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As part of a special Shift series on Inventures 2022, we’re presenting an episode for each of the seven content tracks featured at this year’s event. 

This episode puts a spotlight on the track Taming Urban Jungles and features an interview with Ben Hildebrant, a principal investigator with SAIT’s Green Building Technologies Access Centre. Green Building Technologies’ researchers work with industry partners and students to help small-to-medium sized enterprises develop new technologies and processes, enhancing the commercializing of green technologies in Canada. 

One of their pilot projects is The Confluence, a residential home striving for full certification under the most rigorous green building standard in the world, the Living Building Challenge. Learn more about the house and see pictures at theconfluence.ca. 

Taming Urban Jungles  

The built environment—including building operations, as well as building materials and construction—generates roughly 40% of the world’s CO2 emissions. 

The Canadian government has set a goal that all new buildings will be built to net-zero ready energy standards by 2030, meaning they are designed to produce as much clean energy as they consume, once renewable energy components—like solar panels—are installed. Net-zero energy buildings are expected to be at least 80% more energy efficient than those being constructed today. 

To meet that objective, researchers, technology developers and construction companies are coming together to develop new technologies and techniques that will make the buildings of tomorrow possible. 

Hear from the innovators and thought leaders who are shaping the future of community life, functionally, economically and culturally as part of the Taming Urban Jungles track at Inventures 2022.

Bio 

Ben Hildebrant is a principal investigator with the Green Building Technologies Access Centre at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT). Ben received an Architectural Technologies diploma from SAIT in 2013 with a focus in Building Development Technologies and has worked for several years as a building science technologist. 

During that time, he diagnosed and oversaw the repair of building envelope issues in single and multi-family buildings. He has also served as a building envelope consultant on multiple multi-family and commercial construction projects in Calgary and Fort McMurray. Ben’s mechanical and troubleshooting strengths stem from his background as an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer. 

Today, Ben’s focus with Green Building Technologies at SAIT is to oversee building and material science related research. He also supports the development of educational curriculum to help increase the adoption of green, high performance building design and construction concepts. 

Shift by Alberta Innovates focuses on the people, businesses and organizations that are contributing to Alberta's strong tech ecosystem.

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As a part of a special Shift series on Inventures 2022, we're presenting an episode for each of the seven content tracks featured at this year's event.
 
This episode focuses on the track Gamechanging Health and features an interview with Julie Xu, Senior Product Manager at DrugBank. DrugBank is the world’s first intelligent and comprehensive drug knowledge platform. With the help of artificial intelligence, their expert team authors, verifies, and structures all of the latest biomedical information so that it can be used to its fullest potential.

Gamechanging Health

Leaps in medical science mean people enjoy longer, healthier lives and someone born today will likely live to 150 years. Health professionals, support services and policy makers are rejecting orthodoxy to reimagine and transform lifelong care networks.

New solutions are forging the creation of a more affordable, accessible and higher-quality healthcare system. Technologies that put the person at the centre of the solution are radically transforming how healthcare is designed, delivered and received.
 
Join the innovators who are transforming the global healthcare space as they explore the latest breakthroughs in the Gamechanging Health track at Inventures 2022.

Bio
 
Julie Xu, Senior Product Manager, DrugBank
 
Julie Xu is an experienced product manager, specializing in healthcare technology startups and scaleups. Her passion for modernizing healthcare through technology led her to a Bioengineering degree from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as multiple disruptive companies in the EMR, population health, value-based care, insurance, and pharmaceutical industries across North America.

Shift by Alberta Innovates focuses on the people, businesses and organizations that are contributing to Alberta's strong tech ecosystem.

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As a part of a special Shift series on Inventures 2022, we're presenting an episode for each of the seven content tracks featured at this year's event.
 
This episode puts a spotlight on the track Redefining Capitalism and features an interview with Ayo Aiyeleye, Director for Capital Access at Alberta Innovates, and Shelley Kuipers, Co-founder and CEO of The51.  

