Robin Mazumder is an environmental neuroscientist with a keen interest in how urban design impacts individual, community, and societal wellbeing. His PhD in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Waterloo was funded by the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship and applied wearable technology in real and virtual settings to examine psychological and physiological responses to dense urban environments.

In addition to his research, Robin is an outspoken advocate for healthy urban design and has given more than 30 keynotes internationally on the topic. He was named Top 40 Under 40 by Avenue Magazine in 2014, an “Edmontonian to Watch” in 2015 by Metro Edmonton, and in 2018 was awarded the University of Waterloo’s President’s Community Impact Award in recognition of his leadership and advocacy. In 2023, Robin was named the 2023 Zeidler-Evans Architecture of Health Lecturer by McMaster University.

He was a key contributor to the “New Venture at NAIT”, an accelerator which has since grown to its own entity. Robin is also passionate about science communication and has been interviewed by and written for major media publications, including the CBC, Huffington Post, Wired, and Vice. He is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Technical University of Berlin as part of Research Platform Neurourbanism. Robin is currently writing a book on the topic of his keynote, and is signed with literary agency Cooke-McDermid.

As a First Nations Ojibwe and French-Canadian entrepreneur, Jennifer Ménard-Shand always dreamed of leading a purpose-driven organization. Today, she lives that dream as the founder and CEO of Staff Shop, an award-winning certified diverse staffing firm. Through sharing her inspirational entrepreneurial journey as well as insight into truth and reconciliation in the workplace, elevating Indigenous women-led businesses, supplier diversity, and the Canadian labour market, Ménard-Shand inspires leaders and their teams to reach their full potential both at home and work.

Ménard-Shand began her career in 2008 at one of Toronto’s most trusted full-service recruitment agencies, The Bagg Group. In 2013, she created Bagg @ Your Service, the organization’s first hospitality and event division, before purchasing her creation in 2018 and evolving it into Staff Shop. Today, her company services hundreds of clients across North America and deploys thousands of employees throughout Canada as a full-service staffing and consulting firm with a focus on global expansion. Ménard-Shand’s entrepreneurial story celebrates the triumph of resiliency. She is a survivor of abuse, abandonment, domestic violence, imposter syndrome, and PTSD. She is committed to breaking the silence and putting an end to generational trauma and unhealthy cycles. There is no limit to the positive impact Staff Shop and Ménard-Shand can have on humanity. This is what drives her to do her best and inspire others to reach their full potential and leave a legacy worth following for future generations.