That case opened our Ethics of AI in Marketing Tech Thursday panel on April 30th, and set the tone for the evening’s discussion.

Three different experts whose work lies in the consequences of post-AI deployment were invited to weigh in: Professor Noah Castelo, who researches consumer trust in AI at the University of Alberta; Adam LaRoche of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP — a data and privacy lawyer for some of Canada’s largest companies; and Bob Evans from Wisdom, who’s spent 10 years building conversational AI products for Intuit and Jobber.

Here’s what surfaced 👇

1. “You know you messed up when you’ve got a problem named after you.”

Evans was building an internal chatbot at Jobber when the news broke about Air Canada’s fail. “In the office, we called it the ‘Air Canada problem’, and we discussed how to avoid it. Basically, we concluded: don’t give it information it doesn’t need. Anything you hand it that isn’t required for its core function increases the probability that it’ll use that information to do something destructive.”

“If you don’t want your bot to talk about pricing information and you give it pricing information, chances are it’s going to talk about pricing information.” - Evans

LaRoche was clearcut with his own advice: “A chatbot essentially acts as your agent. If it makes a commitment to a customer, that commitment is yours. Disclaimers help. Strict parameters help. But there’s no magic language that makes the liability disappear, particularly when a judge is sitting across from a customer who relied on what the bot told them.”

“My experience with judges is that they’re people too. They’re going to side with the customer most of the time.” - LaRoche

2. “People attribute the use of service bots to cost-cutting at the expense of quality.”

This brought us to Klarna — a company that learned its lesson the hard way. In 2024, the company fired around 700 customer service staff, replaced them with chatbots, announced major efficiency gains… and then rehired them. The bots were missing the mark with customers.

Castelo wasn’t surprised. His research finds that people rate bot service lower than human service, even when the service quality is word-for-word identical. That’s because customers assume the bot was deployed to save money, and they interpret that choice as coming at their expense.

“That cost-cutting attribution is one part of it. But also, people have a lot of experience with incompetent bots that can’t solve their problems as effectively as a human can. That’s a really hard perception to counter.”

There’s one exception, added Castelo. When a bot is unambiguously better than a human (faster, more accurate, less grumpy at the end of a long Wednesday), satisfaction goes up. “Expedia’s flight-change bot is one example. You don’t have to wait on hold. It’s immediate and unambiguously better.”

Brought to you by:

Osler is a leading business law firm uniquely positioned to advise Canadian, U.S. and international clients on an array of domestic and cross-border legal issues. Learn more here.

3. “Brenda was a Bot. I felt betrayed.”

While chatbots can be more efficient, it’s also become increasingly difficult to decipher man from machine. What happens the moment a customer realizes the voice on the other end of the line, the one they’ve just apologized to for interrupting mid-sentence, isn’t actually “listening”, but rather just predicting the next token in a sequence?

We discussed the story of how I answered what I thought was a regular customer service call. I was hands-free in the car with my toddler in the back seat. Brenda, the voice on the other end, sounded a little hoarse, like they might have a cold. I felt a little sorry for them. Then I went off-script.

“I have to go. My daughter just threw up in the back seat.” After a brief pause, Brenda’s reply was to offer me 40 gigabytes of free data per month. I suddenly realized I was talking to a bot. I felt betrayed.”

It’s a difficult thing to describe, but Evans knew what I meant. He’d watched that exact problem play out at scale. Over 50% of calls to the AI receptionist system he built were ended in the first 15 seconds — people hanging up the moment they suspected they weren’t talking to a human. Even though 95% of those callers’ needs could have been resolved quickly and easily.

“As the person building and deploying this tech, it puts you in a weird spot. You ask yourself what you’re really building. Are you building something specifically to trick people?”

For most, the answer would be “Not intentionally.” But the pressure to increase engagement is only mounting, and the gap between what a well-designed AI can do and what people are comfortable letting it do for them is still really wide, which is where ethical and legal questions of disclosure tend to seep in.

The question turned to whether we could resolve ambiguity through disclosures. Evans wasn’t so sure. “At Jobber, we had to decide whether to tell callers they were speaking to an AI bot. The law was murky. It wasn’t an easy decision; every time we disclosed it was AI, people hung up. We chose to disclose anyway.

“There was a time when the bottom line was pushing against morality. We held the line.”- Evans

4. “People still want to know a human was involved in the creation of what they’re consuming.”

And then there’s the question of copyright. Stability AI, for example, was trained on Getty images. The tell was in the watermarks it absorbed and reproduced without understanding what they were. This cracked open a conversation around consent, transparency, and where Canadian law currently stands on these issues.

“The problem is that these are live issues,” LaRoche weighed in, “The courts are still catching up. The fundamental training data problem has two layers: terms of service that prohibit scraping, and reproducibility, when the output is close enough to the original that infringement becomes visible.”

He drew a useful line.

