Invite us to speak at your event.
Dan, our founder and CEO, and Philip, our senior sales director, speak about putting AI to work in training and in the knowledge an organization already has. Their sessions are practical, and many are built live in front of the audience.
Dan Belhassen
Founder & CEO, Neovation
Dan founded Neovation in 2012 and leads the company behind SmarterU, OttoLearn and JoySuite. Dan's career has turned on one question: why is it so hard for people to find, and keep, what their own company already knows?
Dan speaks often at eLearning events and likes to make L&D professionals question long-held beliefs about how people learn and retain information. The talks are fast paced and funny, and they make complicated subjects clear to technical and non-technical audiences alike.
Formats: Keynotes, conference sessions, workshops, round tables, webinars and interviews.
Talks Dan gives
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Beyond ChatGPT: a practical AI toolkit for L&D
A hands-on tour of AI tools a training team can use today, from turning a script into a narrated video to drafting slides and infographics, prototyping learning games and brainstorming quiz questions.
For Learning, compliance and training professionals
Recorded January 2026
Watch the webinar: Beyond ChatGPT: a practical AI toolkit for L&D -
Reimagining compliance training with AI
How AI can personalize coaching, close each person's knowledge gaps and put employees in realistic scenarios, and what that means for a backlog of compliance courses that cost a lot to build.
For Teams responsible for compliance training
Recorded October 2025
Watch the webinar: Reimagining compliance training with AI -
Putting your company's knowledge to work with AI
What changes when the documents an organization holds are kept in one knowledge center, search understands what people mean, and a virtual expert answers questions about the organization's own content.
For Managers, L&D and HR leaders, and anyone who shares information or onboards people
Recorded July 2025
Watch the webinar: Putting your company's knowledge to work with AI -
Learning analytics you can read at a glance
A step-by-step session on turning training data into a dashboard in Microsoft's free Power BI, with cards, tables, maps and filters, given as a hands-on session at DevLearn 2019.
For Training managers, LMS administrators and anyone who reports on training
Recorded 2023, 15 minutes
Watch the demo: Learning analytics you can read at a glance (opens in a new tab)
Philip Giles
Senior Sales Director, Neovation
Philip is one of Neovation's senior sales directors and its resident AI practitioner. A lifelong early adopter of technology, Philip draws on more than 20 years of international sales and marketing experience across many industries to assess what each organization's training needs.
Philip's sessions are high-energy and built live. Audiences watch a folder of documents become an AI coach, or score their own team's readiness for AI, during the session.
Formats: Keynotes, conference sessions, webinars and interactive sessions.
Talks Philip gives
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Build a corporate brain
Philip turns a folder of scattered documents into an AI coach in real time, then uses the same material to generate role-plays, scenarios and knowledge checks that teach the skill behind the answer.
For Organizations whose expertise is trapped in documents
Recorded February 2026
Watch the webinar: Build a corporate brain -
Protect your company DNA with AI
How AI-powered learning keeps culture, values and the unwritten standards of your best people teachable as an organization grows, with existing content turned into scenario-based learning during the session.
For Growing organizations spread across job sites, offices or communities, with no technical background needed
Recorded March 2026
Watch the webinar: Protect your company DNA with AI -
From AI-curious to AI-confident
An interactive self-assessment that shows where a team sits on the AI adoption curve, names what is holding it back, and ends with a 30-day plan for the team's next stage.
For L&D teams at any stage, with no technical background required
Recorded May 2026
Watch the webinar: From AI-curious to AI-confident -
AI in L&D: friend, foe or future?
A fast-paced look at how AI can simplify training work, personalize learning paths and speed up content creation, for people who are AI-curious and for people who are AI-cautious.
For L&D managers, instructional designers, training coordinators, HR professionals and business leaders
Recorded January 2025
Watch the webinar: AI in L&D: friend, foe or future?
Recorded talks
Full recordings of recent sessions, so you can see how each speaker presents before you book.
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Beyond ChatGPT: Your Practical AI Toolkit for L&D
See the webinar page -
From Static Files to Active Coaches: Building a “Corporate Brain”
See the webinar page
More recordings
Conferences, interviews and podcasts
Dan has spoken at learning conferences and joined podcasts and video interviews about AI, training, microlearning, and building a company.
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December 2025
Webinar, LERN (Learning Resources Network)
AI tools for 2026
Where AI stands for staff productivity, from chatbots to media generation and faster workflows.
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November 2024
Conference, LERN annual conference
The top eTools for 2024
Dan's yearly tour of tools for continuing education teams, this time centered on AI tools such as NotebookLM and Scribe.
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November 2023
Conference, LERN annual conference
The top eTools for 2023: AI tools edition
AI tools for everyday program work: course titles, outlines, quizzes, video, and chatbots.
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August 2023
Webinar, Institute for Performance and Learning
Training dashboards in Power BI
How to build custom dashboards from training data in Microsoft's free Power BI.
