Programming
Here's our 2025 program!
One more announcement to come. Stay tuned!
More details on conferences and presenters
Discover our speakers for Thursday, April 3, 2025
Date: April 3rd, 2025
Time: 8H
Room: NOVA GLOBAL
Speaker’s Biography
Marie-Eve Hermkens, President and Founder, Groupe Innove Now inc. / InnovIA Académie
Date: April 3rd, 2025
Time: 9H
Room: NOVA GLOBAL
Speaker’s Biography
Maxime Tanguay, Training Consultant Hydro-Québec
Maxime has 15 years’ experience in teaching, professional storytelling and instructional design. Since 2021, he has been a training consultant with Hydro-Québec’s technical skills development branch, where he founded the Cellule mobile en intelligence artificielle. This initiative accelerates training design, offers a consulting role and develops technological solutions while integrating reflection on the ethical issues of AI. With his team, he has designed a Request Guide and led over 30 workshops to support professionals in adopting AI and managing change. Innovative and passionate, Maxime advocates a human-centered approach to this technological revolution.
Speaker’s Biography
Audric Gagnon, Founder experimenting.ai
With recognized expertise in artificial intelligence, content production and strategy, Audric Gagnon is a pioneer in the integration of AI within organizations. His training courses, enriched by solid professional experience, have enabled him to train nearly 300 entrepreneurs, managers and professionals, guiding them in the adoption of AI with a concrete and accessible approach.
A passionate popularizer, he has led numerous conferences and interventions for a variety of professional audiences, sharing his vision and expertise to help organizations better understand and harness the potential of artificial intelligence. As a trainer, he favors a practical and pedagogical approach that facilitates the appropriation of this technology and its effective implementation.
Through his interventions, Audric Gagnon helps organizations structure and optimize their processes thanks to artificial intelligence.
Conference Details
In a world where artificial intelligence is revolutionizing training, having the right tools is essential to optimize the creation of educational content. Discover a unique toolbox designed to rethink your approach to training design. Through an interactive demonstration, you’ll explore how to harness AI effectively to: quickly structure content tailored to your needs, speed up the design process while maintaining pedagogical quality, integrate engaging multimedia elements intuitively, identify best practices for collaborating effectively with AI. Come away with an enriched perspective and concrete avenues for transforming your training courses by taking advantage of a toolbox designed to adapt to today’s challenges.
Date: April 3rd, 2025
Time: 9H15
Room: SANDLER
Speaker’s Biography
Jean-Baptiste Audrerie, President and Co-founder of Nexa RH, HR TECH Industry Analyst
Conference Details
Skills have never been renewed so quickly. And since budgets cannot be stretched, managing them with precision saves time and enhances the personalization of the experience. If the HR TECH market offers more than 50 “Talent Intelligence” or “Skills Intelligence” solutions in 2025, the difficulty remains to understand a highly diversified offer: skills models, functional scopes, integrations, contributions, etc.
To your “Skills-based Organization” approach. During this presentation, we’ll share with you our analysis of the market, to help you make sense of the players to consider and the particularities of each segment. We’ll also make the link with your SBO maturity, so you can consider them in your roadmap and make informed HRIS investment choices.
Date: April 3rd, 2025
Time: 10H
Room: NOVA GLOBAL
Speaker’s Biography
Didier Dubois, Partner at Humance, Strategy and Organizational Transformation CHRP, Distinction Fellow
Speaker’s Biography
Jennifer Gabriele, Partner at Humance, National Leader in Leader and Team Development
About them:
Jennifer Gabriele and Didier Dubois stand out for their unique expertise and their ability to reconnect people to what makes them essential: their emotional intelligence. Together, these two seasoned professionals form a complementary team, passionate and committed to preparing individuals and organizations for the challenges of tomorrow. Jennifer Gabriele: National Leader in Team and Leadership Development With over 15 years’ experience guiding teams to their full potential, Jennifer is recognized for her ability to create dynamic and inspiring learning environments. She has piloted national organizational development initiatives and supports leaders in transforming their practices. Her powerful interventions are based on concrete tools and innovative approaches to cope with increasing automation while valuing fundamental human skills. Didier Dubois: Certified Human Resources Consultant and Fellow Didier, an expert in human resources, also has over 15 years’ experience in coaching leaders and teams. His recognition as a Fellow in 2023, a prestigious distinction in his field, underlines his influence and exceptional contribution to the profession. Didier combines a keen understanding of human issues with pragmatic strategies for cultivating resilience, collaboration and emotional intelligence in transforming work environments.