Alberta Innovates is the province’s largest research and innovation agency. From funding to commercialization, we are Alberta’s innovation engine. We are working to solve today’s challenges, create new opportunities and forge a healthy, sustainable and prosperous future for Albertans today and for generations to come.

The51 is a Financial Feminist™ platform where investors, entrepreneurs and those who aspire to be, come together for democratized access to women-led capital for women-led businesses. By uniting Canada’s untapped women’s wealth, The51 is creating a new critical mass of women investors, making Canada the centre for women-powered capital.

Redefining Capitalism 

Over the past two centuries, capitalism has fueled the industrial, technological and green revolutions, and shaped the global economic landscape. It has lifted millions of people out of poverty, significantly increased standards of living, and resulted in innovations that have radically improved human well-being.

As we journey through the Fourth Industrial Revolution, reinventing capitalism with a focus on ‘true value’ will lead to a world where more companies innovate in ways that contribute to society, and capital markets properly value and reward inclusive, sustainable business practices. Economies that work better for everyone recognize value beyond sticker price.
 
Hear from the innovators and thought leaders who are reinventing the systems that underpin the global financial services industry as part of the Redefining Capitalism track at Inventures 2022.

Bios
 
Shelley Kuipers, Co-founder and CEO, The51

An activist in business, entrepreneurship and investment, Shelley Kuipers is building the world she wants to live in. Discovering that the role of “Co-founder” really suits her, Shelley currently co-founds The51, consumer participation company IOVIA and family office Adventure Capital. She also designs clothing through yet another business she’s co-founded, 100% sustainable direct to consumer, House Kuipers. Shelley is also a serial private investor of companies, startups and entrepreneurs who embody the type of future she wants to see across the economic universe: namely, those that are sustainable, feminist, purpose-driven and unafraid to disrupt old systems.

Ayo Aiyeleye, Director, Capital Access, Alberta Innovates 

Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs with successful business ventures, Ayo Aiyeleye has extensive experience building and scaling businesses. He is an emerging tech enthusiast with a passion for solving real world problems through innovation. Ayo’s professional experience spans various roles in the Finance industry including Investment Banking, Commercial Banking, Capital Markets, and Business Transformation. As the Director, Capital Access at Alberta Innovates, he oversees a portfolio of non-dilutive funding programs in the Entrepreneurial Investments area. He’s also responsible for driving access to private capital by the companies that participate in Alberta Innovates’ funding programs and are seeking follow-on external funding from the private capital community.

Shift by Alberta Innovates focuses on the people, businesses and organizations that are contributing to Alberta's strong tech ecosystem.

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As a part of a special Shift series on Inventures 2022, we're presenting an episode for each of the seven content tracks featured at this year's event.
 
This episode focuses on the track Futurecasting Work and features an interview with Jackson McDonough, co-founder and CEO of Upwardly Careers. Upwardly is upping the recruiting game by matching high-performing talent in Calgary with high-potential companies in the tech, finance, real estate, and energy sectors. Their process involves curated assessments for both candidates and clients to generate insightful data and make better decisions about fit and potential. 

Futurecasting Work

The future of work is now. Digitization and the rapid advancement and adoption of technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, and robotics, have sparked radical shifts in how we live and work. The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated these trends beyond what anyone could have imagined.

The pandemic has allowed workers to rethink their careers, work conditions and long-term goals, contributing to the “Great Resignation” trend. Capital follows talent, and talent is prioritizing purpose, diversity and inclusion. As myriad options for digital nomads emerge, so are radical innovations in technologies, communication systems and the nature of work itself. The ability to transform corporate culture and the ‘experience of work’ is becoming essential for survival and success.
 
Explore the new world of work and learn from the innovators and thought leaders who are redefining the workplace at Inventures 2022.

