Robert (Rob) Baker of Renewable and Alternative Energy at Alberta Innovates (AI)

Biography:

Robert (Rob) Baker, P.Eng. (EE), is the Director of Renewable and Alternative Energy at Alberta Innovates (AI). Rob has over 35 years of power system experience in the utility, system operator, and consulting environments. Mr. Baker’s skill set includes transmission and system planning, operational and project commissioning support, and policy and procedure development.  He has been committed to the power industry in Alberta for over 25 years beginning with the start-up of the Transmission Administrator function in the 1990’s, leading to the development of the AESO where he held numerous positions over 12 years. Prior to joining AI, Rob has led study and analysis for the successful integration of thousands of MW of renewable capacity, advanced areas such as probabilistic reliability analysis and GMD evaluations, co-authored several energy transition papers, and has contributed to thought leadership on the future power system in Canada and the US. Rob has provided expert witness services in several regulatory hearings on a variety of technical and policy issues throughout North America.

Cameron Bush of Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO)

Biography:

Cameron Bush is the Chief Engineer at the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO). He has been with the AESO since 2003, holding various technical and people leadership roles. Cam’s career has involved a variety of areas in the electric power industry: transmission system planning and operations, load forecasting and generation planning, distribution system design, and research of emerging technologies. Cam holds a B.Sc. from the University of Calgary and is a registered Professional Engineer in Alberta.

Darin DuMontier of PowerHouse Data Centre Group

Biography:

Darin has a passion for technology and the dynamic opportunities it brings to improve business.

With over 30 years of experience in data centres, technology, and sales leadership, his background as an accredited red seal journeyman electrician, includes roles where he led construction projects, successfully managed and optimized data centre operations, and led teams to achieve ambitious sales and business objectives.

Darin’s expertise and devotion to research in these areas has served him with a deep understanding of the technological and commercial challenges faced in enterprise business.

With a vision to better serve business, Darin believes experience is critical to develop, coach, support, and inspire the minds of people at any age, transform the future of technology.

James Crossman of PowerHouse Data Centre Group

Biography:

James is a registered professional engineer, and a member in good standing of APEGA. He holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alberta. James brings over 15 years of technical and project experience to all phases of project delivery.

He has provided prime consultant services on commercial infrastructure projects of all sizes and has worked as the lead electrical engineer on a variety of large multi-disciplinary projects; including data centre facility upgrades and new builds, generator and switchgear replacements, and various commercial and industrial projects.

In addition to project-based work, James has extensive experience providing facility assessments, conceptual designs, and strategic planning and analysis.

James has a talent for clear and concise communication tailored to the audience. As such, he excels at bridging the gap between complex technical issues and business requirements, and can communicate equally effectively with executives, managers, engineers, and tradespeople.

With more than 15 years of experience in the data centre space, James is intimately familiar with the multi-disciplinary requirements specific to data centres. He has worked on both data centre upgrades and new builds with capacities ranging from 20kW to 10MW. James thrives in the data centre environment and is constantly looking for new and innovative methodologies and technologies to apply to data centre projects.

Xiaoqi Tan of Department of Computing Science at the University of Alberta and the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii)

Biography:

Xiaoqi Tan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computing Science at the University of Alberta and a Fellow of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii). Prior to joining the University of Alberta in July 2021, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto. He received his Ph.D. from HKUST in 2018 and was also a visiting research fellow at Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences during his PhD. Xiaoqi’s research focuses on optimization and decision-making under uncertainty, with particular interests in online algorithms, computational economics, and learning theory.