Conference Details
Imagine a world where machines do everything for us: answer our emails, manage our appointments, analyze our data, and even… make complex decisions for us. Now ask yourself this question: in this ultra-connected future, what remains of what makes us human? It’s this fascinating question that we’ll be exploring together during this conference, which goes beyond reflection and is a call to action.
Date: April 3rd, 2025
Time: 10H15
Room: SANDLER
Speaker’s Biography
Julie Castonguay, Co-founder and Chief Experience Officer (CXO) of Apprentx
Julie Castonguay is co-founder and Chief Experience Officer (CXO) of Apprentx, a company that has developed B12, a revolutionary training application that accelerates skills development based on the latest discoveries in neuroscience. B12 offers short, punchy activities that are integrated into employees’ daily lives, promoting better knowledge retention and effective application in the workplace. Passionate about innovation in training and committed to promoting best practices in organizational learning, Julie regularly hosts conferences and webinars on the impact of technology and artificial intelligence on training.
Conference Details
Dans un monde où les compétences évoluent rapidement, la formation ne peut plus être générique. La personnalisation permet d’augmenter l’engagement, d’améliorer la rétention des connaissances et d’optimiser le temps de formation, mais comment la mettre en place concrètement ? Grâce aux avancées technologiques comme l’IA générative et les plateformes adaptatives, il est aujourd’hui possible d’ajuster les contenus en temps réel, de réduire le taux d’abandon et d’aligner la formation sur les objectifs de l’entreprise. À travers des exemples concrets et des solutions accessibles, découvrez comment personnaliser efficacement vos parcours de formation pour maximiser leur impact. Une invitation à repenser l’apprentissage pour en faire un moteur d’innovation et de performance durable.
Date: April 3rd, 2025
Time: 11H15
Room: SANDLER
Speaker’s Biography
Marie-Christine Drolet, President of Atmanco
A finalist for the Association Québécoise des Technologies – Investissement-Québec CEO of the Year Award in 2023 and named “Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Awards”, Ms. Drolet is a dynamic entrepreneur, presenter and speaker with a strong focus on innovation, AI and human capital development. Ms. Drolet has over 20 years’ experience in the talent assessment and development industry. After 11 years with ATW-Tech, a publicly-traded company, she bought AtmanCo and transformed its Talents solutions, which now uniquely combine psychometric science with a benevolent artificial intelligence approach.
Ms. Drolet is the host of the podcast L’indice du bonheur, which covers topics in HR news and focuses on her commitment to making work environments more inclusive and successful. The podcast, launched in 2023 is now listened to by several thousand people in 18 countries.
A native of Quebec City and former high-level athlete, Ms. Drolet holds a Master’s degree in Career Development from the Université du Québec à Montréal. Ms. Drolet brings a fresh perspective to the technology and entrepreneurial sectors, with an obsession for the ongoing development of solutions whose mission is to make employees happy and businesses prosper.
What if skills development became your best asset for engaging and transforming your teams? In this conference, discover innovative and humane approaches that place autonomy at the heart of employee development processes. We’ll discuss how to combine technological innovation, feedback, interactive activities and active learning experiences to build engaging development paths that are adapted to each individual’s needs. Discover concrete practices and innovative tools to transform skills development into a driver of success and foster fulfillment at work for employees, leaders and HR professionals.
