Jason is a 2004 fellow and an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the University of British Columbia. He is a founding member of UBC’s Center of AI Decision Making and Action and co-lead of Canada’s first Mission Innovation research challenge. Jason also serves on the scientific advisory board of Standard Lithium; a Vancouver-based junior mining company developing disruptive technology to supply raw materials for sustainable energy storage.

Jason’s research program is defined by creative application of technology to chemical science and engineering. These include designing new tools to study chemical reactions in real time, developing novel techniques to manufacture pharmaceuticals and building first-in-class automated technology to speed up the research and discovery process. Most recently, his team has developed one of the world’s first self-driving chemical robots, capable of not only executing experiments but also interpreting the results and deciding what experiment to try next.

Jason Hein, received his B.Sc. in biochemistry in 2000 from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, MB, Canada. He then began his Ph.D. studies as an NSERC postgraduate fellow under the guidance of Professor Philip G. Hultin at the University of Manitoba. In 2006, he became an NSERC postdoctoral fellow with Prof. K. Barry Sharpless and Prof. Valery V. Fokin at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, and then joined Prof. Donna G. Blackmond as a senior research associate in 2010. He started his independent research career at the University of California, Merced in 2011 and was recruited back to the University of British Columbia in 2015.

She is directly responsible for corporate and family engagement at Me to We, seeking to create bridges and sustainable change by changing the way we live, act and conduct business. Roxanne created and established Bogani Cottages and Tented Camp, a first-of-its-kind facility designed to educate and engage youth, adults, families and corporate groups through international volunteer adventures. She is now heading up the expansion of Araveli Cottages and Tented Camp in Rajasthan, India.

Roxanne also leads social and economic empowerment initiatives for women in Kenya, India and Ecuador as founder of Me to We Artisans. Me to We Artisans empowers women in Free The Children countries through financial literacy and employable skills. This initiative currently employs more than 600 women and their families, and proves that every dollar earned by a mother directly impacts her home, her children and her community.

Me to We Artisans is growing at a rapid pace, having been warmly received and featured in media outlets such as Chatelaine, The Globe and Mail, National Post, Fashion and Canadian Living. A French-Canadian, Roxanne has been featured as “Faces of the Future: 100 Young Canadians to Watch” in Maclean’s magazine, and she is an Action Canada Fellow. In 2005, Roxanne was selected for the Women’s Executive Network’s Top 100: Canada’s Most Powerful Women. Her work has been extensively covered by the CBC, The Globe and Mail, the Ottawa Citizen and the Winnipeg Free Press.

Jean-Frédéric is currently Associate Professor at Laval University, where he holds the position of Canada Research Chair in International Political Economy. He is also senior fellow of the Earth System Governance Project and senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).

Before being invited to return to his home town of Québec City and hold a Canada Research Chair, Jean-Frédéric was professor of international relations at Université libre de Bruxelles from 2008 to 2014, and post-doctoral researcher at McGill University Faculty of Law from 2006 to 2008.

Jean-Frédéric’s current project explores the interplay between trade and the environment. With the help of a team of research assistants and PhD students, he has built two fine-grained databases: the first documents environmental provisions found in 680 trade agreements, and the second trade-related provisions found in more than 2,500 environmental agreements. Using these datasets, Jean-Frédéric analyzes how trade rules interact with environmental law, with the goal of identifying promising avenues for sustainable development.

Ben Peterson has fifteen years of experience investing in, founding, growing and managing successful organizations.

Since February 2016, Ben has been a venture capital investor in East and Southern Africa. Based in Nairobi, Ben is the Senior Partner at AHL Venture Partners, one of the largest impact-focused VC firms in Africa. Ben runs AHL’s Nairobi office, sits on the Board of many AHL portfolio companies, oversee’s new investment opportunities in East & Southern Africa, and is currently managing the launch of the new AHL Growth Fund.

Previously, Ben served as Founder and CEO of Newsana Incorporated. Newsana took an innovative approach to solving one of the internet’s biggest challenges – how filter all available content down to the most important and impactful stories of the day.

From May 2002 to October 2011, Ben served as the Co-Founder and Executive Director of JHR (Journalists for Human Rights). Under Ben’s leadership JHR grew into Canada’s largest international media development organization, running projects in 17 African countries and building one of Canada’s strongest student leadership networks. Ben continues to serve as Chair Emeritus of JHR’s Board of Directors.

Ben has a BA in Economics and a BAH in Political Studies from Queen’s University, and an MSc in Political Theory from the London School of Economics (LSE).

Ben has received many awards for his work, including Canada’s Top 40 under 40 Award, the Action Canada Fellowship, the Queen’s University Alumni Humanitarian Award and recently received the Meritorious Service Medal, one of Canada’s highest civilian honours.

George is also a fervent believer in social change at home and says Action Canada has introduced him to “a quality and diversity of people” who have been very successful in numerous different fields. “It has allowed me to grow as a person,” adds the Toronto native, who holds a BASc in mechanical engineering from the University of Waterloo, “and to explore public policy issues I wouldn’t have otherwise.”

Richard Hoshino teaches mathematics and computer science at Quest University Canada, an innovative liberal arts and sciences university located in Squamish, British Columbia. He is also a novelist, having published “The Math Olympian” in 2015.

Prior to his arrival at Quest in 2013, Richard was a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo (2010-2012), where he helped the Japanese professional baseball league reduce their carbon emissions through scheduling optimization. Richard was also a mathematician for the Government of Canada (2006-2010), leading the mathematics and data exploration section at the Canada Border Services Agency, reducing border wait times and increasing the effectiveness of their risk-scoring algorithms.
Richard was the 2017 recipient of the Adrien Pouliot Award, awarded by the Canadian Mathematical Society as a lifetime achievement award to celebrate “significant and sustained contributions to mathematics education”.
Richard holds a B.Math. from the University of Waterloo, a B.Ed. from Queen’s University, and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in mathematics from Dalhousie University. He is originally from Toronto, and is delighted to now call Squamish home.

He has over 25 years of volunteer experience leading different local, national and international non-for-profit organizations and became a philanthropist in 2023, when the Endowment Fund for Action Canada was created.

With a bachelor’s degree in political science from Université de Montréal and a bidisciplinary master’s degree in political science and economics from Université Laval, Gabriel was part of the first Action Canada cohort.

She previously obtained a B.A. in Political Science and Spanish from the University of Ottawa
(1999), and a M.A. in Political Science from the University of British Columbia (2000). In 2000-2001,
she worked at the Office of Summit Follow-Up of the Organization of American States (OAS) in
Washington, DC. Ms. Major is an Action Canada Fellow (2003-2004).

Neil Bouwer is currently the Vice-President of Innovation and Policy Services at the Canada School of Public Service. He has also served as an Assistant Deputy Minister at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Natural Resources Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and the Privy Council Office of Canada; and in executive positions at the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, Human Resources and Social Development Canada and the Business Development Bank of Canada. He has also worked at the Department of Finance and Western Economic Diversification Canada, and has Economics degrees from McGill University and St. Thomas University. Neil actively supports the Government of Canada policy community, the Advanced Policy Analyst Program and the Free Agent HR Program.

Peter frequently writes and speaks about the citizen’s experience of the state, the importance of public imagination, and the future of responsible government.
A graduate of the University of Toronto and Queen’s University, he is an Action Canada Fellow (2003) and a recipient of the Public Policy Forum’s Emerging Leaders Award (2008).