Startupville

In the mid-late 60’s, the Department of Physics at the University of Saskatchewan launched their Space Engineering Division, mandated to design and build rocket instrumentation for upper atmospheric studies. After the department’s success and revenue gain, they branched out to become their own entity, SED Systems. SED Systems grew to eventually be acquired in 1990 by Calian, another Canadian firm known for space engineering, satellite exploration, defense, and aerospace technology. Patrick and his team continue to reach for the stars and grow within Calian to this day.

“Antennas can take on many shapes, forms, and guises. From little whip antennas that are part of a cellphone, to the large parabolic antennas that you see as Calian’s flagship antenna products where we have deep space antennas at 35 meters, full-motion tracking, antennas that we use to communicate with space probes.” – Patrick Thera, Calian, Advanced Technologies

Precision AI is an artificial intelligence (AI) robotics company that’s focused on solving the key food security challenges of the 21st century and beyond. Dan began his career with entrepreneurship and startups in the fin-tech world, but after his partner got their doctorate in AI, they decided to switch gears and focus on changing the future.

This podcast is brought to you by Innovation Saskatchewan & Martin Charlton Communications

“You've never seen the benefits of AI and automation and robots that can come and do work in your field before. So from an economics and sustainability standpoint, its high time to bring the AI revolution  to the way we produce our food.” – Dan McCann, CEO of Precision AI

The Startup TnT Fall Investment Summit launched in September of 2021 in Saskatchewan for the first time ever. We talk with Jesse Wiebe, the new local ambassador for Startup TnT about bringing the Thursday Night Tradition to his home province of Saskatchewan after being inspired by co-founders Zach Storms and Tim Lynn. We talk about the summit process, working with founders and investors to build an ecosystem of support, as well as all of the excitement that went down at Boffins Event Center at Innovation Place on Finale Night.

This episode features an exclusive interview with the top winner from the Finale, Store To Door CEO and Founder, Scott Love. We talk with Scott about his first steps in entrepreneurship at the young age of 18, how Store To Door came to be (hint, it was a New Year’s Eve special!) as well as his experience with the program and startup community.

This podcast is brought to you by Innovation Saskatchewan & Martin Charlton Communications 

“We worked our way to understand that we need to get this off the ground while COVID was happening because it was so relevant. People needed help, businesses needed help, and we were super concerned that we were going to see this mass closure of brick and mortar retail if we didn’t come along and help them.” – Scott Love, CEO & Founder of Store To Door

We talked with Sam Dietrich of Prairie Robotics.

Sam was inspired to create change in the world to make recycling simpler so that we can individually make a positive environmental impact.

After entering a competition to find out how technology can be used to monitor the amount of solid waste generated and disposed of in Saskatchewan, Prairie Robotics used Artificial Intelligence to estimate the weight of the waste entering landfills to capture data in real time to automatically generate waste reports. This wasn’t enough, so they developed the ability to use AI at the source to resolve issues at the household level.

We talked with Sam about the importance of recycling, how we can change the future now, and what’s in store for Prairie Robotics.

This podcast is brought to you by Innovation Saskatchewan & Martin Charlton Communications

“9 out of 10 people in North America find recycling more confusing than investing in the stock market, filing their taxes or assembling Ikea furniture.” – Sam Dietrich, CEO of Prairie Robotics

Global Biotech Week started 18 years ago right here in Canada, and has since gone global, raising awareness for the significant role biotech plays in the world today.

So, to celebrate Global Biotech Week, we’ve interviewed three leaders in the biotech sector, to learn more about what they do, and what makes biotech different from the typical startup experience. We talked with Jay Robinson of Ag-West Bio and the GAAP Accelerator, Conrad Nixon, Co-founder of Back to Your Roots, and Rob Henderson, President and CEO of Biotalent Canada.

We talked with Jay about the GAAP Accelerator, a new organization created to support early stage and rapid growth stage companies in all areas of agriculture and food

Back to Your Roots is a food startup specializing in raw fermented food products, hand crafted using minimal ingredients.

BioTalent Canada is a national non-profit that supports the people behind life-changing Science.

This podcast is brought to you by Innovation Saskatchewan & Martin Charlton Communications

“There’s an adage that I’ve followed through my career, is that you can have great technology and a terrible team, or a great team and terrible technology, and the great team will win every time.”  – Jay Robinson, Ag West Bio, GAAP

Uniting the Prairies, or UP Conference, is a virtual conference on June 23rd and 24th that brings together the top startups from across the Canadian prairies to connect with global investors and tech leaders, and collectively elevate the prairie community.