“Not every AI interaction needs a disclosure. Helping someone reschedule a meeting? Probably fine. Declining someone’s refund request? That’s when you’re getting close to the fundamental interests of the individual, which is where transparency starts to matter legally and morally.” - Evans

Castelo found a similar parallel in content generation. His research shows that AI-generated articles aren’t rated lower than human-written ones… unless readers know they were written by AI. “The knowledge of the author’s identity is key.” That’s why there’s a growing movement toward certification, logos, or some other legible signal that something is human-made. “People still want to know a human was involved in the creation of what they’re consuming.”

5. “The only reason AI tools are helpful in my practice is that I already know the answer.”

The panel closed with a question that’s on everyone’s minds: jobs. Will we still have them? McKinsey projected that by 2030, 30% of US work hours could be automated. Women are 1.5 times more likely to be impacted. Low-wage workers, 14 times. The three panellists had consistent instincts about what matters in today’s job market.

“I think oral communication skills are going to be important even in a world of AI,” said Castelo,

“Claude Code can legitimately do pretty much everything a college graduate can do now. So, being able to distinguish high- and low-quality AI output is what’s needed.” - Castelo

LaRoche agreed. “You can tell within the first 30 seconds whether it’s a workable product or not. The only reason AI tools are helpful in my practice is that I already know the answer. I need it generated quickly, and I can validate the output.”

“My advice to people would be to automate the things you’re already good at,” added Evans, “If you’re automating things you’re not good at, you’re never going to get better. I’d way rather have a junior PM produce a lower quality artifact that they sat and thought about before going to ChatGPT.”

The common thread taken from this discussion is that AI is only as good as the judgment behind it. You have to know your craft before you can tell when the tool is getting it wrong. Every case study we discussed, from Air Canada to Brenda, came back to the same question: do your customers trust you? And more specifically, are you giving them a reason to?

LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube | Thursday Live Podcast

That’s what the cab driver said when Murtaza Haider commented that it was nice out after landing at Edmonton International for the first time.

Haider is a Data Science and Real Estate Management Professor who’s spent the last 30+ years studying how cities grow. He’s looked at the numbers up, down, and sideways, and he’s compelled by what he sees: Alberta’s population is expected to grow from 5 million to 7.5 million by 2050, with a million of those new residents settling in Edmonton. This means the city must dramatically increase housing supply. It’s an all hands on deck situation, and it’s a major reason why he relocated to YEG in the first place - he’s been selected as the Executive Director of the Cities Institute, a University of Alberta initiative focused on city-building research and collaboration across academia, public policy, and industry.

Haider moved here on purpose, with a purpose, betting his career on this city’s growth. And the first thing he heard was: Don’t get your hopes up.

“In New York, the cab driver upsells the city to you the moment you land. We have to believe in this city. We have to own it.”

That reflex to undersell before anyone gets too excited was flagged multiple times in various ways at Tech Thursday on the 23 April.

1. “I gave up. And that’s not good.”

Alex Gosselin is a good example. He spent 10 years at Rohit Group fixing problems no one else had tackled yet. He transformed Excel inventories into a database, an ERP, portals for site supervisors, a customer-facing purchase app — until all those fixes added up to something sellable. That’s how Rohit Group’s internal startup, Buildbase, was born. The company’s software now saves homebuilders a significant amount of money across North America by streamlining construction workflows, cutting administrative overhead, and reducing errors across sales, construction, and finance.

But despite building a successful product, Gosselin and his co-founders had little success raising money locally.

“I applied to around 30 funding programs... I gave up. And that’s not good.”

Gosselin and his co-founders poured $8 million of their own money into the business rather than waiting for a system that wasn’t designed for companies like theirs — too real for early-stage investors, too small for late-stage ones. “The worst thing you can do is wait and watch,” Gosselin said. “Others will get there faster, cheaper, better.”

He wasn’t just talking about his competitors.

2. “What’s the value of sending a trained urban planner to look at the same designs all day?”

While Buildbase was silently solo scaling, something else was happening inside the city that most Edmontonians don’t know about.

Mike Kluh is the Director of Business Performance at the City of Edmonton. Four years running, by objective measure from the Canadian Home Builders Association, Edmonton is the best in the country at turning a housing application into a decision. The way they got there was by doing something no other city had thought to do: when they rewrote the zoning bylaw, they wrote it to be read by a machine. Now, thanks to automation, around 70% of single-family home development permits in Greenfield areas are processed with no human in the loop, turning a lengthy wait into a matter of minutes.

“We didn’t say to the public, we don’t care about your setbacks anymore,” Kluh says. “We just asked: what’s the value of sending a trained urban planner to look at the same handful of housing designs on a pre-planned subdivision all day?” Kluh’s team also trained an AI model to predict inspection outcomes. If the data says you’re going to pass, the inspector doesn’t come.

Since 2021, this more efficient permitting process has saved the community 165,000 days of delay and $16 million annually.

And this is just one example of how Edmonton fixed something no one else had fixed and built software around it - software that’s now sold across North America by Computronix.

Brought to you by:

Boast - Are you leaving innovation capital on the table? Boast combines AI-powered automation with specialized tax expertise to help tech companies maximize R&D credit returns. Join 2,000+ businesses who’ve secured $675M+ in funding. Get your free assessment at boast.ai

3. “If you don’t occupy downtown, someone else will.”

