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Welcome to TechnologyAlberta's Monthly Newsletter - where through our Alberta-wide board, volunteers, and networks we provide both relevant news, and increased visibility of our strong and growing tech sector. We lead with headlines, helping you stay current through a quick scan.

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Visit us at technologyalberta.com

Note from the President
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Attention all Alberta Tech Companies who are interested in opportunities to sell to Government – consider registering on Technation’s TECH2GOV database, it can make a difference to not only your company but in showcasing Alberta’s tech strength on a National level.  There is no cost to register and requires only about 10 minutes to complete. Visit here or see below for more details.
 
Thanks Everyone – and without further ado, here is your September Newsletter,

Gail
Gail J. Powley, P.Eng
President, Technology Alberta
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Call for Volunteers

Technology Alberta needs volunteers
Help support Alberta's growing tech sector!

Ideally, we need Albertans that have a business, communications, or technology background to assist for 1 hour/week, working remotely. This is an exciting opportunity to support the Technology Alberta team.

Email info@technologyalberta.ca if you are interested in being part of this important program.

On August 17, 2020, Edmonton City Council endorsed the board member candidates for the soon to be created innovation entity. Fifteen shortlisted candidates, out of approximately 160 applicants, were interviewed for the seven available board positions. The following individuals were selected for the positions: 

• Joanne Fedeyko, Founder and CEO at Connection Silicon Valley
• Shaheel Hooda, Managing Partner at Sprout Fund
• Ashlyn Bernier, COO at SAM (Social Asset Management)
• Farzad Haider Alvi, Assistant Professor of Innovation Finance at Athabasca University
• Aaryn Flynn, Studio Founder and General Manager, North America at Improbable
• Nicole Janssen, COO and Co-Founder at Altaml Inc.
• Sheetal Metha Walsh, Founder and Board Member at Shanti Life

“The new board is made up of individuals who are passionate about Edmonton. The diverse experience and mix of entrepreneurs and governance experts will grow and articulate the vision of Edmonton’s innovation ecosystem,” said Mayor Don Iveson. “This work is vital to a more resilient economy—especially as a key pillar in leading our city’s economic recovery.”

The Chair and new board will form and finalize the direction, strategy and values of the new innovation entity. One of their first initiatives will be to select a new Chief Executive Officer. The City of Edmonton will be the shareholder of the new entity and City Council is the representative of the shareholder. 

A streamlined government procurement process is available for free - TECH2GOV Digital Marketplace. TECHNATION is providing this offering by working with community partners across Canada, including: CAMSC, CATAAlliance, City of Brampton, ICTC, Invest Ottawa, Innovate BC, Magnet.today, Ottawa Board of Trade, TechnologyAlberta and ventureLAB.

This open business intelligence platform is open to all tech-based companies across Canada, to register and showcase their innovative tech solutions and areas of tech specialization. The goal is to improve industry access to procurement opportunities, especially for Canadian SMEs, providing a one-stop shop for public and private sector officials to view innovative technological solutions on offer across the country.  250 Canadian companies have already registered! Visit here.

The Canada-Alberta Job Grant is a training program where an employer applies on behalf of their employee(s) for eligible training costs. Employers decide who gets training and what type of training may be needed for their employees.

The Canada-Alberta Job Grant program is accepting online applications through Labour’s Workforce Grants Portal. Applying online offers many benefits to employers:

• Applications can be submitted faster because employers no longer have to mail in the applications and documents.
• Employers can see their application status at any time.
• All documentation for the grant application exists in one secure place the employer can access.

Learn more here.

New -  Foresight Cleantech Edmonton Launch Program

The Edmonton Launch program is a 6-week mentoring and support program for cleantech entrepreneurs powered by a top accelerator and a top incubator: Foresight and TEC Edmonton.

Join this program today and let us help you to figure out what are your most important metrics (and how to measure them), validate your market fit, become clear about your assumptions, and identify the nature of your customer relationships and product mix – and do this first, before too much money is sunk into it, or before you approach a venture capitalist.

