2025-08-26 –, Potter Auditorium - Kenneth C Rowe Management Building
The opening keynote will be delivered by Jennifer LaPlante, Deputy Minister of the Department of Cyber Security and Digital Solutions, Nova Scotia. With a strong background in artificial intelligence, innovation, and digital transformation, she is leading the province’s efforts to strengthen cybersecurity resilience, deliver modern digital services, and drive forward the responsible adoption of technology for both government and citizens.
The opening keynote will be delivered by Jennifer LaPlante, Deputy Minister of the Department of Cyber Security and Digital Solutions, Nova Scotia. With a strong background in artificial intelligence, innovation, and digital transformation, she is leading the province’s efforts to strengthen cybersecurity resilience, deliver modern digital services, and drive forward the responsible adoption of technology for both government and citizens.
Jennifer LaPlante joined the Government of Nova Scotia after working more than two decades in digital transformation, data governance and artificial intelligence. Much of her work has focused on the intersection of technology, innovation, and public impact.
She is passionate about harnessing technology to drive meaningful changes, especially in data-driven decision-making and secure and scalable solutions.
Jennifer holds an MBA and an MSc in Computing and Data Analytics. Prior to joining government, she served as the Chief Growth and Investment Officer for Canada’s Ocean Supercluster, where she helped companies innovate and make forward-thinking investments in their technology strategies. She also served as Executive Director of DeepSense, where she worked with hundreds of companies to increase their understanding of AI and unlock its full potential to drive growth and innovation, helping to boost economic development in Canada’s ocean sector.
Jennifer’s contributions to AI and innovation earned her recognition as one of DataIQ’s Top 100 Influential People in AI for 2021.
Clay brings more than 20 years of leadership in government digital service delivery and development, with a strong commitment to creating user-focused, accessible government services. His division, Digital Practices and Technology, is responsible for providing secure and reliable technology infrastructure to support government and healthcare's digital operations. The division champions and enables Internet-era ways of working through product management, human-centred service design and development, cloud computing and DevSecOps.