The Team

Duncan Kennedy, Managing Director and Co-Founder

After founding 10 startups (3 of which were sold) and spending more than a decade at Apple and Sony in the digital video industry, Duncan became fed up with technology for its own sake and began to see clear parallels between the colonization of Indigenous peoples and the emerging technology harvest of humans…what Shoshana Zuboff now calls Surveillance Capitalism.

Conquistadors and technologists put a high value on disruption for its own sake. Extracting from cultures and industries then removing the inconvenient bits (languages, religions, typesetters, taxis, forests, people). The new structures – nations and global media platforms- become liquid, facilitating larger frictionless transactions in a collective march toward entropy.

Duncan Kennedy is the Managing Director of Indigenext, an Indigenous business incubator based in Vancouver.  Indigenext is founded on the principle of “Reconciliation through Innovation”. Before he was liberated from the technology industry, Kennedy founded or served as a senior executive at ten tech companies (three of which were sold) and worked at Apple and Sony for more than a decade. At Apple, he managed the QuickTime product line, the foundation of modern digital video, and initiated QuickTime for Windows, which shipped more than 1 billion units. At Sony he launched the world’s first 4k Video Service. Duncan is from Prince George and is of Metis, Scottish, and English descent. He graduated from the University of British Columbia.

Shane Kennedy, Director and Co-Founder

Shane Kennedy is president of Lone Pine Media Productions and Company’s Coming Publishing, one one of the largest general trade book publishers in Canada. Mr. Kennedy has been in book publishing for over forty years, thirty-five in the current company.  He has written over 30 books, many of which have become bestsellers. He has made films in New Guinea, the Amazon, the high arctic, Borneo, the Dairen rainforest, Easter Island and the Andes. Shane has aboriginal heritage and was a co-founder of the Aboriginal Publishers Association of Canada.

Bradley Shende, Founding Partner

A multi-award winning Creative Technologist, Broadcaster, Producer and natural nerd-to-english translator. Bradley has been creating sustainable and transformational projects in different mediums for more than twenty-five years clear across fortune 500 and non-profit segments with boundless enthusiasm. As an analyst on technology adoption and digital media he reached a global audience of millions demystifying all things digital, coached innovators at BCIT, UBC, SFU and Cap-U and mentored many startups towards the success many tend to describe as “exits” – which he now considers a bad word. A self described “recovering technologist” and the son of a Trinidadian father and mother from the Ukraine, he expounds diversity even in the kitchen and specializes in what he calls “Ukradadian” food combining Curry with Pierogis. Never shy of social impact, or a challenge, he is THNK Fellow, a Co-Founder of the BIL Conference, Startups-Care, Conversations for Responsible Economic Development (CRED) and The Public Office Project (POP), and his first “real startup” (and proudest investment) as Dad of three kids.

Chastity Davis, Partner 

Chastity Davis is a mixed heritage woman of First Nations and European descent. She is a proud member of the Tla’amin Nation. She has worked with 125+ Nations across British Columbia. Chastity’s approach is from an Indigenous woman’s lens and feels it is her life purpose to facilitate the building of bridges between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Chastity owns an award winning consulting business and launched the online learning platform Deyen.ca and is the Chair of the Ministers Advisory Council on Aboriginal Women. She co-founded the Professional Aboriginal Women’s Network and is currently serving as Co-Chair for this important network that creates a shared space for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women to support each other in their respective careers.  Chastity recently received two awards for her business, Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Outstanding Business Achievement (BC Aboriginal Business Awards) and 40 Under 40, Business in Vancouver.

Robert Scow, Sr. Associate 

Robert is Kwakwakawakw and comes from the four tribes of the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw, his mother is Haxwamis and Gwawa’enux while his father is Kwikwasut’inuxw and Kwakiutl. Serving terms on elected Chief and Council, Robert has firsthand knowledge about how small villages and off-reserve members can be assisted though communication and technology. The building of strong relationships with family and village membership, through both his roles of traditional and elected leadership, has given him insight into how much work needs to be done around digital transformation. Being both remote and isolated, the communities where his families come from are in great positions of need. Robert feels with the current state of affairs with UNDRIP and Reconciliation, now is a good time to close the large gap between first nations and non-first nations. Having sat at tables with government and industry in negotiations, Robert feels capitalizing on the current political will can only be a positive step for First Nations. Robert now resides in North Vancouver after spending his entire life in Victoria and Campbell River, BC . Robert’s wife and grandson are great and proud priorities in  his life.

Mark Taylor, Partner

Mark Taylor is the founder of the JEDI Indigenous Business Accelerator in 2016, focused on the aerospace and defence sector as well as the JEDI Indigenous Business Incubator in 2017, focused on any business sector. Mark has been involved in economic development and training programs since 2008, with many years of experience in helping business startups grow. Mr. Taylor is a graduate of St. Thomas University and his mother’s family is from the Pleasant Point Passamoquody Nation in Maine.

Dr. Rick Colbourne, PhD (Cambridge), Partner

Dr Rick Colbourne is member of the Mattawa / North Bay Algonquin First Nation is a Fulbright Fellow (Visiting Research Chair in Indigenous Entrepreneurship) and was the Assistant Dean, Indigenous Business Education and Director of Ch’nook at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business; Adjunct Professor and Executive Director of the Learning Strategies Group (LSG) at SFU’s Graduate School of Business; and, was a Senior Manager in Accenture’s Communication, Media and Entertainment practice. He is a recipient of UNBC’s Achievement Award for Teaching; Gov’t of Canada’s Deputy Minister’s Recognition Award for Collaboration and Partnerships; Canadian Council for Learning’s Award for Excellence in Learning; and Westminster’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. His current research interests center on entrepreneurship (Indigenous, ecosystems, social, creative and cultural) and management, organizations, learning and work (power, knowledge and knowing).