But not every fix works the way it’s supposed to, a fact our panel didn’t shy away from.

Haider told a story about a city that built an app to detect potholes through smartphone sensors and automatically dispatch repair crews. It worked exactly as designed. Potholes got fixed faster… but only in wealthy neighbourhoods, where residents had the right kind of phones. The poorer streets stayed be-holed.

The City of Edmonton ran into a similar issue when building its inspection prediction model. A data scientist noticed the model knew contractor IDs. If it also learned company names, it would start predicting outcomes based on cultural patterns in those names. It systematically baked discrimination into a system that looked completely objective from the outside. Luckily, Kluh’s team caught it before it went live.

“You have to be very mindful of what you’re training the model on. It might appear to be making objective decisions, but it might also, without you knowing, be building bias,” says Kluh.

This brought Haider back to Edmonton’s downtown. The homeless population in Toronto is roughly comparable to Edmonton’s per capita. Except, in Toronto, it’s less noticeable because its downtown is so dense with offices, residents, students, and foot traffic. In Edmonton, those with a choice decided to stay away, leaving Jasper Ave and its surrounds occupied by those who don’t have anywhere else to go. “If you don’t occupy downtown, someone else will,” he added.

Though opting out feels like a neutral decision, it really isn’t. Cities are living systems; they respond to where people put their energy, their money, and their presence. Haider believes Edmonton has the opportunity to reclaim that, but it requires collective action.

4. “Don’t worry about jobs. Worry about opportunities.”

The panel closed with questions from an audience featuring young people worried about finding work in a tight market. Haider’s response was practical: “Don’t worry about jobs. Worry about opportunities.”

He recalled how one student applied for a job that didn’t exist in his lab, got a slow response, and showed up at his office door anyway. “That was the best conversation I’d had all week. That student was working for me the very next day.”

Gosselin’s had a similar take on showing initiative. “When I want to land a client, I send them my resume, and I build them something small that I know they need - a little app or a prototype. It’s around two hours of work and you capture their attention,” he said.

“Everyone has a problem. So, what if you showed up with a solution?”

Kluh’s advice was even simpler: “Go to events like this. Meet people. Learn what they do. Put yourself out there.”

5. “The worst thing you can do is wait”

Edmonton is already number one in permits. It already built software the rest of the continent uses. It already produced a homebuilding platform operating across North America. It has a professor who left Toronto to bet his career on this city’s growth, a senior city official rewriting what government can do with data, and a successful founder who kept building through 30 rejections.

The cab driver said wait a week.

Fortunately, these three didn’t.

Coming up at Tech Thursday:

🎉 May 20th - Upper Bound After Party

Co-hosted by: Boast, Artemis Canada, AEC and RBCx.

Upper Bound is almost here! On Wednesday evening, we're taking it off the conference floor and bringing everyone together for an After Party. Open to all conference attendees and the broader Edmonton tech ecosystem.

The event is currently sold out, but we’re working on increasing capacity. Join the waitlist to be first in.

Join the waitlist

LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube | Thursday Live Podcast

Crime is evolving with tech, and so is law enforcement. Genetic genealogy, advanced facial recognition, and AI-assisted evidence collection are improving the speed and accuracy of investigative work. But the legal frameworks governing those same tools are still being written.

Three people in Edmonton live in that paradox every day, and they all came together at a local bar on March 26th for Tech Thursday. Together, they offer an honest account of what it takes to build, sell and deploy tech in law enforcement today.

Our speakers were:

• Bradley Pierson, Founder at Trouvay - A genealogist who solves cold cases with ancestry databases and archival records.

• Devin Laforce, Operations Chief at Edmonton Police Service - Overseeing one of the most technologically ambitious law enforcement agencies in Canada

• Sam Jenkins, CEO & Co-founder at Standard Field Systems - Digitizing roadside sobriety testing.

• Moderated by: Kirsten Sokolovski, Host at Tech Thursday

1. Family Trees and Crime Scenes: The Accidental Detective

Bradley Pierson didn’t set out to build a genetic genealogy company.

At 13, he discovered genealogy. It was an instant obsession. He skipped school to visit archives and dragged his entire family to cemeteries, tracing names, dates, and stories backward through generations. Eventually, he started helping adoptees find their birth parents using consumer DNA testing.

Then he noticed something happening in the United States. Investigators were using the same method to solve violent crimes. Cold cases dormant for decades were suddenly yielding suspects.

The Golden State Killer was identified in 2018, after more than 40 years. His DNA wasn’t in a criminal database, but his distant relative’s DNA was in a consumer one. Investigators built a family tree backward until they found him.

Pierson founded Trouvay to bring that capability to Canada: using consumer DNA databases to identify suspects where no direct DNA match exists.

THIS WEEK at Tech Thursday - Join us on April 30th for a conversation on The Ethics of AI in Marketing, Co-Hosted by Osler.

RSVP here!

2. Tech in YEG: First In, All In

Edmonton Police Service’s Operations Chief Devin Laforce oversees one of the most aggressive technology adopters among Canadian police services.

