How do you Scale-Up an Innovation Sector?
– Well it is not Easy, but it is Happening!
Like scaling-up a company, you need: a differentiated Product, a united Team, and a Plan.
The Plan needs to support a means for:
– Access to Capital, Access to Talent, and Access to Markets
Here in Alberta, our Innovation Sector has always had an outstanding Product – Alberta’s entrepreneurial spirit, our growing tech companies supported by outstanding polytechnics and universities, and a province offering a great quality of life. However up until 7 years ago, our tech companies (due to their small individual marketing budgets, and geographic-distance-from-major-markets) have been an “Alberta well-kept secret”.
Answer? In comes Alberta Innovates – with an updated gameplan, patterned on a previously little known emerging tech-sector in an energy economy – Austin Texas’s SXSW . Working with partners across Alberta’s innovation sector, not only is Inventure$ now helping Alberta punch above our weight class, tracking to attract 4000 attendees this year (to what is now one of the largest innovation conferences in Western Canada), but this conference is the centrepiece of a system strategy and annual plan designed to bring attention to the players and the unique capacity of this province:
– Alberta Companies are Ready: Over the past 4 years, the Alberta Scale-Up Gap Accelerators (a municipal, provincial, and federal government collaboration) have put many Alberta innovation companies through ‘basic training’ so that they would be ready to compete on the global stage.
– Bringing the world to them – reducing their costs: We encourage our companies to “think big”, recognizing that the Alberta market is not large enough to provide a sufficient customer base. Our companies are listening, but until they are strong financially – they do not have a large budget to help them reach international investors and customers, and develop the relationships they need in the early adopter process.
Therefore – the cost effective answer for Alberta companies collectively, is to build a strategy which includes a world-class conference to attract the world to Alberta. Inventure$ brings international investors, collaborators, and more to our province – putting our companies on the stage, and Alberta on the map. So this is the plan, and these were some of the key building blocks – to get us where we are now, Canada’s fastest growing tech sector (and beyond – as shared by Minister Nate Glubish – in his recent post “Our tech sector was ranked 12th fastest growing in the world by PitchBook..”). The headlines of Alberta’s unicorns have been generated through the combined efforts of the hard, hard, work of our entrepreneurs; the spotlight that has brought investment and more to Alberta through Inventure$; the Accelerators and their global networks; and Alberta’s hard-working community of innovation champions.
So that is it everyone – in the familiar words of a popular song “This One’s for You!”. Come out to the ever expanding Inventure$ and join Alberta’s strong and growing innovation community, -which this year is further engaging with Alberta student talent so that they see for themselves that Alberta’s future is bright.. and innovative!
Register by May 15 and Save $250
..and don’t forget to come by the Technology Alberta booth – and ask for your “I Heart Alberta Tech” stickers, and visit with the exciting tech companies and partners that are co-hosting our booth with us.
See you there everyone!
Gail
Gail J. Powley, P.Eng
President, Technology Alberta