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April 2023
Keynote, Manitoba Learning & Development Association retreat
Demystifying AI for L&D
A keynote that went past the hype to explain how generative AI works and what it means for learning and development teams.
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February 2023
Online conference, Learning Guild Microlearning Online Conference
Proving the effectiveness of your microlearning program with Power BI
Building dashboards that tie microlearning data to operational results.
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October 2020
Podcast, WTC Winnipeg
Innovation Series, episode 8
Dan talks with Mariette Mulaire and Joelle Foster about how Neovation helps organizations create and deliver training, and how OttoLearn and microlearning support long-term retention.
Listen to the episode (opens in a new tab) -
September 2020
Live stream, #LearningCollective by RISC Inc.
Self-directed learning and knowledge retention
Dan on how learning that people direct themselves helps them keep what they learn.
Watch the stream (opens in a new tab) -
June 2020
Video interview, Quicksilver from The eLearning Alchemist Podcast
The business case for microlearning
Dan talks with host Clint Clarkson about how microlearning is changing corporate training.
Watch the interview (opens in a new tab) -
October 2019
Conference, DevLearn 2019
Microlearning gamification without the games
Dan's session drew a standing-room-only crowd. He also led a hands-on session on building training dashboards in Power BI.
Read the recap (opens in a new tab) -
2018
Conference, DevLearn 2018, Las Vegas
Moving to continuous compliance training
A packed session on keeping compliance knowledge current with practice spaced over time after the first course.
Read the recap (opens in a new tab)
Philip's sessions for other organizations
Philip has given these sessions for associations, networks and companies.
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October 2026
Canadian Franchise Association
Moneyball for franchising: using AI to predict success before it happens
How a franchisor can bring training, point-of-sale and audit data together and use predictive modeling to see which locations will succeed before the results show up.
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September 2026
Volunteer Yukon
Your first hour with AI
A free session for beginners: set up an account, learn what the tools are for, and finish one real task from your own work.
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July 2026
Engineers Nova Scotia
Practical AI prompting for professionals
A hands-on prompting session; attendees took home the slides, sample prompts and sample documents.
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May 2026
BentallGreenOak
AI at work: what it actually is, what it isn't and how to use it today
A 60-minute lunch-and-learn without jargon for a mixed professional audience, with live demos and a simple framework for prompting.
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May 2026
Manitoba Learning & Development Association conference
Your organization is running a learning deficit, and your dashboard is hiding it
A 15-minute talk on learning debt, the cost of capability gaps that never close, and how to make the case for closing them to executives.
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May 2026
Canadian Franchise Association
The end of the search bar: transforming your operations manual into an AI consultant
Why a manual on a shelf leaves a compliance gap, how retrieval-augmented generation works in plain English, the operations manual as a virtual field consultant, and keeping proprietary content private.
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February 2026
Canadian Franchise Association
Scaling the founder's vibe: digitizing culture for rapid expansion
Keeping a founder's culture intact past the first five locations, with simulations and digital role-play.
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April 2025
Manitoba Learning & Development Association
Revolutionizing content development and knowledge management with AI
An in-person session where the room used AI on a practice project, with questions on tools and prompting.
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August 2024
Canadian Franchise Association
AI in training
How AI tools such as ChatGPT work, how to use them in everyday learning and development tasks, and their risks and limits.
Writing
Dan is a contributing author to these whitepapers.
AI sessions for your association's members
Associations tell us their members are worried about what AI means for their work, and want safe, practical ways to use it. Philip Giles builds a live session for your members, at no cost to your association, that shows them how to get real value from the AI tools they already have.
Each session starts with a call about your members and your sector, so the examples match the work they do. It suits boards, staff and volunteers as well as members. Philip teaches as a practitioner, and the session carries no sales pitch.
- A call beforehand about your members, your sector and where AI is coming up
- A 60-minute live session, mostly demonstrations, with time for questions
- How AI works, and how to use it securely, privately and responsibly
- Prompting and practical exercises built around your members' roles
- A graphic to promote the session to your members or your board
- A recording and a resource kit for attendees afterward
Planning your event
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Formats
Keynotes, conference sessions, custom workshops, round tables and webinars, in person or online. We also join podcasts and video interviews.
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Audiences
Our sessions have been given for L&D and HR teams, compliance and training managers, instructional designers, LMS administrators, business leaders and IT decision-makers, technical or not.
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Workshops
Each workshop is built for its event and its audience. A workshop can be hands-on, with people working on their own laptops as we go.
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What to tell us
Your event's name and date, whether it's in person or online, who will be in the room, the format and length you have in mind, and the subject you'd like us to cover.
Ask about a talk
Tell us about your event, your audience and the format you have in mind, and which of our speakers you'd like. We reply within three business hours.
Prefer email? hello@neovation.com
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