Brett Tackaberry Personal Website and CV

Graduated Carleton University, Mechanical Engineering 2001, Dean's List

Career Overview

A better world exists in the imagination, influence and performance of true technology leaders.

With over two decades of measurable impact in creating complex product visions, Brett Tackaberry has led and inspired mission-driven ventures and community building initiatives. His achievements generating technology-guided companies and prominent digital solutions has made him a force of nature in the industry.

Now at Google Cloud, as Principal Architect, working with Public Sector Customer Engineering, Brett helps public sector organizations adopt cloud and AI technology. Being in Ottawa, Brett spends most of his time working with Federal Public Sector clients but he will also help out with provincial and municipal organizations across Canada.

After a brief but valuable stint at Azavea, recently acquired by Element 84, two leading geospatial technology firms, Brett has acquired a working knowledge and a passion for the geospatial industry for earth observation inclusive of data pipeline, application development, and machine learning.

Spearheading Rebel.com’s strategic technology vision, Brett has delivered internationally recognized solutions to development, product and operations teams while establishing a reputation to increase company revenues and lead mission-directed initiatives. Firmly established with an impressive résumé as Director of Technology for some of Canada’s leading digital institutions, Brett’s professional experience is only matched by his successful track-record to embody community-led actions to support and impact social and climate justice causes.

Known for being an effective community leader, Brett encapsulates the creative spirit of harnessing complex technology to better the lives of people in need. His leadership benefits social good for some of Canada’s most well-known community initiatives, including Tech4Good, Random Hacks of Kindness, Mustaches for Kids, and his executive efforts alongside the Child and Nature Alliance of Canada and Forest School.

Brett Tackaberry is one of the industry’s most celebrated and experienced professional problem-solvers. His inherent ability to lead international teams and strategically solve groundbreaking engineering and technological feats is why Brett remains a preeminent fixture shaping the future of digital technology in board rooms, complex environments and community initiatives throughout the developing and improving world.

Tech for Good & Community

I have always felt that being a contributing citizen has been an important part of my personal and professional development. I've contributed in lots of different ways and contributing my skills in my area of expertise has been the most effective. As I built on that, I found leading a company or representing a sector and building a community of advocates and participants is even that much more effective. As I grow I want to continue to find bigger and more effective ways to make the most impact.

Random Hacks of Kindness

Random Hacks of Kindness is a hackathon for social good that brings together volunteer developers and tech-savvy do-gooders to work with charities, community groups and social enterprises. We ran over 10 events, sometimes twice per year. I was a part of it from the beginning and led the last ~6 events.

This twitter story from our April 2019 event is a really good running narrative of the event. If you liked that check out October 2018 and October 2017.

The videos on our YouTube channel really show the energy and fun at kickoff and at the finale.

As you can see, after watching all the videos on the youtube channel, I took the opportunity to speak to my philosophies and why I felt these events are important.

Tech4Good Ottawa

Tech4Good Ottawa was a chapter based initiative to bring together tech sector and social sector in Ottawa. It was based on the NTEN community groups and Techsoup netsquared models. We hosted events like evening networking events with speakers and panels or daytime lunch and learns. We livestreamed a few of the later events.

Ottawa Civic Tech

Ottawa Civic Tech is a vibrant collection of folks across private sector, public sector, and academia. In Ottawa, being a federal government town, we had good mix of sectors - where in other cities you wouldn't have the same mix. I also felt it to be a smart nexus of folks and the right venue to collaborate with other engaged people that want to make their cities and communities a better place. I hosted many events in our space, brought in speakers, connected my other communities, and contributed to keeping it alive when interest waned.

We kept connected to the national movement via Code for Canada. I participate at national level by: hosting a panel at their national summit; volunteered as a technical interviewer in their fellowship program; and, consulted, during the pandemic, on how to get publicly contributed software to be open-source ready.

Changemaker program at Rebel

The Changemaker program at Rebel was an important program for me as I wanted to experiment with the concept of evolving CSR into Creating Shared Value. I wanted to see what happens when you integrate your company into the community around you via your service offering and staff. So we provide free services and education and integration for organizations that are doing important work in the world. We offered it without barriers or strings attached. We designed websites; we made connections; if orgs were local we brought them into talk; we brought them into hackathons or connected them to other partners; and so on.

