Events

Agenda: B7 Side Event | Industry, Digital and Technology

December 8, 2025 | Montreal, QC

All times are in Eastern Time (ET).

Monday, December 8, 2025

12:30 p.m. – 1:20 p.m.ARRIVAL & REGISTRATION
1:20 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.OPENING REMARKS

Catherine Fortin Lefaivre, Senior Vice President, International Policy & Global Partnerships, Canadian Chamber of Commerce 
1:30 p.m. – 1:40 p.m.KEYNOTE | Welcome | Government of Canada  

The Honourable Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario
1:40 p.m. – 2:25 p.m.PANEL 1 | Propelling AI Adoption Across the G7

Moderator:
Nicole Foster, Head of AWS Public Policy (Canada), Amazon

Speakers:

Nicole Isaac, Vice President, Global Public Policy, Cisco  

Jean-Simon Venne, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Brainbox 

Kate Purchase, Senior Director, International AI Governance, Microsoft

Max Fenkell, Global Head of Policy and Government, Scale AI  
2:25 p.m. – 3:10 p.m.PANEL 2 | Supply Chain Resiliency

Moderator:
Yvonne Denz, President and CEO, Canadian German Chamber of Industry and Commerce 
 
Speakers:  

Karen Mazurkewich, Vice President, Stakeholder Relations and Communications, Toronto Pearson International Airport
 
Annika Schoch, Vice President, Finance & Business Services, Roche 
 
Kevin Allison, Founder and President, Minerva   
3:10 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.BREAK SPONSOR | Licensing AI

Robbert Baruch, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs – Europe and Multilateral Relations, Universal Music Group
3:15 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.BREAK
3:45 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.SPOTLIGHT | Large Language Models and the Future of Global AI Leadership

Ivan Zhang, Co-Founder, Cohere

Valerie Pisano, President and CEO, Mila
4:00 p.m. – 4:40 p.m.PANEL 3 | Leveraging Open Source to Achieve AI Sovereignty and Economic Security

Moderator:
Valerie Pisano, President and CEO, Mila

Speakers:
 
Kevin Chan, Senior Director, Global Policy Campaign Strategies, Meta 
 
Marc Surman, CEO, Mozilla 
 
Irene Solaiman, Chief Policy Officer, Hugging Face 
4:40 p.m. – 5:25 p.m.PANEL 4 | Enhancing our G7 Defence Industrial Base Coordination

Moderator:
Joanne Lostracco, Director General (Washington Sector), Defence Procurement, Public Services and Procurement Canada

Speakers:
 
Martin Rivest, Head, CortAIx

Keith Webster, President, Defense and Aerospace Council, U.S. Chamber of Commerce 

Rajeev Roy, Chief Technology Officer, D-TA Systems Group

Johan Gott, Director, Corporate Advisory, Eurasia Group 
5:25 p.m. – 6:10 p.m.PANEL 5 | Resilient Approaches to Building AI Infrastructure Across the G7

Moderator: 
Marc-Etienne Ouimette, Founder, Cardinal Policy 
 
Speakers:

Shannon Bell, Executive Vice President, Chief Digital Officer and Chief Information Officer, OpenText

Imran Shafi, OBE, Senior Vice President, NScale 

Chris Madan, Vice President, Customer Digital Solutions and Product, Telus  

Calista Redmond, Vice President, Global AI Initiatives, NVIDIA 

Chris Lehane, Chief Global Affairs Officer, OpenAI
6:10 p.m. – 6:20 p.m.CLOSING REMARKS

Candace Laing, President and CEO, Canadian Chamber of Commerce  
 
Jill Briggs, Manager, Public Policy, Meta
6:20 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.G7/B7 WELCOME RECEPTION

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