Michael Haines, Chairman, Blammo Games

Michael Haines has been a director, executive officer, and entrepreneur in the games industry for over a dozen years and has more than 20 years experience in marketing and communications. Through his consulting firm, Push Corp, Haines serves as an advisor and director to a select group of companies in the interactive media industry.

In July 2006, Haines moved to Dublin Ireland to establish Groove Games Limited and served as its Managing Director. He co-founded, and was a director, of Groove Games parent company Groove Media Inc. and assumed the role of its Chief Operating Officer in January 2003. Groove published over 20 games, most notably the multimillion unit selling Marine Sharpshooter series.

Previously, Haines was a founder of Hip Interactive Corp., Canada's largest video game distribution company that listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in December 1999 and achieved annual sales of approx $500mm. Mr. Haines was an Associate and the Vice President of Marketing for Hill & Gertner Capital Corp. and Manager of Marketing Services for the Ontario Lottery Corporation.

Barry Reiter, Partner

As Chair of the Technology, Media and Entertainment Group, Barry's practice includes representation of start-up, growth and mature companies and private equity sources, international distribution arrangements, strategic alliances, partnerships and joint ventures, licensing, international corporate structuring, private and public financings, stock exchange listings, mergers and acquisitions, restructurings and the protection of intellectual property rights.

Formerly a law professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto (1974-1982), Barry has published books and articles on contracts, corporate governance, advisory boards, joint ventures, real estate and the legal process. He is lead author of Directors' Duties in Canada, 4th Edition, published by CCH Canadian Limited in 2009. Barry writes a monthly column on corporate governance for Lexpert magazine.

Andy Yang, Chief Innovation Hunter, Extreme Startups

Andy has spent the last twelve years in and around technology as an investor (angel and institutional), banker, consultant, advisor, and working in industry. Most recently, he was a venture capitalist at the BlackBerry Partners Fund focused on sourcing and executing early stage investments. Andy also supported the fund's investments and was an active Board Observer on Fuse Powered, mDialog, Padopolis and ClearFit. As a native Californian, Andy worked at two leading Silicon Valley commerce companies.

At Netflix, Andy analyzed the company's impending transition to AWS, forecasted the PlayStation 3 and Canadian launches, and compared CDN providers. During his time at Chegg, Andy helped the company scale up during rush times specifically for Customer Service initiatives. Prior to these experiences, Andy was an Investment Banking Associate at Thomas Weisel Partners and Goldman Sachs in the TMT coverage groups. Andy started his career at Accenture, deployed to the financial services industry helping mortgage banks and insurance companies with IT Strategy, Design & Implementation. He also spent six months in Calcutta on a secondment that established a microfinance training institution called Reach India.

Andy is passionate about technology, ecommerce, subscription business models, and working with passionate entrepreneurs. He's been a judge at local Toronto tech events such as Startup Weekend Toronto, Ryerson DMZ ICE, AccelerateTO, and many others. Andy holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BSc in Civil Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.