Leading up to the conference, we are hosting a five episode mini-series to highlight the five major prairie tech cities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

Check out the three previous episodes on Saskatoon and Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Regina, and today we’re featuring Calgary, Alberta

We talked with Nicolas Beique, founder and CEO of Helcim, Alitta Tait, Head of Partnerships at Harvest Builders, and Patrick Lor Managing Partner of Panache Ventures

This podcast is brought to you by Innovation Saskatchewan & Martin Charlton Communications

Special thanks to Uniting the Prairies and Co.Labs

Uniting the Prairies, or UP Conference, is a virtual conference on June 23rd and 24th that brings together the top startups from across the Canadian prairies to connect with global investors and tech leaders, and collectively elevate the prairie community.

Leading up to the conference, we are hosting a five episode mini-series to highlight the five major prairie tech cities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

Check out the three previous episodes on Saskatoon and Edmonton, and Winnipeg, and today we’re featuring Regina, Saskatchewan

We talked with Matt Fahlman, Co-founder and CEO of Offstreet, Trevor Phenix, Managing Partner of Broad Street Bulls, and Tina Beaudry-Mellor, Chief Economic Growth Officer of Economic Development Regina

Subscribe and don’t miss the final upcoming episodes highlighting Calgary!

This podcast is brought to you by Innovation Saskatchewan & Martin Charlton Communications

Special thanks to Uniting the Prairies and Co.Labs

Uniting the Prairies, or UP Conference, is a virtual conference on June 23rd and 24th that brings together the top startups from across the Canadian prairies to connect with global investors and tech leaders, and collectively elevate the prairie community.

Leading up to the conference, we are hosting a five episode mini-series to highlight the five major prairie tech cities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

Check out the two previous episodes on Saskatoon and Edmonton, and today we’re featuring Winnipeg, Manitoba

We talked with Catherine Metrycki Founder and CEO of Callia Flowers, Michael Legary, Chairman of Radar Ventures, and Joelle Foster, CEO of NorthForge

Subscribe and don’t miss upcoming episodes highlighting Winnipeg, Regina, and Calgary!

This podcast is brought to you by Innovation Place & Martin Charlton Communications

Special thanks to Uniting the Prairies and Co.Labs

Uniting the Prairies, or UP Conference, is a virtual conference on June 23rd and 24th that brings together the top startups from across the Canadian prairies to connect with global investors and tech leaders, and collectively elevate the prairie community.

Leading up to the conference, we are hosting a five episode mini-series to highlight the five major prairie tech cities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

Last week our home city of Saskatoon, and today we’re traveling northwest to Edmonton Alberta, home to an amazing startup ecosystem and our three guests today.

First, we talked with Zack Storms, founder of Startup TNT, and Kristina Milke, Managing Partner of Sprout Fund. Thanks to a few quick messages and the well-connected ecosystem that is the Edmonton startup scene, we also had an impromptu visit for the second half of the interview from Edmonton founder Sophie Gray of DiveThru. A true testament to how fast you can network in the Canadian prairies.

Subscribe and don’t miss upcoming episodes highlighting Winnipeg, Regina, and Calgary!

This podcast is brought to you by Innovation Saskatchewan & Martin Charlton Communications

Special thanks to Uniting the Prairies and Co.Labs

Uniting the Prairies, or UP Conference, is a virtual conference on June 23rd and 24th that brings together the top startups from across the Canadian prairies to connect with global investors and tech leaders, and collectively elevate the prairie community.   

The Canadian prairies are on a tear, with five cities rapidly growing their tech sectors, and this conference is a chance for each of them to put their collective energy together to drive things forward even more.   

Leading up to the conference, we are hosting a five episode mini-series to highlight the five major prairie tech cities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.  We’re kicking off this series with the city where the UP Conference started just two years ago, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.   

We talked with Matt Stefan, The Executive Director of Co.Labs, Saskatoon’s tech incubator and organizers of the UP Conference, along with Wanda Hunchak, Executive Vice President of venture firm Westcap Management, and Serese Selanders founder and CEO of the fast growing startup, SolusGuard about where the Saskatoon tech ecosystem is today, and where it’s headed.

Subscribe and don’t miss upcoming episodes highlighting Edmonton, Winnipeg, Regina, and Calgary!  

“I think what’s really unique about Saskatoon [and] Saskatchewan as a whole is just the collaboration aspect. And the fact that, I never feel like, and I think my fellow entrepreneurs don’t feel like we’re competing against each other. I think we feel like we’re doing this together, we’re in it together“ – Serese Selanders

This podcast is brought to you by Innovation Saskatchewan & Martin Charlton Communications

Special thanks to Uniting the Prairies and Co.Labs