NSB Logo Ramona Pringle Ramona Pringle

Ramona Pringle

Speaker

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

CBC Technology Expert & Director of the Transmedia Zone Media Incubator

Ramona Pringle is Director of the Creative School Innovation Studio at Toronto Metropolitan University, and Director of the Transmedia Zone, an incubator for innovation in media and storytelling. She is also a technology analyst and columnist for CBC. Ramona provides organizations the knowledge and tools to understand the new media age while showing them how best to create and maintain meaningful engagement online.

Keynote Speeches

The Future of Entertainment

From virtual production to AI and from VR to video games, this talk provides an overview to the trends in content production, marketing, monetization and audience engagement that are reshaping the entertainment industry. Touching on some of the incredible advances already changing the entertainment industry – and the key factors set to cause even more disruption in the years to come – Ramona provides helpful guidance to professionals working across the entertainment industry and beyond, to understand how music, film, tv, fashion and gaming will continue to evolve over the next decade – and what it means for creators, and for audiences.

Key Takeaways:

  • The major factors influencing the future of entertainment, and how to predict trends
    • How AI and other cutting edge technology is changing content development and dissemination 
    • How to evolve as a creator to stay relevant, and stay ahead of change
The Future of Learning: Surviving and Thriving in an Era of Disruption

The world is moving at a rapid fire pace, but the mass lecture, the bastion of higher education, has been around since Aristotle… change is overdue! As much as 40% of the human workforce is predicted to be displaced by robotics and artificial intelligence over the coming decades, with automation reaching into sectors once thought to be safe from disruption, including medicine, the financial sector, journalism… even art and entertainment. When it comes to education, the billion dollar question is: are the institutions of today preparing us for the economies of tomorrow? How does education – and our approach to it – need to evolve, in order to nurture functioning future societies? A leading change maker in university innovation, in this talk, Ramona will share her insights on experiential education, virtual courses, micro credentials and life long learning — as well as an outline of how (hybrid), when (ongoing), and what everyone needs to learn, to thrive in the economy of tomorrow.

Key takeaways:

  • Educational models of tomorrow – and how to make the most of them, today
    • The strategies needed to successfully manage the transition into the age of automation
  • The knowledge you will need: when everything is a click tap or swipe away, what will set you apart?
How to Innovate: Designing the Future

As a technology journalist, digital media professor, award winning digital trailblazer and the founding director of a successful university incubator hub, Ramona has a unique understanding of innovation and design, along with a deep held belief that anyone can be an innovator. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or a corporate professional, this talk is designed to guide you through a process to audit and assess your practice, in order to refine it, improve it — and yes, innovate. This might mean, developing a bigger audience reach, a more efficient workflow, or a better way to connect with your audience. In this talk, Ramona explains how to adopt an innovation mindset, to future proof your business or career, and design the future you want.

Key Takeaways:

  • How to think about change in a meaningful, approchable and sustainable way.
  • How to design an organization, or career, that can withstand the rapid pace of change.
  • How to create a better tomorrow, and a future that we want to be a part of.
Beyond the ABC’s (AI, Bots, Code?!): Preparing the Next Generation for a Changing World

The world is changing fast. So fast, that it can often feel that by the time you’ve figured out the hot new tech tool, something else has displaced it. Amidst this frenetic pace of change, it can be hard to imagine what the future holds – let alone, how to prepare our kids for it. Indeed, in light of massive technological shifts, the World Economic Forum estimates that the majority of children entering primary schools today will ultimately work in new job types and functions that currently don’t event exist. So how do we prepare our kids? Sure, they seem to intuitively know their ways around tablets and video games, but is that enough? In this talk, Ramona shares over a decade of advice as a professor and tech journalist – and as a mom – on how we can best prepare our kids for a world of constant change, with skills including creativity, empathy, adaptability, resilience, and perhaps most important, curiosity and a desire to learn.

Key Takeaways:

  • How to guide our children, when technology is changing faster than we can keep up with and predicting tomorrow feels almost impossible.
  • Understanding not just the skillsets required for the jobs of tomorrow – but how work itself will change.
  • Demystifying AI to become an important part of their tool box – and toy box!
    • How to nurture the core attributes of future success, including resilience, empathy and curiosity 
Understanding the Allure of Digital Technology and Predicting Future Trends

With over 2 billion Facebook users worldwide and more cellphones than people around the globe, social media has become a powerful aspect of our daily lives. Digital tools and social platforms influence everything from the way we connect with each other, to the way we search for recommendations and services, to the way we buy things. In this presentation, Ramona provides professionals with the knowledge and tools to understand the new media age. With her extensive background in content creation and digital culture expertise, Ramona will share her knowledge and educated predictions on the technological trends of tomorrow.

