Hi, I’m Jai (hear how to pronounce it) and I bring more than 25 years of experience as a creative technologist, interactive strategist, and facilitator.
As a creative technologist, I have worked on a huge array of digital projects, so my experience is significant in understanding the best way to conceive and build a digital project. Everything from enterprise websites, kiosks, and mobile apps to large museum installations and projection mapping. I help organizations vision, spec, and build their dreams.
As a facilitator, I use my experience to shepherd organizations through challenging moments in their development. Primarily, I work with methodologies of Transformational Consulting, which includes understanding the characteristics of collaboration and high performance, and especially how group dynamics (including race, gender, age, sexuality, power, and privilege) affect how individuals show up as leaders.
I work extensively with Indigenous organizations, including the First Nations Education Steering Committee, the First Nations Technology Council, the National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association, the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, and many more.
I am deeply committed to issues of equity and creativity, believing that we can have organizations that are alive to experience in many ways and that people that are part of them can have courageous conversations that matter.
Through my firm, I have been focused on creative digital campaigns for progressive organizations. My recent interactive work includes collaborating with the David Suzuki Foundation on innovative digital and interactive aspects for the BlueDot Tour. I also worked with poet Fred Wah (highmuckamuck.ca) on an award-winning interactive poem and won a prestigious award in 2015 for the multimedia aspects of “Our Living Languages,” which is a permanent installation about Aboriginal languages in British Columbia at the Royal BC Museum. I have also worked on large-scale projects such as the Cultural Olympiad Digital Edition for the 2010 Games in Vancouver.
As an accomplished presenter and knowledgeable speaker on information and communications technology, especially as it applies to First Nations in British Columbia. I also give presentations on the future of work and other topics.
As an extremely active participant in the arts community, I have won awards in composition for theatre, dance, and film. My work has received support from the Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia, and Quebec. In the in the late 80s and early 90s, I performed both nationally and internationally, from the Kitchen in NYC to the Cultch in Vancouver. My work, primarily computer-based, involved installation and computer-generated music that included an interactive symphonic work with acclaimed saxophonist, Anthony Braxton. I studied with Martin Bartlett, an electroacoustic composer, and George Lewis, a trombonist and composer.
Currently, I am on the board of the BC Arts Council, which is the funding body for artists in the province and on the board of Brightside Community Homes Foundation.
Previously, I sat on the boards of the Vancouver Fringe Festival, the Western Front, a contemporary art gallery, and Openmedia.org, an Internet freedom organization. I also sat on the City of Vancouver Arts and Culture Policy Council and many others. I believe truly in giving back to the communities that have given me so much.
