Martin Katz

Martin Katz isn’t just some tech guy—you could call him one of the OGs of the Canadian internet scene. Third person through the door at MSN Canada, back when that was all brand new, Katz basically helped invent what we think of as digital storytelling. He was the brains behind the first episodic “web-umentary”—yeah, before streaming was even a thing. That project, Splice, went deep on Marshall McLuhan, tossing the iconic thinker into the whirlwind of a world flipping from analog to digital. It was edgy, weird, and honestly way ahead of its time. But Katz didn’t stop there. He teamed up with heavy hitters—Carol Shields (yep, the Pulitzer winner), David Cronenberg (master of the weird), and comedians like Jean-Guy Moreau and Rick Mercer. Talk about a wild crew. Together, they cooked up interactive projects that seriously pushed the boundaries of what the web could do back then. He even dreamed up the first-ever 3-D internet experience—a Halloween special riffing on Freaky Stories, that oddball YTV kids’ show everyone secretly loved. And just when you think, oh, he’s just a media guy, Katz drops the law credentials. He’s got law degrees from both Toronto and Paris, and he’s done his time as a law prof at the University of Moncton, plus a gig lecturing on IP law at U of T. So yeah, he’s got both the creativity and the brains—one of those rare folks who can actually pull off the whole “renaissance person” thing without sounding pretentious.