Paul Hoffert keynote speaker for CCA’s March 2006 conference

Paul Hoffert – musician, writer, and hi-tech “wunderkind” – will kick off CCA’s March 2006 conference as the keynote speaker. Combining his artistic experience with his interest in new technologies, Hoffert’s address will examine new approaches to production and dissemination of culture and the arts.

With the March conference, entitled Mapping Canada’s Cultural Policy: Where do we go from here?, the CCA is embarking on a comprehensive consultative process with its members and the larger arts and cultural sector, to chart a course for our advocacy efforts with the next government and beyond.

The CCA considers this event the first step in a two part process, culminating in a major pan-sectoral conference the following year (2007) where focus will be on current and emerging issues, identified at the March 2006 event. In the meantime, the Secretariat of the CCA will work hard to ensure the issues our membership deems most important are given the attention they deserve both during the election and with the resulting government. In 2007, the CCA will be poised to engage in an informed and forward-looking process to carry us forward as an organization and as a sector.

Collectively, we have a great opportunity to influence the priorities of a newly-elected federal government in the cultural area. The CCA is determined to lead, to take advantage of the shifting political landscape, and to assert with clarity and tenacity the aspirations of Canadian artists, creators, producers and arts professionals.

With the mind of a mathematician and the soul of an artist, Paul Hoffert is known for anticipating the unexpected. The Financial Post has described him as one of the New Mandarins along with Bill Gates, and The Toronto Star says “Paul Hoffert is the ideal visionary for the Digital Age”. His incisive thinking brings clarity to complex issues and his lively presentations make him a much sought after speaker. He is currently on the Faculty of Law at Harvard and working on “digital media exchange”: a growing issue in the cultural community.

Hoffert holds several board positions with cultural industries and foundations. As a researcher, he invented digital audio technology for Newbridge Microsystems telephone circuits, Mattel Cabbage Patch Dolls, and Akai and Yamaha musical instruments. In 1992, he founded CulTech Research Centre at York University, where he developed advanced new media such as digital video telephones and networked distribution of CD-ROMs. From 1994 to 1999, he directed Intercom Ontario, a $100 million trial of the world's first completely connected broadband community that landed him on the cover of the Financial Post and in the Wall Street Journal.

He presents his visions for the Digital Age in three best-selling books: "The New Client", "All Together Now", and "The Bagel Effect", which detail recipes for living in the Information Age. In 2001 he received the Pixel award as the New Media industry's "Visionary of the Year".

In 2005, Hoffert received the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour.

Link