Date: April 3rd, 2025
Time: 13H30
Room: NOVA GLOBAL
Speaker’s Biography
Éric Robitaille, Training and Technoeducation Advisor
Eric Robitaille has been a training and educational technology consultant since 2012, working in both the public and private sectors. With a background in teaching, educational technology, training management and theater, he makes it his duty to combine knowledge, know-how and interpersonal skills to enable his partners to do the same. He sees training as a means to an end, not an end in itself, and does everything in his power, including training, to help the individuals and organizations he works with achieve their goals.
Conference Details
What if we rethought training to make it a genuine lever for collaborative learning? The most impactful learning comes not just from trainers, but from the experiences and exchanges between peers. This “conference” is a unique opportunity to explore an approach in which participants themselves define the areas for reflection, and together build concrete learning programs tailored to their needs. On the program: immersion in an innovative pedagogy, rich exchanges with professionals sharing the same challenges, and above all, actionable ideas for rethinking your own training courses and maximizing their impact. You won’t just be a spectator, but a real player in your own learning process. Ready to discover a new way of teaching and learning?
Date: April 3rd, 2025
Time: 13H45
Room: SANDLER
Speaker’s Biography
Maximilien Gaudette, Développeur IA, Ferme d’Hiver
Maximilien Gaudette develops technological solutions to enhance food autonomy and improve sustainable production methods. He helps market gardeners increase yields while reducing energy consumption in vertical agriculture. Through innovation and data analysis, he explores how technology can transform industrial environments and optimize processes. His work aims to make these advances accessible and applicable on a large scale.
Conference Details
Discover how digital twins are transforming training by reducing costs, minimizing risks and accelerating learning. This presentation will give you an introduction to digital twins, with concrete examples of their use in various sectors to optimize decision-making and learning.
Date: April 3rd, 2025
Time: 14h30
Room: NOVA GLOBAL
Speaker’s Biography
Pierre Graff, President – General Manager RJCCQ
Fascinated by the world of business and public affairs, Pierre has made it his mission to help and give a voice to young business people in Quebec. This is what he does on a daily basis in his role as CEO of the Regroupement des jeunes chambres de commerce du Québec, where he also acts as employer representative on the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail.
Pierre has worked with organizations such as the Quebec National Assembly and Surmesur.
A sportsman, scholar and volunteer, he devotes his spare time to triathlon, golf, reading and community involvement. He sits on the Board of Directors of the Fondation IUCPQ (Institut universitaire de cardiologie et de pneumologie du Québec).
He holds a master’s degree in international law from the Université de Cergy and a master’s degree in international economics and politics from Université Laval.
Speaker’s Biography
David Marotte, KPMG’s Data and Artificial Intelligence practice leader for Quebec
As leader of a practice of over 120 people, and with a strong background in technology, data, analytics and artificial intelligence, David Marotte contributes not only to the development of a fast-growing team, but also to its national strategy and execution.
As part of his role, David leads numerous strategic development initiatives for artificial intelligence programs. He also leads various projects aimed at improving and developing data-related business offerings. He particularly enjoys contributing to the improvement and development of the company’s culture, with a view to achieving concrete results for his clients.
David has extensive experience in strategy, change management and business intelligence, particularly in the IT, cleantech and VFX industries. With a career spanning more than 20 years as a seasoned entrepreneur, David has mentored more than 150 entrepreneurs and continues to help these professionals from various sectors grow their organizations and create a compelling corporate culture through the École d’Entrepreneurship de Beauce.
Conference Details
Skills development plays a key role in the adoption of AI in business and contributes to a successful and responsible implementation. However, obstacles remain. A survey conducted by the RJCCQ and KPMG reveals that, although generations Y and Z are recognized for their comfort with technology, their adoption of AI remains limited, unlike in other parts of the world where its use is more commonplace. How can we draw on these findings to better understand the brakes on adoption and possible parallels with workers in the enterprise? By exploring these dynamics, it becomes possible to identify levers to support the rise in skills and maximize the potential of AI in business.
