Today the mesh conference, a national innovation event and meetup series exploring the intersection of technology, society, and business, announced it is deepening its partnership with Digital Journal for the third consecutive year. As the official media partner for mesh 2025, Digital Journal will bring the event’s most timely and thought-provoking conversations to audiences across Canada and around the world.
This collaboration begins with mesh 2025, scheduled for April 29–30, 2025 in Calgary and will continue after the event with ongoing editorial features and interviews that reflect the evolution of Canada’s innovation landscape.
“This partnership reflects what mesh is all about — creating space for open, critical dialogue and ensuring those ideas extend beyond the event itself,” says Sheri Moore, co-founder and co-producer of the mesh conference, and partner and creative director at Moore Carlyle Consulting. “We’re excited to continue working with Digital Journal to expand the reach of these important conversations and highlight the people and ideas that are shaping our future.”
A partnership built on purpose
As official media partner, Digital Journal will explore the ideas and tensions shaping this year’s mesh conversations, from the ethics of artificial intelligence and digital trust to civic innovation, public policy, and open data. Coverage will include reflections from mainstage discussions, immersive workshops like Spare Parts and Gasoline’s LAB engagement, and field reports on how cross-sector collaboration is being used to tackle systemic challenges.
This year, Digital Journal will also present new national research examining how innovation is unfolding across the country. The research will be supported by voices from Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Moncton, representing a cross-section of Canada’s innovation landscape. These perspectives will offer insight into regional priorities, emerging leadership models, and the role data plays in driving change.
Instead of focusing on one-off announcements or high-profile personalities, the coverage will connect the dots, highlighting how shared challenges are being addressed in different parts of the country and how practical, community-driven approaches are shaping the future of innovation in Canada.
“The mesh conference is an important event because it brings people together from across industries, disciplines, and sectors,” says Jennifer Friesen, Associate Editor at Digital Journal. “It’s a gathering of curious minds asking hard questions about what comes next. At Digital Journal, our goal is to elevate those voices and surface the ideas that don’t always get heard. We’re proud to help extend the mesh conversation beyond the room and into national dialogue.”
What to expect at mesh 2025
This year’s speaker lineup features bold thinkers and builders from across Canada’s innovation landscape and beyond. Highlights include Cathy O’Neil, data scientist, author of Weapons of Math Destruction, and CEO of ORCAA; Jess Sinclair from the Council of Canadian Innovators; Daniel Hengeveld of Toronto Global; Doug Robertson of Venn Innovation; Terry Rock of Platform Calgary; Katie Calhoun, former VP of Sales at Getty Images; AI agent builder “Hurricane Dave” Smith; and Christian Ortiz, founder of Justice A.I. These voices represent a wide mix of sectors, regions, and lived experiences, bringing a rich diversity of perspective to the conversations at mesh.
In addition to big-picture conversations on themes like trust, adaptation, innovation, leadership, and public impact, the mesh conference will also offer multiple workshops led by experts to help other leaders navigate change and digital transformation:
Workshops that deliver practical insights on leading and innovating in real-world contexts include:
- Margo Purcell (InceptionU): Margo will lead a session on organizational readiness for innovation, focusing on talent — what we have, what we need, and how to create the conditions for teams and companies to thrive. Using a landscaping metaphor, the session helps participants understand the context they are in and the context they want to create. It will wrap with an organizational diagnostic and readiness survey, exploring the culture required for innovation and sharing insights on who is in the room.
- Immersive collaboration inside LAB (Life After BigCo): An initiative by Spare Parts & Gasoline, LAB focuses on supporting professionals transitioning from large corporations to entrepreneurial ventures, fostering innovation and new business creation.
- Tina Mathas: Tina will lead “The Corporate Innovation Playbook: From Idea to Execution,” providing a practical framework for transitioning from brainstorming to implementation, addressing challenges like overcoming internal barriers and scaling new ideas across organizations.
- Keith Daser (Deliver Digital): Keith will share insights on optimizing technology partnerships to drive business outcomes, focusing on streamlining vendor relationships, reducing costs, and enhancing performance.
- Meghan Donohoe and Alicia Wight (Pebble): Meghan and Alicia will conduct an experiential workshop on leadership development, emphasizing how small behavioral shifts can lead to lasting transformation within teams and organizations.
A curated community of innovators from startups, enterprises, public sector, media, academia, and philanthropy will all attend mesh to focus on learning and leading through transformation.
Digital Journal is one of Canada’s largest independent media publications covering innovation, technology, and business. With millions of readers across Canada, the US, and beyond, Digital Journal is dedicated to surfacing stories of transformation and elevating the people driving change.
To explore the mesh 2025 agenda and register, visit meshconference.com.