“We’re the first agency in Canada to explore facial recognition through body-worn video application.”

The list of what EPS is running or developing is genuinely long. Facial recognition tied to a mugshot database, rapid DNA testing at the investigative stage, and AI tools being built to draft police reports directly from body-worn camera footage, enabling officers to swap administrative hours for hands-on policing. EPS also runs a dedicated internal data science team, active research partnerships with AI institutes in Germany and the Netherlands, and financial crime modelling designed to map and disrupt money flows in organized crime.

3. Sobering Tools: Redesigning Roadside Evidence Collection

And then there’s Sam Jenkins. CEO and Co-founder of Standard Field Systems, a spin-off from Punchcard Systems. Jenkins came to public safety technology sideways, through work with Edmonton startup Impirica and a Colorado law enforcement task force focused on impaired driving.

He pinpointed a specific problem: the standardized field sobriety test used by virtually every law enforcement agency in North America is a human-driven process administered under often hazardous conditions - dark, snowy, traffic whizzing by.

“There are a lot of factors that are perhaps making it a little bit more challenging for somebody at the roadside. So, in our case, we’re using technology to remove some biases, but also make it a little easier for an officer to focus on the subject.”

Standard Field Systems built a suite of patented tools that digitize and standardize sobriety test data, producing a documented evidentiary record that’s harder to challenge in court.

“Every 40 minutes or so in North America, someone dies in an impaired driving incident. Last year, approximately 1.3 million charges were laid. This problem deserves better evidence than a distracted roadside test can reliably produce.”

4. Facial Recognition is 98.5% Accurate. Still Not Trusted

Trust and bias, believes LaForce, are funny things.

“Under the Canadian Criminal Code, eyewitness testimony is sufficient grounds for arrest. But research shows that eyewitness identification can have an error rate of around 40%. Facial recognition, deployed with proper human oversight, sits at around 98.5% accuracy. And yet we’re still not trusting it,” says LaForce.

The instinct to be suspicious isn’t irrational. The history of surveillance technology deployed without adequate oversight is long and highly contested. But a debate conducted entirely in worst-case scenarios produces paralysis on one side and unchecked adoption on the other.

EPS’s operational framework for facial recognition reflects more precise thinking. The system runs exclusively against a mugshot database. Every officer authorized to make a facial recognition identification has completed training through both the FBI academy and the RCMP. And facial recognition at EPS is never treated as a conclusion — it’s an investigative lead. Corroborating evidence is mandatory before any identification is acted upon.

“Think of it as fast-tracking an investigation,” LaForce says. “Not solving an investigation.”

Jenkins builds the same philosophy into Standard Field Systems: "the tool is not the sworn officer." It's a layer of consistency around a process that was already human-driven, removing variability without removing judgment.

Brought to you by:

Boast - Are you leaving innovation capital on the table? Boast combines AI-powered automation with specialized tax expertise to help tech companies maximize R&D credit returns. Join 2,000+ businesses who’ve secured $675M+ in funding. Get your free assessment at boast.ai

5. Consent, Bias, and Building for the long game

The bias problem Pierson is navigating isn’t algorithmic. It’s about the systemic gap surrounding Indigenous communities, where missing and murdered people go unidentified at disproportionate rates, and where families have waited decades for answers traditional forensic methods couldn’t provide.

“Their data has been used against them time and time again over decades to hurt them,” Pierson explains. “What we’re trying to build is a database where communities actually can consent on a level that allows their community members to choose what they want to opt into.”

This is a more complicated problem than a consent form can solve.

“DNA is not individual data. When you submit your genetic information, you’re also submitting partial information about every biological relative you have.”

The framework Pierson returns to is borrowed from Indigenous ways of knowing: seven-generation thinking. Decisions made today are evaluated against their impact seven generations from now - the opposite of how most technology gets built today.

“We need regulators, people who understand law. We’re trying to listen, learn, and then build something that hopefully can change lives for a long time going forward.”

6. The Leapfrog Problem: Battling Cybercrime, the Third-Largest Economy on Earth

Unsurprisingly, however, regulators and law enforcement are financially constrained. In fact, there’s no dedicated R&D budget at EPS.

“Every dollar that I take right now to explore something is dollars I’m taking away from something that is functioning towards a purpose already,” LaForce says.

Meanwhile, municipal police services are asked to compete with one of the largest concentrations of economic activity on the planet.

“Cybercrime alone is projected to hit $9.5 trillion globally. That would make it the third-largest economy on earth, after the US and China.”

Slowing adoption is the deliberately measured adoption process itself. “These businesses are wildly different from standard SaaS companies. The cycles are longer because we’re talking about something very consequential, and policy change is slower.”

Consequently, Jenkins has earned what he calls “a new form of patience.”

“I watched my daughter grow from a baby into a child during a single sales cycle, which can be 10 to 15 years.”

The slow pace of tech adoption in public safety stands in stark contrast to the rapid pace at which criminals themselves are adopting it.

