Our Team
GOOD Behind The Scenes
Jamie Leitch, GISP, A.SC.T., CGS
Chair, Board of Directors
Jamie is the GIS Administrator for the City of Niagara Falls Canada. An experienced geospatial professional, his career spans over 22 years in municipal government in the Niagara Region.
Jamie holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours Earth Science and Physical Geography) from Brock University, and an Ontario Graduate Certificate in Geographic Information Systems from Niagara College. He has a strong interest in deriving community value from municipal open data and increasing citizen awareness and engagement within their community through open data. He is a member of the Niagara Open Data Consortium and participates in working groups for establishing open data standards and certification. In his off-time, Jamie enjoys spending time with his family at the cottage during the summer, and skiing in winter.
Kevin Farrugia, Vice Chair
Board of Directors
Kevin (he/him) is an Business Intelligence Analyst at the Hamilton Police Service, where he’s working with his team to make more data available to the Service. He believes that Open Data is important for transparency and provides benefits to residents and businesses.
He holds a Bachelor of Environment (Honours Geomatics) from the University of Waterloo. Outside of work, he spends his time hiking, exploring neighbourhoods, taking photos, cycling, mapping in OpenStreetMap, and hanging out with his wife and cat.
John Walsh, Executive Director
John is an experienced data leader with more than 15 years in the data space, advocating for, and advancing the data agenda in government. His roles included Chief Data Officer at Environment and Climate Change Canada, and Director General, Data Analytics at the Department of National Defence until his retirement from the Government of Canada in April 2022. While with DND he was a founding member of the Government of Canada CDO Council and the Five Eyes CDO Council. Since he retired from government he has worked as an independent data consultant. His clients included Infrastructure Canada, the Department of National Defense, and the Canada Blood Services. Over the last 15 years his expertise spans data strategy and governance development and implementation, data architecture, analytics, access, use cases, literacy, and change management. He has supported the development and delivery of enterprise-wide data strategies, roadmaps, and governance frameworks, including data stewardship approach, and data catalogs.
Jury Konga, Board Chair Emeritus
Jury has a career spanning 40 years including work in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. He has been involved in GO Open Data since its inception in 2012. His career includes new program development in the Ontario government, Manager of GIS Services for the City of Richmond Hill and Principal of eGovFutures Group creating open government and open data strategies.
He was the principal author of the DIY Open Data Toolkit and developed the Open Data Framework in 2010 for the G4 (Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Ottawa).
Linkedin Twitter
Sandra Crutcher, Treasurer
Board of Directors
Sandra has pursued her lifelong passion for public service through contributing in various management roles in the public and not for profit sectors. She is a founding member, past president and the current executive director of the BeSpatial / urisa ontario association. She managed part of the open data team effort during the initial Open Data project launch at the City of Toronto. She has shown constant support of Open Data initiatives since its inception. Sandra contributes her knowledge relating to not for profits by currently serving on the founding board of directors of the newly launched Go Open Data association.
Linkedin Twitter
Ushnish Sengupta
Board of Directors
Ushnish is an Assistant Professor in Community Economic and Social Development at Algoma University. He has a PhD from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, an MBA from the Rotman School of Management, and a degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Toronto. Ushnish Sengupta is an award winning teacher and has taught courses at post-secondary institutions and at community based organizations. In addition to his academic experience, he has worked in various private sector, public sector, and social sector organizations including Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Cedara Software Corp, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, OntarioMD, Ontario Telemedicine Network, and eHealth Ontario. Ushnish’s research interests include Nonprofits, Cooperatives, Entrepreneurship, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Open Data, Diversity, and the Social and Environmental impact of technology projects.
Connie McCutcheon, Director of Communications
Board of Directors
Connie is the President of MISA Canada (Municipal Information Systems Association) and a past President of MISA Ontario. She was an inaugural member of the Canadian Open Data Society.
Connie holds a degree in Urban Geography from the University of Western Ontario as well as a certificate from Brock University in Urban and Environmental Studies. She is passionate about citizen engagement and the opportunity open government provides for new innovations and insights.
Paul Steeves, Secretary
Board of Directors
Paul is currently a Senior Data Analytics Strategist with the City of Ottawa. His career has been centered on public health, technology and community research. Prior to joining the City of Ottawa, he worked for the United Way East Ontario, the Canadian Health Network in Toronto, the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has a degree in Community Health Sciences from Brock University.
Jonathan BrownDirector of Education
Jonathan is an educator and mentor with over 30 years experience in co-designing curricula with teachers for both online and in-class delivery. His work on policy and program development and implementation with the Ontario Ministry of Education won several Ontario Public Service awards for innovation, collaboration and creativity. Jonathan is also a seasoned hacker with experience in networking, mentoring, organizing and participating in multiple challenge hackathons. He currently volunteers his time to facilitate experiential learning outside the classroom. He is interested in exploring how open data and digital resources support sustainable living at the local level.
Nathan Childs - Technology Lead
Operations Committee
Nathan has held several positions with Niagara Region, all focused on unlocking the power of data to support the organization and community they serve. In his current roles as an Information Analytics Support Analyst and Administrator of the Niagara open data catalogue, Nathan has extended this focus to support others while they use data to obtain insights and make their own impact.
With an education in Web Development, Design and Animation, Nathan may be an oddity amongst his civic peers, but brings with him an extended definition of the possible; often challenging the status quo with new ideas and innovation. Nathan is always exploring how data and technology can be applied to navigate challenges and deliver better results.
Darrell Bridge
Operations Committee
Darrell is currently a Senior Data Analytics Strategist for the City of Ottawa and manages the Open Data Program. The program’s vision is to better engage and empower the Ottawa community in utilizing City data assets through the establishment of community relationships and supporting open analytics capabilities. Darrell works with key stakeholders to release data to the public that is machine readable without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. He feels open data enables community partners to get involved and help solve civic issues collaboratively with the City. Darrell works closely with post-secondary academic institutions and sits on the External Advisory Board at Carleton University for the Institute for Data Science and the Centre for Business Analytics and Performance (CBAP) at the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa. He has a Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo in Business Administration and System Management.
Linkedin Twitter
Cody Brown - Projects
Operations Committee
Cody is a Spatial Solutions Analyst with a passion for developing solutions for organizational problems that create better business efficiency. He current works at the Municipality of Clarington, a local municipality with a population of 100,000. He’s previously worked in the private and not-for-profit sector in roles related to GIS, IT, software development and land information.
He has built and supported large scale business software that ranges from digital mapping applications to staff management software. Cody has co-authored several published reports and presented his work at numerous conferences around Ontario. Cody’s current side projects are developing a COVID-19 tracking system for Ontario schools and building maps that interest him.