Bio
 
Jackson McDonough, Co-founder and CEO, Upwardly Careers
 
Jackson is the Co-founder and CEO of Upwardly Careers, a new startup based out of Calgary.  After graduating from St. Francis Xavier University with a finance degree, Jackson moved to Austin, Texas where he worked for a successful software company that went public on the NYSE. In April 2021, he launched Upwardly, a next-generation talent recruiting agency. With his past experience in tech and business, Jackson is motivated to bring Calgary communities and businesses together.

Shift by Alberta Innovates focuses on the people, businesses and organizations that are contributing to Alberta's strong tech ecosystem.

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As a part of a special Shift series on Inventures 2022, we're presenting an episode for each of the seven content tracks featured at this year's event.
 
This episode highlights Mission-Critical Moonshots and features an interview with Cole Rosentreter, founder and CEO of Pegasus Imagery. Pegasus builds and deploys autonomous drones to provides aerial data collection at scale, using AI systems to enable real-time data analytics. 
 
Mission-Critical Moonshots

The 1960s race for the moon spurred an explosion of technologies for everyday life. The moonshot mindset is motivating teams to achieve breakthroughs in quantum computing, fuel and propulsion, AI/ML, drones, logistics, data diagnostics and communications technologies. These extraordinary and everyday advancements are generating applications to make life on earth more sustainable, and life in space more possible. 

A major driving force enabling innovators to tackle moonshots is the incredible advancement in data science and AI. Human progress depends on the collection and analysis of data, which is becoming the new global currency.
 
Learn from the creators and entrepreneurs who are on the forefront of disruptive innovation as part of the Mission-Critical Moonshots knowledge track at Inventures 2022.

Bio
 
Cole Rosentreter, Founder and CEO, Pegasus Imagery
 
Cole is the founder and CEO of Pegasus Imagery. Prior to Pegasus, Cole served 15 years in the Canadian Military with Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry as a paratrooper. In 2018, he founded Pegasus to develop intelligence-driven solutions capable of transforming complex challenges like wildfire management. Cole is also a graduate of Draper University, a 2020 NASA iTech semi-finalist, and a 2021 EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalist.

Shift by Alberta Innovates focuses on the people, businesses and organizations that are contributing to Alberta's strong tech ecosystem.

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InnoTech Alberta recently received a $1.85 million grant from the Clean Resource Innovation Network.

The grant, which was part of the network's reducing environmental footprint technology competition is being used to look at alternative technologies for well remediation, closure and to prevent methane leakage from abandoned well bores.

Estimates suggest there are over 90, 000 inactive wells in Alberta alone, with approximately 54,000 wells leaking methane into the atmosphere in Alberta and Canada. In addition, there are close to 258,000 wells that will be inactive within the next 10 years that need sub surface closure activity before the wells can then be remediated at surface and the facilities can be taken out.

We talk with Bonnie Drozdowski, director of environmental services and Fred Wassmuth, manager of Institute Recovery about this project. We also dive into other projects InnoTech Alberta are working on.

Bios

Bonnie Drozdowski

Bonnie has ten years of experience managing and participating in multifaceted projects including integrating business and science to generate creative practical solutions and business opportunities in the environmental industry in Canada in various different industries including, upstream oil and gas, mineable and in-situ oil sands, coal mining, sand and gravel, diamond mining, forestry, pulp and paper and waste management. 

Her key areas of interest include: soil and water conservation; waste and soil management; reclamation and remediation; & emerging technologies applicable to the environmental industry. She is primarily interested in opportunities that will allow her to use her strong technical background in environmental sciences while focusing on a high performance culture and innovative and effective project execution.

Fred Wassmuth

Fred has a broad background in investigating unconventional oil recovery, in particular improved waterflooding heavy oil, enhanced tight oil recovery and the application of conformance control technologies. 

He's been involved with traditional chemical flooding methods such as polymer and various surfactant processes, and focused his efforts on several field projects to demonstrate the commercial application of improved water flooding heavy oils in Western Canada. More recently, he started a joint industry research program on improving oil recovery from tight reservoirs. His team includes engineers, geologists, chemists, and physicists with the objective to develop enhanced oil recovery processes. The team has devised a set of sequential evaluations that move the technology from concept to the field application.

