Innovation Panel Livestream
An innovation panel co-hosted by Alex McCann, Executive Director at ONSIDE and Martha Casey, Chief Executive Officer at Volta. Including special guests Saeed El-Darahali, Founder, President & CEO at SimplyCast and Ross Simmonds, Founder & CEO at Foundation Marketing. We will be taking a deep dive into topics related to changes in funding & investing, EDI and overall reflections over the last year throughout the COVID pandemic.
Watch the recording of our Livestream:
Bios:
Martha Casey
Volta’s Chief Executive Officer.
Volta is one of Canada’s largest innovation hubs, located in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Before joining Volta, Martha was the Chief of Staff and Executive Director in the President’s Office at Dalhousie. While at Dalhousie, she was also the project manager for Nova Scotia’s participation in the MIT Regional Entrepreneurship Accelerator Program. Before Dalhousie, worked in New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration over two terms. She has held leadership roles in organizational change,project oversight, and economic development. Before joining the Mayor’s Office, Martha worked on projects with the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight, the Office of the Public Advocate, and volunteered with a number of organizations aimed at building confidence and competence in girls, supporting new immigrants’ entry to the workforce, and economic capacity building. Martha holds an MPA from New York University, an LLB from Dalhousie, and a BA from Bishop’s University.
Ross Simmonds
Founder of Foundation Marketing
Ross Simmonds is the founder of Foundation Marketing, a global content marketing firm that provides content marketing services to organizations all over the world ranging from some of the fastest-growing startups & consumer products to multiple global SaaS unicorns.
Ross and the team at Foundation have launched marketing initiatives that reach millions of people and generate millions of new business opportunities through SEO and social channels like Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more.
Saeed El-Darahali
President and CEO of SimplyCast
A leading provider of self‑service, multi‑channel marketing services empowering small businesses to create, manage and track their own online and offline marketing campaigns. The driving force behind the company, he has helped it grow into a global success with clients in over 175 countries.
With over 15 years of management experience, Saeed brings his experience in corporate financing, strategic growth, operations, sales, and marketing management to his business and the IT industry. He started his career as a technology commercialization officer before moving to the venture capital industry where he managed a multi-million-dollar fund to support the startup community in Nova Scotia, while working as a part-time lecturer at Saint Mary's University and teaching a computer information systems course.
An active member of the community, Saeed volunteers on many boards to share his experience and help others achieve their goals. As the Chair of Youth Retention & Immigration for the OneNS Coalition, he helped develop the "OneNS - Now or Never Report", which proposes visionary goals to encourage Nova Scotians to aim for change. Saeed is also a board member of EduNova, an international student organization mandated to support post-secondary institutions and language schools to attract students to the region.
Saeed has provided advisory and consulting support to various organizations and programs such as the Government of Canada's Federal Innovation Round Table, the Wage Standard Survey, and the Bank of Canada. Devoted to his work with youth in his community, he is involved in various organizations such as Junior Achievement Nova Scotia, the Sobey School of Business, the Canadian Youth Business Foundation and the Entrepreneurs with Disabilities Network.
Saeed holds a Masters of Business Administration, a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, a Certificate of Human Resource Management and Minor in Economics, from Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.