Mr. Richard Simpson is the Director General, Electronic Commerce, with Industry Canada and is responsible for the development and implementation of policies relating to the online economy.

Come and hear Mr. Simpson describe the importance of information and communication technology, and how the Internet has changed in the past 10 years.

Mr. Simpson has played a central role in designing Canada’s policies on electronic commerce at the domestic and international levels. His office has the overall policy responsibility for Canada’s private sector privacy legislation, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and for the regulations made pursuant to the Act. In addition, he has the primary responsibility within the federal government for policies regarding spam and other related threats to Internet-based commerce.

One of his major responsibilities is the development of strategies to promote the growth of electronic commerce and e-business, both in Canada and internationally. He has played a leading role in the work of the Canadian e-Business Initiative (CeBI) and in organizing the National Conference on the e-Economy, which took place in Ottawa in September 2004. Internationally, he has been actively involved in the OECD, the WTO, ITU and other international bodies dealing with aspects of electronic commerce, and in the work of the G8 DOT Force, the UN Information and Communications (ICT) Task Force, and Commonwealth Connects, the Commonwealth’s flagship initiative in the area of ICT for Development. Mr. Simpson was elected Chair of the OECD’s senior level Committee on Information, Computers and Communications Policy (ICCP) in 2007, and recently joined the ITU’s High Level Expert Group on Cyber-Security.

Mr. Simpson has worked in the field of communications and information technology since 1975, occupying senior executive positions at the provincial, national and international levels. From 1995 to 1997, he was the Executive Director of Canada’s Information Highway Advisory Council, a group of 29 senior private sector executives appointed to advise the Canadian government on issues pertaining to the development of communications and information technologies in Canada. The Council’s Final Report, Preparing Canada for a Digital World, which was published in September, 1997, became the foundation for Canada’s leading edge policies on connectivity, electronic commerce and the information society.