Learn more here.

FunnelAI & Amii Announce Partnership

FunnelAI, the industry’s leading real-time B2B SaaS artificial intelligence (AI) based semantic search platform announced a new collaboration with Amii, a global leader in AI research and development. This strategic partnership will expedite FunnelAI’s innovative and unique AI platform development through guidance and support from Amii’s leading-edge research and development capabilities in the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP).

This partnership was a strategic initiative for FunnelAI, championed by one of the co-founders, Suja Kamma, who is a Canadian and an alumni of University of Alberta. Her experience in healthcare and strategy, and her experience understanding, developing, and implementing AI business tools was critical for FunnelAI in solidifying such a strategic partnership. This collaboration expedites FunnelAI’s global expansion to Canada and other countries.

Free Sales Help for Local Technology Companies

Spearheaded by Craig Elias, James Christopher, and Jeff Violo, Tech Sales Tuesdays are held the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of every month from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. Mountain time (GMT -7).

The series is designed to help Alberta's local tech firms get free sales help while showing aspiring, first-time, and early-stage entrepreneurs and salespeople how to accelerate the development of a healthy sales funnel by learning a repeatable data-driven process to validate their value proposition, pricing, and product offering while seeing relevant examples so they can learn what an exceptional sales methodology for world-class technology firms looks like.

The format is a series of speakers, panels, sales methodology pitch sessions, ask me anything, and successful examples of sales methodology development.

Learn more.

DiscoveryLab's Invitation to Pitch Business Plan

Our meetings are intended to help teams wanting to commercialize new technologies and high value research products and services. You'll have the opportunity to meet with our advisors, network with entrepreneurial colleagues, and present your plan. Those who typically pitch include academic researchers, clinical scientists, and directors of new ventures, spin outs or SMEs.

Presenters submit a summary of their plan and are asked to describe their unique edge, market leading position, team, intellectual property, business strategy, products/services to be developed, investment desired, timeframe for delivery, and any specific questions they'd like addressed.

Learn more.

Edmonton RIN Community Initiatives Submission

The ERIN Steering Committee has a discretionary fund of $25,000 for Community Initiatives. By funding multiple projects throughout the year, both community participation and momentum can be increased, providing more opportunities for entrepreneurs. Most commonly initiatives will be awarded up to $2,500 however some increased amounts may be distributed if there is significant impact to the ecosystem.

The application deadline is on the 15th of each month, applicants should anticipate hearing results within 30 days of the deadline. To submit your community initiative visit here.

Jobber - Edmonton Software Company helping Small Service Businesses to Get the Job Done

Jobber, which offers an online platform that helps small home service businesses organize their entire operations, now has 220 employees and 90,000 users in 47 countries. Every year, businesses using the platform deliver $6 billion in services, and that number is rapidly growing.

“That’s $6-billion worth of lawns mowed and sinks fixed and roofs repaired and apartments cleaned,” said Sam Pillar, co-founder and CEO of Jobber. “And there are millions and millions of these small businesses in North America alone, so it’s still early days for us.”

Jobber now gains more customers in a month than it had in its first four years of business, and the company says businesses using Jobber have serviced over 10 million people.

Read more. 

Courtesy: Edmonton Global

EdTech Startup Showbie Raises $5 Million

Edmonton-based EdTech startup Showbie, which offers a classroom workflow platform, has raised a $5 million CAD Series A round, bringing the startup’s total funding to date to $9 million CAD. The round was led by Vancouver-based Rhino Ventures, with participation from Point Nine Capital, Azure Capital, and several other Canadian and international investors, which Showbie declined to disclose at the investors’ request.

Candace Hobin, community manager at Rhino Ventures, told BetaKit Showbie will use the capital to focus on improving digital communication on its platform, and will build products to help teachers, schools, and districts better understand student engagement.