Date: April 3rd, 2025
Time: 14H45
Room: SANDLER
Speaker’s Biography
Harold Dumur,CEO at OVA/StellarX
Harold Dumur obtained his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Université Laval in 2011. In 2014, he founded OVA, creator of StellarX, an AI-assisted 3D content creation platform for non-programmers. This AI collaborates with creators, assists them in the process of building immersive and augmented worlds, helps solve creative problems by suggesting ideas for visual scripting and content creation, and takes over non-creative work.
In 2017, it presented the StellarX platform at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In 2018, OVA ranked in the top 3% of virtual and augmented reality startups worldwide according to HTC. Under his leadership, OVA has won distinctions such as the OCTAS Startup of the Year in 2019, the Serious Play Awards in 2020, the MobileHero Merit Award in 2024 and the Innovation, Transformation Digitale – ADRIQ award in 2023. By 2025, OVA will be a pioneer in AI and spatial computing.
Conference Details
Intelligent agents are transforming corporate learning by empowering employees. Thanks to AI, these agents offer contextual support in real time, accelerating skills development and reducing operational errors. Through real-life cases such as ArcelorMittal, Pfizer, the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force, discover how personalized AI optimizes training in demanding environments.
Date: April 3rd, 2025
Time: 15H30
Room: NOVA GLOBAL
Speaker’s Biography
Justin Lessard-Wajcer, Founder and CEO of Nurau
Justin Lessard-Wajcer is the founder and CEO of Nurau, a pioneering Quebec-based company revolutionizing front-line leadership through artificial intelligence.
Nurau is a conversational coaching platform that offers managers personalized support in real time, while providing HR teams with concrete data on field dynamics. By adapting to internal policies, government standards and industry best practices, Nurau helps managers navigate the complexities of human relations with confidence.
Powered by scalable AI, the platform learns from every interaction to offer increasingly accurate recommendations. This unique approach reduces escalations, optimizes team performance and enhances the employee experience.
A Montrealer involved in various mental health initiatives, Justin is recognized as one of Canada’s most promising young innovators.
Conference Details
Difficult conversations are at the heart of managers’ challenges. How do you equip them effectively, while keeping your finger on the pulse? Find out how La vie en Rose transformed critical conversations into growth opportunities by integrating personal coaches powered by artificial intelligence, while keeping a finger on the pulse of field dynamics.
Date: April 3rd, 2025
Time: 15H45
Room: SANDLER
Speaker’s Biography
Vickie Laurendeau, CHRA, PCC, Head of Human Resources
Since joining WorkJam in 2021 as Chief Human Resources Officer, Vickie has been driving the company’s HR strategy in its key markets: Canada, the USA, the UK, Europe and Australia. Under her leadership, she fosters an inclusive and engaging culture while aligning people strategies with the company’s growth objectives.
Prior to joining WorkJam, Vickie spent five years as VP Human Resources in the Fintech industry, where she was responsible for the Canadian HR function. In this role, she also led international initiatives, including organizational transformations, mergers and acquisitions, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion strategies. Previously, she held positions of increasing responsibility in organizational development and human resources management with major international companies in the financial, aerospace and pharmaceutical sectors.
Vickie holds a Bachelor’s degree in psychology and a Master’s degree in human resources management. She is a member of the Ordre des CRHA and a certified coach (PCC) through the International Coach Federation. Recognized for her ability to bring about significant change within organizations, Vickie combines strategic vision with a passion for the development and well-being of people.
Conference Details
Training for front-line employees is evolving towards mobile and work-integrated solutions, based on microlearning and just-in-time training. This approach improves knowledge retention, engagement and performance by enabling immediate application of skills. Discover how digital tools transform training into a continuous and adaptive process, aligned with business needs and the reality of front-line teams. Here’s a concrete example: a Quebec-based global company has applied the Hearts and Dollars approach to transform the employee experience and boost team commitment.