Outstanding Achievement Rewarded At The CFX Conference 2019

"How did the conference go? " That has been the question I've been asked many times this week.

My answer "Really great" has been an understatement. 

We are truly humbled by the tremendous turnout, engagement and positive networking at the 2019 CFX Conference. 

With 70 conference participants, a world-class faculty of speakers, a neutral setting that invited open and honest engagement about challenges and opportunities, and a beautiful meeting place with an outdoor terrace and entire wall of glass overlooking the Thompson Rivers University campus, Kamloops and the South & North Thompson River valleys - everyone left inspired and informed, with ideas for action, new colleagues and strengthened friendships.

We were inspired as 4 CE Analytic Awards were handed out to very deserving recipients: The Mastermind Award, Next Generation Award, Innovation Award and Leadership Award.  

The Mastermind Award 

The recipient of the Mastermind Award is Carol Anne Hilton the CEO and Founder of The Indigenomics Institute. The Institute is working to unleash the 100 Billion Dollar Economic Agenda.

By working with Indigenous nations and organizations, governments and private industry to strengthen Indigenous economic capacity, the Institute is helping achieve Indigenous community and economic objectives. The Institute makes this possible through research, education, and management consulting services.  

It started with a hashtag #indigenomics and an idea is growing into a movement. Through mentoring and connecting indigenous peoples the Indigenomics Institute will help us answer the powerful questions of this time to build the architecture of tomorrow.

The Next Generation Award

The recipient of the Next Generation Award is Dave Ramsay.

As co-founder and Executive Director of the BC Tomorrow Society, he has worked tirelessly for 6 years to bring the BC Tomorrow Society from an idea to an exciting initiative in BC classrooms. The initiative is merging innovation in learning with new technology to provide teachers and students across the Province with a dynamic way to explore their own watersheds and think about what they want their future to look like.

BC Tomorrow is a Canadian non-profit registered charity whose mission is to help students and teachers explore sustainability when considering land use decisions in British Columbia.  

As a high-school teacher, he is revered by students year after year for his easy and interesting teaching style that makes learning about the world fun.  He is empowering the next generation with a safe space to learn and test their ideas bringing them confidence and optimism for their future.

Innovation Award

The recipient of the Innovation Award goes to Ryan MacDonald.

Complex cumulative effects challenges often require creative ways to integrate a range of tools, methods or approaches. Effectively connecting these together is not easy but when done well can lead to superior solutions.  

As a hydrologist he and his team at MacHydro are pioneering new, innovative ways to connect digital forecasting tools together to better understand the dynamics at play that influence the flow of water through our streams, rivers and lakes.  His work is connecting climate change forecasts with landscape simulators that instruct hydrology frameworks that ultimately connect to forecasting tools to help people understand the risks of erosion and mass wasting in our rivers and streams.  

He and his team are helping us to better understand the dynamics of cumulative effects of multiple overlapping human land uses, natural disturbance and climate change in our watersheds and what it could mean for ecosystems, economies and people.

Understanding how our watersheds work and how they will respond to the changes we expect in the future is critical.  The work he and his team are doing now will help all of us prepare for a resilient and prosperous future together.

Leadership Award

The recipient of the first CE Analytic Leadership Award is Dave Nordquist

Dave is a big picture thinker, visionary, leader and collaborator. We have known him for 15 years and have been very fortunate to have learned a great deal about holistic land use planning, the importance of our continued connection to the land and the Secwépemc land stewardship values and principles. His leadership has been instrumental and remains vital to a number of important collaborative land use initiatives moving the needle forward in BC and Canada.  

It is said that the most important factor for success is persistence and in this, he leads by example.  Through his leadership work on Title and Rights, TUS and special projects at Adams Lake Indian Band he is applying a deep commitment to a holistic approach to cumulative effects through Governance that will persist through generations.

A true leader is a person who inspires, motivates, and empowers others to join together and build momentum for desired change - and we feel inspired, motivated and empowered by him.

Overall the CFX Conference included 3 elements intended to help us move past a negative paradigm of cumulative effects into seeing it as an opportunity to unlock prosperity while caring for the earth.  Those elements were:

• An opportunity to share what is working
• To celebrate achievement and success
• Provide a neutral place to gather and build relationships

Will there be another? Yes! Planning for CFXConference 2020 is already underway.  Be the first to know the deets and get in on the early bird registration - Go to CFX Conference and get on our mailing list.