“It’s like a continuous game of leapfrog. Organized crime jumps first. Law enforcement lands where organized crime was, catches its breath, and starts looking for the next jump.”

Despite constraints, law enforcement is compelled to continue to implement new technology. And it’s already making an impact. By bringing ballistics imaging in-house with IBIS-type technology, EPS has cut processing and turnaround times by roughly 80–90%, compared with the old model of shipping evidence to the RCMP lab.

7. Unstuck

Pierson was driving through Edmonton when he saw a group of people dressed in red walking down the street, carrying a large poster of a woman’s face. He pulled over. The woman holding the poster was Louise Laderoute’s niece. The person next to her was her sister. Louise had been missing for 50 years. Pierson had been digging into the case on his own, and passed a lead to EPS. Six months later, Louise was identified.

“When the case was solved, you could see on their faces what it meant to them after all this time to have their sister back,” Pierson says. “This changes lives. It does not bring the person back, but it can help people get unstuck.”

The question isn’t whether to use the technology, that debate is already settled by the reality of the crimes being committed. The question is whether institutions built to govern powerful tools can evolve fast enough, before the gap between what technology can do and what the system can responsibly absorb erodes the public trust that makes all of it possible.

Nobody has answered that yet. And criminals certainly aren’t waiting around for them to.

👇 Coming up in Edmonton

Thursday, April 30th

Topic - The Ethics of AI in Marketing

Co-Hosted by: Osler

AI is rapidly changing what’s possible in marketing. Companies now have incredibly powerful AI tools at their fingertips, but the conversation about how to use them responsibly is just getting started.

​We’re exploring three sides of that conversation: the consumer experience, the builder’s reality, and the legal and ethical frameworks that are still taking shape.

​From consumer psychology and behavior, to the real decisions behind building AI-powered products, and the harder questions around bias, accountability, and who’s ultimately responsible when automated decisions go wrong.

Speakers:

• ​Noah Castelo, Associate Professor at University of Alberta

• ​Robert Evans, Principal Product Manager at Wisdom

• Adam LaRoche, Partner at Osler

• ​Kirsten Sokolovski, Success Lead at Edmonton Unlimited

RSVP here!

LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube | Thursday Live Podcast

We are back with our April calendar of events, featuring some truly exciting events in the Edmonton Ecosystem. We’ll see you there! 👇

🏙️ Thursday, April 23rd

Topic - Tech in the City: The Future of Edmonton's Built Environment

We’re thrilled to host a conversation on how tech is reshaping the future of Edmonton’s Built Environment.

​We’re unpacking AI’s role in city building, the proptech changing how homes get built, what smarter development looks like in practice, and much more!

Speakers:

• ​Murtaza Haider, Executive Director, Cities Institute at University of Alberta

• ​Meghna Singh, CEO at BuildBase

• Adil Kodian, Executive VP at Rohit Homes

• ​Moderated by: Kirsten Sokolovski, Success Lead at Edmonton Unlimited

RSVP

⚖️ Thursday, April 30th

Topic - The Ethics of AI in Marketing

Co-Hosted by: Osler

AI is rapidly changing what’s possible in marketing. Companies now have incredibly powerful AI tools at their fingertips, but the conversation about how to use them responsibly is just getting started.

​We’re exploring three sides of that conversation: the consumer experience, the builder’s reality, and the legal and ethical frameworks that are still taking shape.

​From consumer psychology and behavior, to the real decisions behind building AI-powered products, and the harder questions around bias, accountability, and who’s ultimately responsible when automated decisions go wrong.

Speakers:

• ​Noah Castelo, Associate Professor at University of Alberta

• ​Robert Evans, Principal Product Manager at Wisdom

• Adam LaRoche, Partner at Osler

• ​Kirsten Sokolovski, Success Lead at Edmonton Unlimited

RSVP

Boast partners with Edmonton's tech community to help innovative companies access the R&D tax credits they've earned. Our platform + expert approach has secured $675M+ for 2,000+ North American businesses. From startups to scale-ups, we maximize your returns with minimal effort on your team. Explore boast.ai today.

🔜 Also coming up in Edmonton:

🫆 March 26th

Topic - CrimeTech: How Tech is Solving Crimes in Alberta

Technology is becoming a critical tool in modern policing. From analyzing digital evidence to helping investigators connect complex data, new platforms are changing how crimes are solved.

​We’ll bring together leaders from both law enforcement and the startup world to discuss how these tools are being built, adopted, and used in the field across Alberta.

Speakers:

• ​Devin Laforce, Police Operations Chief at Edmonton Police Service

• Bradley Pierson, Founder & CEO at Trouvay

• ​Sam Jenkins, Co-Founder & CEO at Standard Field Systems

• Moderated by: Kirsten Sokolovski, Success Lead, Edmonton Unlimited

RSVP

A big thank you to all of our sponsors for making these events a possibility including Boast, Skip, Neo Financial, Alberta Innovates, Motiv, and Crestview Strategy.

Want to tune into Tech Thursday in other cities? Subscribe to our YouTube to see full videos of our past events, listen to Tech Thursday Live on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and be sure to follow us on Instagram!