Shift by Alberta Innovates focuses on the people, businesses and organizations that are contributing to Alberta's strong tech ecosystem.

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What does the hydrogen market push look like for an entrepreneur? What about bridge technologies as we move to net zero? Is net zero even possible? Joining us today is Leland Oberst, President and CEO of Innovative Fuel Systems to give his thoughts on what the move to a hydrogen economy could look like for entrepreneurs. 

Innovative Fuel Systems (IFS) is an Alberta company that has developed a proprietary technology for heavy duty trucks that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and leads to significant fuel savings. This non-intrusive technology provides up to 55% substitution of diesel fuel in heavy duty diesel engines with cleaner burning alternative fuels such as clean natural gas and hydrogen.

Leland Oberst – President & CEO

Leland was a Deloitte Edmonton Partner from 2002 until 2016 and the Managing Partner from May 2012 until November 2016. He obtained his CA (CPA) designation in 1993. Leland currently is also an executive advisor to APX Hotels Group and the VETS Group; he also sits on the YPO Alberta Chapter board and the U of Alberta Business School’s Advisory board.

Shift by Alberta Innovates focuses on the people, businesses and organizations that are contributing to Alberta's strong tech ecosystem.

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As a special Shift segment on Inventures, we're presenting an episode for each of the track being featured at this year's event.

This episode is on Cultivating Agtech and features an interview with Adam Brown, Strategic Initiatives Lead at Wyvern Inc., and Edmonton-based space data company redesigning the satellite to enable a sustainable future for humanity.

Cultivating AgTech

By 2050, the global population is estimated to reach 9 billion people. This is already creating unprecedented demand for food, water, and fibre. Innovations are vital to reduce food waste, maximize productivity of agriculture-rich regions and processes, while preserving precious land and natural resources. Enter an arsenal of technologies – from AI, to air and water sensors to robotics and biomimicry – addressing humanity’s growing needs.

Learn more about Inventures

Bio

Adam Brown, Strategic Initiatives Lead, Wyvern Inc.

Adam was the former CEO at Nanolog Audio, where he oversaw the commercialization of Nanolog’s quantum semiconductor technology for audio and photosensor applications. During his time at Nanolog, he was recognized as a Top 10 Finalist for the NASA iTech Challenge and was a Top 30 finalist for the Korean Startup Grand Challenge. Prior to Nanolog, Adam was the drummer in Striker, a Juno winning band, where he helped build an international brand and bring Canadian music to the global stage. He received his MBA (’18) and BComm (’12) from the University of Alberta, and was recognized as one of Edmonton’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2019. Most recently, Adam ran as a candidate in the 2021 Canadian election in Edmonton West and received his PMP certification.

Shift by Alberta Innovates focuses on the people, businesses and organizations that are contributing to Alberta's strong tech ecosystem.

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Remember Ian Malcolm, Jeff Goldblum's character from Jurassic Park? He's a scientist interested in an esoteric branch of mathematics called chaos theory, the study of unpredictable behaviour in systems governed by deterministic laws.

I'd like unpack that preceding paragraph into three points:

1. Chaos theory is legit form of math. 
2. Jeff Golblum's character Malcolm was awesome and goes onto appear in two sequels.
3. Unpredictably is what makes the future complicated.

Today's podcast focuses primarily on this third point.

If we knew what would happen when we introduce change we'd always make better decisions. We don't, however, always know what the repercussions will be.

Or do we?

Myrna Bittner and her company RUNWITHIT Synthetics have devised a way to construct synthetic cities for the express purpose of gaining a better understanding of how the introduction of "unpredictable behaviour in systems governed by deterministic laws" impacts the whole.

To quote Bittner, "we do that all using what we call synthetic modeling, which is like SimCity except for real, for real cities, for real populations, for climate events."

