For five years I stood in front of rooms full of cattle producers and explained the AI pipeline behind our software: computer vision, model training, all of it. Those talks worked because nobody left feeling lectured. People left feeling empowered, able to see exactly where the technology fit their own operation. Making technical topics make sense to non-technical people is the thing I do best.
I come by it honestly. I grew up in a family of performers, in a house full of singing, dancing and acting, and I trained in film at SAIT in writing, producing and directing. The stage feels like home, and story is how I make the technical human.
✓Where I've spoken: keynotes and agritech panels across Western Canada, two Beef Improvement Federation symposiums (watch one), accelerator demo days, women-in-entrepreneurship events, and international stages from Canada House in London to Tesco's Agri T-Jam.
✓The founder side too: raising money, building a team, and leading it with empathy, told honestly.
✓Women leading: representation on the executive side, the AI side and the funding side is personal for me. I speak to women-founder and women-in-tech audiences with lived stories, not platitudes.
✓Formats: keynotes, panels, workshops and lunch-and-learns. In person around Vancouver or virtual anywhere.
✓Always live demos of real tools, including the ones I built. Your audience leaves with something to try the same week.
On stage & on screen
A few of the rooms, real and virtual.
Pitching to the judges at Canadian Western Agribition, November 2023. OneCup AI took home Business of the Year that week. Photo: Lisa Guenther.
First-place pitch at the THRIVE Canada Accelerator II cohort, with Alberta Innovates.
On camera as a THRIVE Canada II alum.
Pitching BETSY, our computer vision for animal care, at Google for Startups.
Pitching live cattle-recognition AI at Tesco's Agri T-Jam, 2021. Real tools, running live: my favourite way to teach.
Telling the OneCup story on camera for Alberta Innovates. Watch it.
My AI work has been covered by
CTV News · The Western Producer · Beef Magazine · 980 CJME · Alberta Beef Producers · Beef Improvement Federation
Press from my OneCup years usually spells it Mokah Shmigelsky. Same person, same stories.
The talks
Pick a topic, or let's shape one for your room.
Flagship
AI in plain language
What it actually is, what it isn't, and where the value is for you. For any audience.
Origin
From the cow barn to the boardroom
How we taught computers to recognize cattle, and what that teaches every industry about real-world AI.
Nonprofit
AI for nonprofits & fundraisers
Grants, donor communications, and the honest limits.
Wellbeing
AI that gives your team time back
Wellbeing-first adoption that relieves your people instead of watching them.
Founder
The startup years
What leading a company really asks of you, told honestly.
Fundraising
Fundraising across every table
Venture rounds, grants, direct donations and bake sales. What actually gets funded, from someone who has asked at all of them.
Leadership
Leading with empathy
Building a team people want to stay on, without losing the plot or the pace.
Women leading
Your authentic self gets things done
Succeeding in male-led industries, from someone who trained in film, built in agtech and raised the funding. Women's representation in the boardroom, in AI and on the cap table, and why authenticity is a leadership strategy, not a risk.
Book me to speak
Tell me about your room.
Who's in it, what they're worried about, and how long I've got. I'll shape the talk to them, and they'll leave with something they can use.
