Board of Directors

Janos Maté

Janos Maté (M.A.), one of the founders of Instruments Beyond Borders, is a former social worker and therapist and a long time peace, environmental, social justice and animal rights activist. 

He has been a Greenpeace campaigner since 1989, working on issues related to nuclear disarmament, ozone layer depletion and climate change. 

Over the years he has produced numerous benefit galas in Vancouver. These included telethons and events at the Plaza of Nations , the Orpheum and the Vogue theatres,  and have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for a variety of worthy causes. He was one of the founders and a Co-Director of the Chutzpah Festival. 

He is the recipient of awards from the Governor General of Canada, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the United States Environment Protection Agency.

Patrick Ellis

Passionate about all things music, Patrick Ellis sees Instruments Beyond Borders as tremendous chance to share his love for music by giving less fortunate young people the chance to discover and develop their own musical passions.

Patrick is President of Blue Note Wine & Spirits Inc. (Vancouver BC), a Wine, Spirits and Premium Saké import and marketing company founded in 1996.

Educated at M.I.T. (Masters, 2015), Keio University (Tokyo) and University Victoria, Patrick also is a certified Senior Saké Specialist.

He is fluent in Japanese and in addition to his annual Japan trips, he travels extensively to a number of countries around the world.

Patrick presently serves on the Board of the Entrepreneur Organization (EO), and he is the proud father of 3 daughters who are all currently studying at UBC.

Praveen Varshney

Praveen Varshney is a long-time member and past President of the Vancouver chapter of The Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) and a founding director of the Vancouver chapter of The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE).  

Mr. Varshney is a past recipient of Business in Vancouver's 40 Under 40 Awards.  

He is also a director of the Varshney Family Charitable Foundation, a SVPVancouver.org Partner, a Director of OneProsper.org and on the advisory board of Room to Read - Canada.

Nicholas Urquhart

Nicholas Urquhart is the VPO’s assistant conductor and recipient of the VPO Wallace Leung Memorial Internship. He is a conductor, double bassist and music educator. He holds degrees in both Music and Music Education. He began his conductor training while studying double bass at the University of Victoria. There he mentored with Maestros Janos Sandor and Yariv Aloni, earning his Bachelor’s of Music with distinction. Nicholas continued his conducting studies once in Vancouver, studying with Kenneth Hsieh, Morihiro Okabe and Bujar Llapaj and Jin Zhang.

Nicholas is the Music Director of the West Vancouver Youth Strings and the Killarney Strings. He is a regular guest conductor with I Musici Sushi

Ensemble and is currently in his third year as the assistant conductor for the Canada Day Pops Orchestra.  He is also President of the West Coast Symphony.

Mr. Urquhart has worked with a number of ensembles including, the West Coast Symphony, Sunshine Coast Symphony, BCMEA Honour Orchestra, University of Victoria Chamber Orchestra (a group which he founded), A Little Night Music Orchestra, Kabok Chamber Strings, Elgar Strings, Lord Byng Symphony Orchestra, Plastic Acid Chamber Strings and Surrey Youth Orchestra. As well, Nicholas is a regular clinician with the Vancouver and Burnaby school boards and has worked as an adjudicator and clinician for the Kiwanis International Music Festival.

Noni Maté

Noni Maté is the former Director of 7th Floor Media, a new media development group for education and culture, at Simon Fraser University. Her team of designers, programmers and educational experts created web sites, interactive kiosks, installations, mobile sites and Apps. A former English and History teacher, Noni is interested in using technology as a tool for communication and learning.

Elena Orrego

Elena is originally from Chile and has lived in Canada for most of her adult life.  She holds a Bachelor’s Specialist and Master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Toronto in Canada.  Elena has studied and worked in herbal medicine for many years, and for 13 years she co-owned, directed, and administered a successful natural health center that prepared and distributed herbal medicine in Vancouver, Canada.  The centre also provided the service of practitioners in herbal medicine and other traditional health care practices.  Elena has participated in a major international collaborative research project on social adaptations to climate change, and for more than ten years she has facilitated workshops on inter-cultural communication and diversity. She was the Project Coordinator between 2006 and 2010 in a UBC-based CIDA Tier 1 International Collaborative Project Sustainably Managing Health Risks in Ecuador.  She was also the Project Manager of Think and Eat Green at School at the University of British Columbia from 2010 to 2016, a project dedicated to create sustainable and healthy food systems in Vancouver’s public schools.

Allan Doolittle

Allan Doolittle practices law at Gudmundseth Mickelson LLP in Vancouver. He litigates commercial and public law matters, including complex real estate disputes and class actions, and also has extensive experience involving incorporated societies. Prior to practicing law he attended Dalhousie Law School where he received numerous awards and scholarships following which he assisted several Justices as a law clerk at the British Columbia Court of Appeal. Before attending law school Allan was a graduate student at Simon Fraser University where he studied mythology and the poetry of Alexander Pope.