Jul 23 | Posted by Tammy Sturge

Our strategy team is developing a great program of educational and entertaining speakers for the June 2011 reunion. Hopefully you have seen or soon will see our email update with four new speakers who have been confirmed: Ian Troop, Lisa Baird, Ramesh Vangal and Daniella Riccardi. We’ll provide you with interesting background on all the speakers in the months leading up to the reunion. One very timely announcement I am pleased to make today is that Calgary-based Tom Hodson, has confirmed his availability to speak in one of our plenary breakout sessions providing a case study on emerging technology – interactive whiteboards.


Tom served at P&G from 1984 to 2000 before moving to Optime International where he served as Executive VP & Managing partner. In 2006, he joined Smart Technologies - a global provider of interactive whiteboards and complementary solutions to the education, business and government sectors with world headquarters in Calgary, Alberta. Tom was appointed VP of Smart Technologies in May 2010 and serves as President & COO of their operating company: Smart Technologies ULC. The parent company recently completed a US$660 Million IPO (the largest tech IPO in recent memory). Coverage of the investment news can be found by clicking http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/smart-technologies-revives-ipo-market-with-huge-offering/article1641714/


Here are some quick facts: The SMART board interactive whiteboard was first introduced in 1991. Today, over 30 million students in more than 1.3 million classrooms currently use SMART products. SMART Board interactive whiteboards are installed in schools in every U.S. state and Canadian province. In 2009, SMART’s product category share for the interactive whiteboard market was 48.2 percent, according to Futuresource Consulting, a leading independent global research company that has tracked interactive whiteboard sales for more than nine years. Globally, SMART sold just over 360,000 SMART Board interactive whiteboards in 2009.