Founded in 2012 by Bramm and CTO Roy Pombeiro, Showbie offers a variety of educational tools in one app. The startup’s platform is designed to increase teacher productivity, aid in identifying struggling students, and allow administrators to follow classroom learning objectives. The startup claims it has over 3 million educators registered for its products globally.

Some of Showbie’s products include a function allowing teachers to distribute documents, images, instructions, and feedback to students, and to either upload their own math or language arts content or select assignments and lesson plans, already loaded into Showbie’s platform.

Calgary-based Attabotics Raises $66 Million CAD Series C Round

Attabotics, a Calgary-based startup that has created a robotic warehousing and fulfillment system, has raised $65.9 million CAD ($50 million USD) in a Series C round of funding.

The round was led by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, through its Teachers’ Innovation Platform, and existing investor Honeywell. The Series C comes just over a year since Attabotics announced its Series B round, which brought in $25 million. With its Series C, the startup claims total funding to date of $82.7 million USD.

Attabotics plans to use its newfound capital to further accelerate its commercial deployment, invest in new technologies, scale manufacturing operations, “and more” – similarity to how it planned to spend its Series B capital.

Founded in 2015, Attabotics is a 3D robotic supply chain company that looks to bring scale and efficiency to its customers’ supply chains. The Calgary startup sells, designs, manufactures, and implements 3D robotic supply chain systems, which incorporate high-density automated storage and retrieval systems with goods-to-person order fulfillment solutions.

StellarAlgo Closes $1.5M Extended Seed Financing

StellarAlgo, the Calgary-based creator of the leading customer data platform for live audience businesses, has completed a $1.5 million extended seed financing just as sports organizations and live event operators prepare to resume operations after disruption due to COVID-19.

The latest funding round was co-led by Accelerate Fund II and James Lochrie of Thin Air Labs. The round was primarily made up of existing investors who have observed StellarAlgo’s exponential growth and top decile customer retention metrics since the company’s initial capital raise in mid-2018.

The StellarAlgo Customer Data Platform helps sports teams, sponsors, leagues, and other live audience businesses gain valuable insights and a deeper understanding of their fan universe through the use of machine-learning technology. The platform integrates data and enriches fan profiles in order to allow organizations to better segment and personalize their fan outreaches and then measure performance. Founded in late 2016, StellarAlgo has grown to serve over 50 customers with 180% percent year-over-year growth in 2019.

Edmonton-based Stantec Leading Global Research Project to Digitally Transform Water Utility Companies

An Edmonton-based engineering company is leading a global research project to digitally transform water and wastewater utilities in an effort to become more cost-efficient.

The Water Research Foundation, a non-profit organization, announced last Thursday Stantec would be developing a framework that water and wastewater utilities can follow when looking to use new technologies to improve operations such as monitoring of pipes and other infrastructure. The goal is to catch problems such as water main breaks sooner and reduce operational costs by becoming more efficient with up-to-date data.

Stantec will be working with 30 agencies in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Singapore over the next 11 months to develop the framework. Up to 75 people will be involved in the project including Stantec’s research team and a technical advisory team.

Read more here. 

GreenSTEM: Call for Advisors

GreenSTEM a pilot entrepreneurial fellowship for recent Masters and PhD graduates from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) programs. The 2-year program supports new entrepreneurs to take technology concepts towards commercialization. GreenSTEM has just kicked off the second cohort in the program and is looking for advisors to help support new entrepreneurs on their journey. To meet the fellows and learn more about their ventures, please visit here. 

GreenSTEM volunteer advisors make an incredible contribution to the success of the entrepreneurs and their ventures. As an advisor you have the opportunity to contribute to Alberta’s innovation ecosystem, meet and support next generation entrepreneurs as well as get to know other experienced individuals serving as advisors in the program. You can also join networking events with other entrepreneurs, the investor community, government etc.

Learn more. 

