent in both English and American Sign Language, and is currently learning Spanish. His hobbies include science fiction writing, video-gaming, and chess.

Milan Chotai is an experienced technology and product leader who is currently founding LendingFair, a social FinTech platform that helps credit unions support the needs of risky borrowers, and HireUp, a social enterprise that helps homeless youth find jobs.

Jessica Lovelock is a cross-platform software engineer at Connected Lab, currently working in full stack web development and mobile solution architecture. She holds a degree in Nanoengineering from the University of Toronto's Engineering Science program, where she worked on modelling the growth of gold nanoparticles when catalyzed with synthetic DNA. In her spare time, she enjoys playing Dungeons and Dragons, inventing cocktails, and creating constructed languages. (Voeti xàl!)