BAM. Prepare to have your mind blown.

Bio

Myrna Bittner

Myrna is the CEO and Co-Founder of RUNWITHIT Synthetics, an advanced data modelling and visualization company designing decarbonization, sustainability, equity, resilience, and growth initiatives globally.   Myrna is passionate about connecting today's technology, policy, and infrastructure choices to data about the impacts and outcomes for people and our planet. 

Last year, seven years after incorporation, the growing RUNWITHIT team celebrated numerous international awards, including the United Nation’s Global Call for Decarbonization, Taiwan’s Top Technology Gold Medal, Toyota Mobility Foundation’s City Architecture of Tomorrow Challenge, NATO’s Space Awareness, USAF’s AFWERX Showcase, Airbus Defence “Beyond Net-Zero," along with the “Most Edmonton” YEG Startup Company. 
 
RUNWITHIT is a women-led, Certified Aboriginal Business, with a GBA+ Certified team of diverse and talented 3D animators, designers, and scientists in social, data, computing, and engineering disciplines. 

Shift by Alberta Innovates focuses on the people, businesses and organizations that are contributing to Alberta's strong tech ecosystem.

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On previous SHIFT conversations, we have learned that one of the major gaps to commercializing the hydrogen market is the lack of government policy. What is our current state and what should our elected officials consider when moving this promising industry along? 

Joining us today is Heather Campbell Executive Director of Clean Technology at Alberta Innovates and Dr. Sara Hastings-Simon, Assistant Professor at School of Public Policy and Director of the Sustainable Energy Development Program at the University of Calgary.

Join us as we explore the role policy plays in helping to create a hydrogen economy, the myth of the free market, and much more!


Bios

Dr. Sara Hastings-Simon 

Sara is an assistant professor in the department of physics and astronomy and school of public policy at the University of Calgary where she directs the Masters of Science in Sustainable Energy Development. She is a macro energy system researcher and her work is focused on understanding how low-carbon energy transitions happen within different sectors of the economy, and how policy responses can improve outcomes. She explores the role of incumbents and governments in development and deployment of new clean technologies, particularly within high carbon economies; the markets and policy structures that enable decarbonisation of electricity systems; and the response of firms to climate policy.

Sara is co-founder and co-host of Energy vs Climate a webinar and podcast that explores the energy transition in Alberta, Canada, and beyond. She is a Global Fellow at the Smart Prosperity Institute at the University of Ottawa. She is also the chair of the panel for Clean Growth with the Canadian Climate Choices Institute and a member of the board of directors of Emissions Reduction Alberta and the Pembina Institute.

Her previous roles include Director of Clean Economy at the Pembina Institute, founder of Business Renewable Centre Canada, and practice manager for Clean Technologies at McKinsey & Company. Dr. Hastings-Simon holds a PhD in physics from the University of Geneva.

Heather Campbell, B.E.Sc., LL.M., P.Eng. 

Heather has had a diverse twenty-five year energy career with technical, policy, and business roles in a full range of energy industries. She is the Executive Director, Clean Technology with Alberta Innovates. 

She holds a Bachelor of Engineering Science degree in Biochemical and Chemical Engineering from the University of Western Ontario (Western University) in addition to a Master of Laws in Energy Law and Policy from the University of Dundee. She is a licensed Professional Engineer practicing in Alberta, Canada.

Heather is an engaged, lifelong community volunteer, actively sharing her talents, resources and time by participating and often leading a purposely diverse range of organizations. She is a board director with Calgary’s performing arts centre Arts Commons, is a member of the Advisory Council for Western Engineering, the People’s Warden at St. Stephen’s Anglican Church in Calgary, and a Commissioner with the Calgary Police Commission. She is the former co-chair of Alberta’s Anti-Racism Advisory Council.

Shift by Alberta Innovates focuses on the people, businesses and organizations that are contributing to Alberta's strong tech ecosystem.