Come join us on September 8th, 2020 for an AI-mazing virtual summit on Artificial Intelligence each hour of the day!
 
​We kick off in Australia and Asia then move on to Europe, Africa and the Americas.
 
What will you gain and experience?
​
50 keynotes, panels, and workshops by leading global AI experts that cover topics in Health, FinTech, Ethics, Business, Education, Culture, and more. We'll also showcase several conversational AIs. Bringing all minds together, join us in taking a step forward and making AI diverse and inclusive for all.

Learn more. 

Date And Time: Tuesday, September 8 2020, 12:30 AM - 05:15 PM
Location: Online

Our weekly connection for the tech and innovation ecosystem. Furthering entrepreneurs one conversation at a time. For the month of September, we will be focusing on Diversity and Inclusion.

Join us each week in September to learn more about why diversity & inclusivity (D&I) are important to the growing tech innovation economy across Alberta. We'll feature tools, expert speakers, and companies that are already using diversity and incusion as a competitive advantage in their business.

This is not about platitudes or checking boxes.

When we talk about Diversity and Inclusion, we mean that we are open and welcoming to those who live and express the Rainforest Values and we seek to be equitable, fair, and transparent. Innovation requires diversity in opinion, thought, experience, cultural background and demographics like age and gender, among others.

As a member of the Rainforest, you are not excluding yourself from any other community or initiative. We seek to be a harmonious compliment to other aligned initiatives and anyone from the community is explicitly invited to join us.

Agenda

• September 2nd: Recap of Summer Tour and Intro to Fall Programming
• September 9th: Introduction to D&I, Sharing Resources, Best Practices
• September 16: Expert Panel (details to follow)
• September 23rd: Learn from businesses who have D&I as core values
• September 30th: Open networking, breakout groups and collective conversation about D&I

Curious what's happening in the innovation ecosystem in Alberta?

Rainforest Alberta is movement, building community in the tech and innovation ecosystem in the province through opening conversations around culture, leadership, and other focus areas.

We believe Alberta is primed to be a global destination for growing your tech venture right in this province. Come to a meeting to find out why, or for more information, visit www.rainforestab.ca

Learn more. 

Date And Time: Wednesday, September 9 2020, 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Location: Online

Game Business Success Series: Pitch Perfect Pitching



This session will present a recipe for delivering the perfect game project pitch. In addition to doing a slide-by-slide breakdown, the process of securing pitch meetings, and how to best manage pitch timing and delivery will also be covered.

The Game Business Success Series

Calling all games entrepreneurs! This three-part series will assist games entrepreneurs in gaining business insights to take their project or business to the next level. Hosted by Calgary Economic Development and Startup Calgary, education sessions will be led by global industry expert and co-founder of Execution Labs, Jason Della Rocca. Following the series, Calgary studios and indies will be invited to have the opportunity to apply for 1:1 mentorship and coaching opportunities with Jason. 

Learn more. 

Date And Time: Thursday, September 10 2020, 06:00 - 07:30 PM
Location: Online

WOMEN LEADING INNOVATION: PRESENTED BY SHEINNOVATES

Gain insights from seventeen women who have broken boundaries in the tech and entrepreneurial workspaces. Don’t miss a moment – it’s all happening on the Inventures Unbound live stream platform.

Learn more. 

Date And Time: Tuesday, September 15 2020, 09:00 AM - 12:00 PM 
Location: Online

Date And Time: Thursday, September 17 2020, 05:00 PM - 08:00 PM MDT
Location: The Pioneer, 117 8 Avenue Southwest, Calgary, AB T2P 1B4

Register

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Date And Time: Thursday, September 17 2020 05:30 PM - 10:00 PM MDT

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Date And Time: Thursday, September 29 2020 01:00 PM - 05:00 PM CST
Location: Online

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Date And Time: Wednesday, September 30 2020, 08:30 AM - Wednesday, November 18, 2020 04:00 PM
Location: Online

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