🫆 March 26th

Topic - CrimeTech: How Tech is Solving Crimes in Alberta

Technology is becoming a critical tool in modern policing. From analyzing digital evidence to helping investigators connect complex data, new platforms are changing how crimes are solved.

​We’ll bring together leaders from both law enforcement and the startup world to discuss how these tools are being built, adopted, and used in the field across Alberta.

Speakers:

• ​Devin Laforce, Police Operations Chief at Edmonton Police Service

• Bradley Pierson, Founder & CEO at Trouvay

• Moderated by: Kirsten Sokolovski, Success Lead, Edmonton Unlimited

RSVP Here!

What you missed from last week's Next-Gen Environmental Intelligence conversation👇

Callie Lissinna, Co-Founder & VP Strategic Relations at Wyvern, and Callum Doolin, Head of R&D at LiORA, joined us last Thursday for a candid conversation on building in the environmental intelligence space, from satellites in orbit to sensors underground.

Wyvern is building hyperspectral satellite imagery that captures the planet from space at a remarkable resolution and spectral depth. LiORA is building subsurface sensor technology that reads what’s happening underground: contamination, soil conditions, and environmental data that has long been out of reach. Both are generating a layer of environmental data the world is only beginning to know how to use.

Brought to you by:

Boast - Are you leaving innovation capital on the table? Boast combines AI-powered automation with specialized tax expertise to help tech companies maximize R&D credit returns. Join 2,000+ businesses who’ve secured $675M+ in funding. Get your free assessment at boast.ai

How Getting Rejected Twice Made Wyvern Stronger

Y Combinator said no to Wyvern. Twice. That pushed the team to completely rethink their approach, cutting their first satellite mission from $50M down to $10M. Leaner, more focused, and ultimately the version that got them into YC.

Key Takeaways:

• Constraints aren't always the enemy: Cutting the budget by a factor of five forced sharper decisions and a cleaner path forward

• The lean path opened the bigger door: A $10M plan that could actually be executed was more compelling than a $50M plan that couldn't

What Environmental Data is Uncovering About the World We Live In

The data that's starting to emerge from environmental intelligence companies is changing how we see the world around us, and the numbers are striking.

The scale of environmental contamination is staggering.

What the Data Says:

• 75% of Americans live near contaminated sites, most of them have no idea

• In Canada, mid-tier contaminated sites outnumber active gas stations

Tech Thursday Happens Across Canada Every Week!

Saba El-Hilo, CTO at Certn, and Cullen Jennings, CTO of AI and Audio Visual at Cisco, join Tech Thursday for a head-to-head on everything from labour arbitrage, AI’s impact on the workforce, optimizing for timezones, and data sovereignty.

Check out the full video here:

A big thank you to all of our sponsors for making these events a possibility including Boast, Skip, Neo Financial, Alberta Innovates, Motiv, and Crestview Strategy.

Miss a Tech Thursday? Subscribe to our YouTube to see full videos of our past events, listen to Tech Thursday Live on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and be sure to follow us on Instagram!

Subscribe now

We’ll see you there! 👇

🌱 March 5th

Topic - From Above and Below: Mapping the Planet with Next-Gen Environmental Intelligence

We're excited to host this conversation around how raw environmental data turns into useful insight and how that insight drive real-world decisions across industries.

We will talk about how these systems work together to help us understand change above and below the surface.

Expect a thoughtful and practical discussion about where environmental intelligence is already creating real value and how companies are using it to build stronger operations and make smarter choices.

Speakers:

• ​Callum Doolin, Head of R&D at LiORA

• ​Callie Lissinna, VP Strategic Relations at Wyvern

RSVP Here

📩 Apply now for the 2026 ScaleUP Awards!

The 2026 ScaleUP Week Awards applications are now open and recognize high-growth companies across Western Canada that are scaling with momentum and impact.

Eligible companies are based in Western Canada, have $1M+ in revenue OR fewer than 250 employees, and are actively scaling.

Finalists and winners gain visibility, credibility, and access to a community of founders and leaders shaping the future of business in Canada.

Winners will be celebrated at the ScaleUP Awards Gala on June 10, 2026 in Calgary.

Applications close March 2, 2026.

Apply Here!

🎙️ Check Out The Latest Episodes of ‘Your Business Is On The Line’

A Thursday Media Podcast: “Your Business Is On The Line” is a business-comedy podcast hosted by Shubh Sidhu with super special guest co-host Philippe Burns.

Catch the latest episodes on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Episode 10: CEaaS w/ Dallas Price

Episode 9: HER & Reinventing HER & Las Pegas w/ Joanna Pariseau & Melissa Ninaber

Episode 8: Bumble for Families & Arranged & Dog-gevity w/ Rachel Zimmer

A big thank you to all of our sponsors for making these events a possibility including Boast, Skip, Neo Financial, Alberta Innovates, Motiv, and Crestview Strategy.

Miss a Tech Thursday? Subscribe to our YouTube to see full videos of our past events, listen to Tech Thursday Live on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and be sure to follow us on Instagram!

