BCBusiness

BcBUsiness.ca epidemiology, molecular evolution and tuberculosis Prem Gill ceo, creative Bc, vancouver- based government agency tasked with uniting, sustaining and growing the province's creative sector Diane Gromala professor, school of interac- tive arts and technology, and founder and director, pain studies lab, sfU; canada research chair in compu- tational technologies for transforming pain; research interests include using virtual reality for pain management Cindy Gu founder and ceo, vitali Wear, vancouver developer of a smart bra that tracks breath- ing, posture and heart rate variability Mina Hoorfar professor and director, school of engineering, UBc okana- gan; head of the advanced thermo-fluidic laboratory, whose research includes lab- on-chip devices and drug and disease detection; developer of breath analyzer to test for tetrahydrocannabinol (thc), the psychoactive compound in cannabis Joy Johnson vice-president, research and international, sfU; a leader of the sfU innovates strategy, which aims to strengthen innovation and entrepreneur- ship at the university Kathy Kinloch president, British columbia institute of technology; direc- tor, Business council of Brit- ish columbia, polytechnics canada and telus corp. Jeannette Kopak faculty member and former associate director, master of digital media program, and director of business develop- ment and operations, centre for digital media, vancouver; led effort to digitize the canadian Broadcasting corp.'s radio and television archives and spearheaded the cBc's original website Annalea Krebs founder and ceo, social nature, vancouver-based online community that sends members free samples of natural products Eunice Kuatsjah co-founder, orello hearing technologies inc., vancouver developer of affordable, high- quality hearing aids Nadja Kunz assistant professor, school of public policy and global affairs and norman B. keevil institute of mining engineer- ing, UBc; research focus is mine water management and water governance in mining regions Amielle Lake founder, tagga media inc., vancouver-based online customer data platform acquired by campaign monitor in 2012; entre- preneur in residence, UBc; co-founder, Women's equity lab, canada's first all-female angel investor club Bobbi Leach ceo, futurepay inc., victoria- based digital payment platform for mobile shoppers; ceo, revenueWire inc., online performance market- ing, partner management and payment processing platform for advertisers Véronique Lecault co-founder, abcellera Biologics inc., vancouver developer of antibody discovery and immune profiling platform Nancy Lee interdisciplinary media artist; vp, board of directors, vancouver arts and leisure society; co-producer of current: a pacific northwest feminist electronic art symposium Angelica Lim assistant professor of professional practice, school of computing science, and head, rosie (robots With social intelligence and empathy) lab, sfU; research interests include human-robot interaction and developmental robotics, which draws on cognitive development in children Ragi Mahil director of marketing, telus, vancouver; former vp, mar- keting, counterpath corp., developer of voice-over-ip (voip) software for operators and enterprises Elicia Maine professor, technology and operations management; academic director, graduate certificate in science and technology commercializa- tion; and founding academic director, invention to innova- tion graduate program, Beedie school of Business, sfU Ann Makosinski inventor, makotronics enterprises inc., victoria; english literature student, from about 10 percent to roughly a third. Hess feels strongly that if a woman is capa- ble of doing a job, she's probably the best candidate because she would need to have been more accomplished than a man in the same position. "At least what I see from my career, I think I was way more quali•ed," notes the Premier's Technolo€y Council member. "I had to be a lot better to get those positions in this male world." —F.S. hOW CAn We GeT mORe WOmen inTO sTem? We are formed by what we see, hess maintains, so both men and women expect there to be more men in technology companies. hess points out that when her father graduated from law school, there was one woman in the class photo, whereas now more than half of canadian lawyers are women, and the number of females has increased in medicine, accounting and other fields. "i think me being the ceo and being a woman helps to bring women into the company," she says. "the ceo's a woman, so maybe this is a place for women." CLeAn eneRGy shAnnA kniGhTs Research director, Ballard Power Systems When Shanna Knights was earning bach- elor's and master's degrees in chemical engineering at UBC during the 1980s and early 1990s, she got mixed reactions for choosing a career path that would make use of her aptitude for science and math. "People I met casually, they would be surprised," Knights remembers. "People who knew me weren't surprised." In 1988, Knights joined BC Research, a private organization that had previously been part of a government agency, the British Columbia Research Council, as a research engineer. Wanting to become an expert and do leading-edge work, she looked to fuel cell pioneer Ballard Power Systems Inc. When Knights started at the Burnaby-based company in 1995 as a research engineer, it was just launch- ing trials in buses and stationary power. "There was a lot of learning around that and how fuel cell durability was a'ected in real-world applications," she explains. Today, Knights—the holder of 13 patents, with several more pending— is a top expert in proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell durability. march 2018 BCBusiness 35 B.C.'S MOST WOMEN Continued on page 37

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