Making sense of today’s technology choices for your business has never been more complicated. Business leaders in today’s world need to stay on top of emerging technologies in order to be innovative, productive and competitive.

On May 5th, Microsoft Canada and the Mississauga Board of Trade are running a  conference to discuss these challenges. You can register at www.mbot.com and hear innovative thought leaders and guest speakers.

The morning kicks off with Dr. Cindy Gordon, CEO and Founder of SalesChoice, an expert in SaaS, business innovation and early stage commercialization, where she will discuss the innovation imperative in Canada, and highlight the value of Crowdfunding as an alternative strategy for commercialization acceleration.

Dr. Gordon says, “We are failing at commercialization of ideas across Canada in all of our industries and sizes of our companies. We have only 2.2 percent of our companies in Canada engaging in innovation, and business R&D spending has been steadily declining for over 15 years. We need to stimulate innovation and support entrepreneurship more in Canada. One of the innovative pathways to increase commercialization enablement is crowd funding, “which Dr. Gordon will discuss during her keynote.

Dr. Gordon is representing CATA in her National Spokesperson role as a Leader of Women in Technology and also representing Innovation Prosperity for Canadians in her Board Director role.

She will be joined by Jon Lombardo, Global Creative Strategist of LinkedIn, where he works with major brands to develop their original content, brand storytelling and lead generation.  Jon has led in the past GE’s Social Media Center of Excellence focusing on brand and commercial efforts across all major social platforms.

Other conference speakers include Rob Triggs, Vice President of CRM Dynamics, Krista LaRiviere, Co-Founder and CEO of GShift an expert on online strategy, and Corby Simpson, a Digital Strategist.

The conference moderator is Marc Saltzman, Journalist and Technology Expert. He is one of North America’s most recognizable and trusted experts who specializes in consumer electronics, business technology and internet trends.Register at www.mbot.com or follow on Twitter @mbotontario#mbotict