We’ll see you there! 👇

🎯 February 12th

Topic - Solving the Canadian ScaleUP Gap

Co-Hosts - ScaleUP Week and MNP

Join us for a special edition of Tech Thursday co-hosted by ScaleUP Week and MNP where you’ll hear candid scaleup stories and real-world insights from leaders helping shape Canada’s next generation of high-growth companies.

​You’ll connect with business owners, founders, and senior leaders for an energizing evening of connection and real-world insight while celebrating the launch of the 2026 ScaleUP Award applications. Let’s celebrate the companies driving Western Canada’s next economy.

Speakers:

• ​Myrna Bittner, Founder & CEO, RUNWITHIT Synthetics

• ​Sam Jenkins, Managing Partner, Punchcard Systems

• Moderated by: Alla Brisky, Regional Manager, Women in Enterprise, TD

Light food and drinks will be provided. RSVP below to secure your spot!

RSVP HERE

🎙️ Tech Thursday LIVE has Officially Launched!

Tech Thursday is bringing some of our favourite panels to Spotify and Apple Podcasts so you can listen to all of our incredible speakers at home, at work, or on the go!

Check it out on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!

A big thank you to all of our sponsors for making these events a possibility including Boast, Skip, Neo Financial, Alberta Innovates, Motiv, and Crestview Strategy.

Miss a Tech Thursday? Subscribe to our YouTube to see full videos of our past events thanks to Motiv, and be sure to follow us on Instagram!

We couldn’t be more excited to announce Edmonton’s calendar of events to kick off 2026!

We look forward to seeing you there 👇

🌐 Thursday, January 22

Topic - Big Data at Big Companies

We're thrilled to be bringing together this panel on 'Big Data at Big Companies'. How are large enterprise companies leveraging their data right now? How are they thinking about using it in the future?

Speakers:

• Brian Gue, Manager of Data Science at PCL

• ​Rhys Chouinard, Distinguished Data Scientist at ATB Financial

• Moderated by: Madeline Hann, Senior Manager of Digital Government Solutions at KPMG

RSVP HERE

📈 Thursday, February 12

Topic - Solving the Canadian ScaleUp Gap

Co-Hosts: ScaleUP Week and MNP

​Join us for a special edition of Tech Thursday co-hosted by ScaleUP Week and MNP where you’ll hear candid scaleup stories and real-world insights from leaders helping shape Canada’s next generation of high-growth companies.

Speakers:

• ​Myrna Bittner, Founder & CEO, RUNWITHIT Synthetics

• ​Sam Jenkins, Managing Partner, Punchcard Systems

• Other speakers TBA!

RSVP HERE

A big thank you to all of our sponsors for making these events a possibility including Boast, Skip, Neo Financial, Alberta Innovates, Motiv, and Crestview Strategy.

Want to tune into Tech Thursday in other cities? Subscribe to our YouTube to see full videos of our past events thanks to Motiv, and make sure to follow Tech Thursday on Instagram!

Check it out! 👇

Subscribe now

👩‍💻 November 20th

Topic - Edmonton’s Leaders in Quantum Technology

This will be a conversation with leaders in Quantum Technology in Edmonton. We’ll discuss updates on Quantum, recent research, and practical pathways for wide spread adoption.

Speakers:

• Christopher Cassin, CEO at Zero Point Cryogenics

• Dr. Katanya Kuntz, Founder and CEO at Qubo Consulting Corp.

RSVP Here!

A big thank you to all of our sponsors for making these events a possibility including Boast, Skip, Neo Financial, Alberta Innovates, Motiv, and Crestview Strategy.

Want to tune into Tech Thursday in other cities? Subscribe to our YouTube to see full videos of our past events thanks to Motiv, and make sure to follow Tech Thursday on Instagram!

This is our recap of the top ideas from last week’s Tech Thursday.

“Edmonton is capital-efficient. Quality of life here is good, even if winters are tough. And unlike 15 years ago, we now have local opportunities to support investment.”

Want to catch up on other Tech Thursday’s? Check out our videos on YouTube and be sure to follow us on Instagram for updates on everything Tech Thursday.

TL;DR

• Foster MORE Entrepreneurs: A thriving innovation ecosystem depends on more entrepreneurs supported by capital, talent, experienced founders, and community, turning local ideas into sustained growth and economic opportunity.

• Explore ALL Funding Options: If struggling for local funding, founders in Edmonton should look beyond local capital and tap into national and global funding opportunities, leveraging post-COVID accessibility to fuel innovation while keeping the benefits of building in a capital-efficient city.

• Collaborate Locally AND Nationally: Winning globally requires Edmonton to collaborate locally with its innovators and nationally with other Canadian cities, fostering cohesion, deeper understanding of tech, and shared growth across the ecosystem.

Subscribe now

3 Ways Edmonton Can Continue Fostering an Innovation Ecosystem:

1. Foster MORE Entrepreneurs

• At its core, an innovation ecosystem is the sum of its parts. With more entrepreneurs building in Edmonton, the ecosystem will organically grow. This emphasizes the importance of support systems being available, like grants, angel capital, venture capital, organizations like Startup TNT, experienced founders helping first-timers, and talent pipelines.