Key Takeaways:

  • How best to create and maintain meaningful relationships that start online
    • Strategies for developing your digital brand, reaching new audiences, and enriching loyal customer relationships, online.
Customized Presentations

Ramona also offers customized presentations on emotional intelligence, the digital economy, predicting future trends, and skills development for the future.

Platform Plus Presentations

Unique formats and ways to connect with audiences.
Host/MC
Ramona is a thoughtful and entertaining host, MC and moderator who is great at leading engaging conversations. She has a wealth of experience hosting events throughout North America, including the OMDC Digital Dialogue Conference, Buffer Festival, NXNE and more. She's also hosted events made for digital consumption including Communities Create, which streamed on CBC Arts, CBC’s pop culture show The X, and the webcast of Idea City.

Audience reviews:

  • You were fantastic! Thank you very much for a very informative, thought-provoking presentation. The audience was extremely engaged and I heard many people having discussions regarding the information you provided, after the session. You gave people something to think about!

    - Professional Development Coordinator, Ontario Public School Boards’ Association
  • Ramona extends an invitation to engage the wired world, with a signature difference. With connection at our fingertips, she encourages us to choose to focus on the person, not the technology, as the true reality, offering enlightened guidance along the path.

    - Sheldon Levy, President, Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly Ryerson University
  • With her screen-friendly persona and intellectual prowess – she holds a Masters in Interactive Telecommunications from New York University, a BFA in Film and Video from York University and is an assistant professor at Ryerson – Pringle is custom-tailored for today’s multi-faceted media environment.

    - Playback Magazine
  • Ramona did a great job adapting her usual case study to a more practical format for the audience and they were very appreciative. Thank you.

    - Canadian Media Production Association
 

Speaker Biography

Ramona Pringle is an award winning creative innovator. Ramona is a writer, creator, educator and journalist whose body of work spans a broad range of platforms, with a focus on the evolving relationship between humans and technology.

She is an Associate Professor in the RTA School of Media at Toronto Metropolitan University and the founding Director of The Creative School’s Innovation Studio, a network comprised of incubators for innovation and entrepreneurship across the creative industries, as well as the Global Campus Studio, a unique digital studio devoted to fostering international co-productions through the use of contemporary collaboration tools. She is a recipient of the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, with over a decade of experience developing and delivering new curriculum designed to prepare students to excel in a rapidly changing media and technology landscape.

The 2023 recipient of the Digital Trailblazer Award from WIFT (Women in Film ands Television), Ramona’s production credits include PBS Frontline’s “Digital Nation,” for which she was interactive producer, “Rdigitalife,” which she created and edited, and the interactive documentary “Avatar Secrets,” which she wrote and directed, chronicling her journey into the realm of online games and the pull of the virtual world. She created, hosted and produced Communities Create, a participatory rapid response to the COVID pandemic, which in turn led to the Future Makers initiative to foster bold exploration and future proofing within the creative industries.

With a unique perspective and approach to analyzing the digital landscape, Ramona is adept at making issues related to technology relevant and accessible to a broad audience, and has become well known for her media work and appearances as a CBC technology columnist. 

A sought after public speaker, Ramona addresses international audiences on issues related to media, creativity, technology and social shifts. She has advised diverse industries from media and journalism to manufacturing and agriculture, on how to navigate the new power structures of a data-driven economy, and surviving and thriving in an age of automation

Ramona’s work has been featured at festivals and conferences including SXSW, TFI Tribeca Interactive, NXNE, Social Media Week, TEDx, i-docs, Power to the Pixel, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Hot Docs, and in publications including the New York Times, The Globe & Mail, Mashable and the Huffington Post.

She has served on several boards including the Toronto Film, Television and Digital Media Board, Interactive Ontario, Media Smarts, the Screen Industries Research and Training Centre, and the Toronto Public Library Innovation Council.

Ramona holds a BFA Honours Degree in Film and Video from York University and a Master’s Degree from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.