Providing leadership

I find I can make time and have a meaningful, big impact in providing leadership to organizations, playing a technical advisory role. It's high-impact, low-time - I temper the commitment by not being on the board, not committing to big coding projects (maybe some integration or prototyping 💪), making connections and backing out - and being really clear with my relationship. I used this approach as an experiment in understanding how to have more and bigger impact.

I'm currently helping out with: The Investigative Journalism Foundation and Project In-Kind / Kindvillage.

Good Food on the Move Delivery Dashboard

Good Food on the Move is a not-for-profit social enterprise that provides community members facing barriers, with a safe, reliable and convenient way to access fresh and nutritious food. I helped these good people take simple order details and create a dashboard showing city-wide impact.

https://github.com/tackaberry/marketmobile-delivery-data

Child Nature Alliance of Canada

Board member - 2016 - Present

As a board we've guided the organization through growth from a Forest School on Wesley Clover Parks into the Forest School Canada movement training and empowering Forest School practitioners across Canada. My relationship with CNAC started as a Forest School parent, taking my kids out of school for a day each week and sending them to Forest school, and I quickly fell in love with what they're trying to do. To build the next generation of stewards of the land, and the engineers that are going to fix our environment, you need to foster, as children, a deep connection and relationship with the land.

Read more about what they're doing here: childnature.ca

ProjectInKind

Voluntary CTO

SMALL THINGS - BIG IMPACT FOR EVERYONE

We want to empower the philanthropist and changemaker in everyone. Project In Kind wants to be the world's first in-kind impact movement dedicated to enabling donations of skills, services, and goods locally in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Read more about what we’re doing here: projectinkind.org

Articles

A collection of articles by and about.

Presentations

Events, Presentations and Panels over the years.

WMO Workshop on Data-Proximate Compute

September 2024 ◸ Download

By distributing computing power closer to the data source (the "edge"), meteorological operations can achieve lower latency, faster responses, and localized processing. This is critical for weather forecasting, early warning systems, and disaster response, where timely and accurate data is essential. Cloud-to-edge solutions also enable better handling of massive datasets, ensuring that global meteorological services are resilient, scalable, and able to support growing demands. Knowing the capabilities and tradeoffs of cloud and edge will help you build the most effective hybrid cloud strategy.

AI Tinkerers Ottawa

August 2024 ◸ Download

Cloud Sustainability: A Practical Guide for Building a More Sustainable Internet

Novemeber 2023 ◸ Download

W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines

November 2023 ◸ Download

How to Stay Safe & Secure Online: Cybersecurity Fundamentals

Thursday, March 30, 2023 @ 12- 1PM ◸ Source code ◸ Slides

In today's digital age, it's more important than ever to be aware of cybersecurity threats and take proactive steps to protect yourself and your business. Learn about the basics of cybersecurity, including the common types of cyber attacks, how to identify them, and how to prevent them.

What is web3 & Why Should You Care?

Thursday, June 9, 2022 @ 12- 1PM ◸ Source code ◸ Slides

Web3 is an emerging structure for the next generation of the internet. Whether you know it or not, it’s already starting to change the way you live and work online.

How Technology and the People Behind it are Making the World a Better Place

Thursday, June 3, 2021 @ 12- 1PM ◸ Source code ◸ Youtube

Delve into the changing role being played by big and small tech corporations to increase their impact and make the world a better place

The Environmental Impact of Your Digital Business

Thu, March 11, 2021 ◸ Source code ◸ Youtube

From sending emails to web searches to where your website is hosted - small decisions and actions have an impact on our environment. You can reduce your business's digital carbon footprint and energy use just by knowing the impact of your day-to-day digital choices. There's always a cleaner way and we'll explore your options.

Engagements at Algonquin College

A Presentation for Algonquin College Professional Practice

Presentation for Algonquin College IAWD Trends in Web Development

◸ plus many more over the years

Using Technology for Good / Beyond the Bake Sales

Dec 2019 ◸ Listen on Spotify

Cloudfest 2018 - Growth and Change

April 2018 ◸ Watch on Youtube

Brett Tackaberry