  • Why This Is Important: Entrepreneurship does not happen in isolation. Building an environment that fosters innovation is vital in both supporting local talent, and attracting builders, which both mean more opportunities for job creation and economic growth.

  • Key Takeaway: Innovation is the spark, but the proper support systems, like capital, talent, knowledge, and community, help nurture that spark into something bigger.

2. Explore ALL Funding Options

• While Edmonton is on its way to becoming more of a tech hotspot, there can be some limiting factors when it comes to funding; be it investor readiness, understanding, or some companies not fitting the VC model. This is why it’s vital for builders in Edmonton to explore options everywhere (like Silicon Valley or New York).

  • Why this is important: The Covid pandemic changed the way businesses operate: in the past, founders would have to fly to San Francisco or New York to meet investors, or even be urged to move to these cities. Now? The virtual boom that resulted from Covid means funding can come from anywhere, and building with Silicon Valley funding in a capital-efficient, high quality of life city like Edmonton is a recipe for success.

  • Key Takeaway: Funding is no longer limited to the city you are building in. Exploring all funding options, nationally and internationally, can help kickstart innovation while fostering a stronger ecosystem locally.

3. Municipal Collaboration Locally AND Nationally

• With tech being critical to growth locally in Edmonton, as well as nationwide, it is vital that the city itself collaborates with the innovators in the city, as well as collaboration with cities nationally. The competition isn’t a neighbouring city; it’s the world. And to win globally, there needs to be cohesion locally.

  • Why this is important: It can be easy to view other Canadian cities as competition, but the reality is that by collaborating in Canada, innovation will prosper nationwide. On a more specific scale, cities, like Edmonton, need to dive into a deeper understanding of what tech is: tech is so much more than ‘IT’; it is job creation, salaries, and the future of the Edmonton economy. Learning and taking notes of current tech hubs across the country should be viewed favourably, not negatively.

  • Key Takeaway: Being willing to collaborate with Canadian cities that are further along in their tech journey, as well as being willing to take a deeper understanding of tech within Edmonton will benefit both builders and the city in the long run.

Hot Take:

Edmonton Needs To Stop Thinking Small If The Tech Ecosystem Is To Thrive

• Between other ecosystems funding ideas that are not as realizable as ideas that originate in Edmonton, to an implicit belief that the competition is Calgary or Toronto as opposed to the Globe, Edmonton, both its founders and its tech support systems, need to start thinking bolder if it is to become a thriving hub.

• What does bold mean? Bold means pitching earlier, getting ideas out to customers, investors, and mentors. Bold means chasing the aforementioned Global funding. Bold means nationwide collaboration and celebrating Canadian and Edmontonian success stories. All of these things can help shift the view of tech in Edmonton, put the city on the innovation map, and grow the ecosystem.

Missed this one? Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel, where you can watch full videos, highlight clips, and much more.

Don’t Miss Our Next Events!

🏛️ October 16th

Topic - Trust, Bias, and Responsible Use of AI Today

At this Tech Thursday, we will be discussing 'Trust, Bias, and the Responsible Use of AI Today'. Our speakers will discuss how AI is being implemented safely in Defense Tech, FinTech, and across industry.

Speakers:

• Kimberly Van Vliet, Founder and CEO at WaVv

• Cory Kapser, Head of AI at Neo Financial

• ​Alyssa Lefairvre Škopac, Director of AI, Trust, and Safety at Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute
  
  

  RSVP Here!

Check it out! 👇

👩‍💻 September 18th

Topic - The Future of the Edmonton Tech Ecosystem

Co-Host - New Media Manitoba (NMM)

We are kicking things off with a conversation on 'The Future of the Edmonton Tech Ecosystem'.

The talk brings together industry, investors, and ecosystem supports to have an honest conversation about where the tech industry is now, where we want to go, and how we will get there.

Speakers:

• Tom Viinikka, CEO at Edmonton Unlimited

• Tiffany Linke-Boyko, Principal at Flying Fish Partners

• Other speakers TBA!

RSVP Here

🏛️ October 16th

Topic - Trust, Bias, and Responsible Use of AI Today

At this Tech Thursday, we will be discussing 'Trust, Bias, and the Responsible Use of AI Today'. Our speakers will discuss how AI is being implemented safely in Defense Tech, FinTech, and across industry.

Speakers:

• Kimberly Van Vliet, Founder and CEO at WaVv

• Cory Kapser, Head of AI at Neo Financial

• ​Alyssa Lefairvre Škopac, Director of AI, Trust, and Safety at Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute

RSVP Here

A big thank you to all of our sponsors for making these events a possibility including Boast, Skip, Neo Financial, Alberta Innovates, Motiv, Crestview Strategy, and The Pioneer.

Want to tune into Tech Thursday in other cities? Subscribe to our YouTube to see full videos of our past events thanks to Motiv, and make sure to follow Tech Thursday on Instagram!

Subscribe now

Subscribe now