Startupville

We talked with with Dirk Propp of Immigrate Software.

Dirk spent 15 years helping people immigrate to Canada as an immigration consultant. And, with a business growing rapidly through positive referrals, he identified ways to automate parts of his business, while still delivering the same level of referral-worthy service.

Now, Dirk isn’t just helping his business, but the whole Canadian immigration industry, with his startup Immigrate helping people pursue their dream of living in Canada faster, at a lower cost.

We talked with Dirk about how he started the company, a recent rebrand that changed everything, and his plans for massive growth in the near future.

We talked with Jessica McNaughton of MemoryKPR.

After years as a successful executive leader, Jessica ventured off on her own to try and solve a problem near and dear to her heart. Keeping peoples’ stories alive.

Jessica started MemoryKPR to fill in the gaps that social media and digitization has left in our lives. Thanks to digitization, we all create our stories in entirely different ways, and Jessica identified a need for creative solutions for how we keep and pass on these stories.

We talked with Jessica about the mission of MemoryKPR, and how they’re marching forward to change the way we create and keep our memories.

We talked with Neil Anderson of SkillShark.  

The best ideas often come from lived experience. As a softball coach, Neil experienced firsthand the long, tedious process of athlete evaluations which still involved pen and paper, and mountains of unreliable data that weren’t being used to their full potential.   

So, he took matters into his own hands, and what started as a complex excel spreadsheet is now a user-friendly digital platform that’s revolutionizing how athletes are being evaluated around the world. From youth sports’ young rising stars, to professional, and even Olympic athletes, With most coaches around the world still using pen and paper, there’s blood in the water for SkillShark.

In 2015, PLATO Testing identified software testing, a service primarily outsourced to other countries, as an opportunity to help bring more Indigenous people into the ICT industry. Since then, they have trained more than 150 Indigenous people, many of whom still work for the company today.”

The partnership has been a great success, both in continuing to grow the booming Saskatchewan tech industry, and in providing a path into the sector for people who previously had limited access to the opportunities and resources needed to do so.

So we wanted to chat with Thomas and Denis to learn more about their story, and what they’ve learned that can help others in the tech sector increase access to opportunity and build more inclusive companies.

We talked with Jared Fedorchuk, CEO and Partner of Levis Tech about their journey as a company. How they started life as a digital agency, and followed their expertise, and the market to change their business

They’ve even started to dive into the startup world, spinning off some of their proprietary tech into products of their own, moving some of their business from a service-based model, to a Software-as-a-service product-based model. We talked with Jared about the factors that led to their recent pivots, and where Levis is headed into the future.

We talked with Darcy McLane, Executive Director of SaskInteractive. Darcy was on the show last April to talk about the Labour Market and Economic Impact study that quantified the massive growth of the Saskatchewan tech sector in the years prior.

The study was a good barometer of where the Saskatchewan tech sector sat heading into the pandemic, so we caught up with Darcy about where things are at today after nearly a year.

But, SaskInteractive does a lot more than measure the Saskatchewan tech sector, and we wanted to talk about what they’re doing to help kickstart the Saskatchewan game development community. While there might not be many big game companies in the province, there are tons of people making games who are desperate for a community of support. We talked with Darcy about how he and SaskInteractive are helping to bring those people together and build a strong foundation to grow the video game sector in the province.

We talked with Matt Stefan, the new Executive Director of Co.Labs, Saskatoon’s tech incubator.

In under four years, Co.Labs has already left a lasting legacy on the Saskatchewan tech community, thanks in no small part to its recently departed co-founders Jordan Dutchak and Alex Shimla. They’ve left two pairs of big shoes to fill, and if anybody is up to the task, it’s Matt Stefan.

A Saskatchewan native, Matt is returning to the province from the Toronto tech scene to lead Co.Labs into its next chapter. We talked with Matt about making the move back to his home-province, and his vision for Co.Labs moving forward.

We talked with David Crossman, Co-Founder and CTO of Citrus, and Founder of HackRegina.

Much has changed in David’s life over the last year. He went from a solo founder spinning his tires to a Co-founder speeding down the track, and the tech community he helped build was thrown headfirst into a global pandemic. So we talked with David about his journey of perseverance as an entrepreneur, and where Citrus and the Regina tech scene as a whole is heading into the future.

We’re excited to partner with Ag-West bio and present a special episode for Global Biotech Week 2020!

To celebrate Global Biotech Week, we’ve interviewed three biotech entrepreneurs, based here in Saskatchewan, to learn more about what they do, and what makes biotech different from the typical startup experience.

First in today’s episode, we talked with Shawn Ritchie, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of Med-Life Discoveries, a leader in developing novel treatments for Alzheimer’s, Parkinsons, MS, and more.

Next up is Masood Rizvi, Head of Genomics at NRGene Canada, a biotech startup that’s optimizing crop production through genomic AI solutions.

Last but not least, we talked with Brent Zettl, a pioneer in the Canadian medical cannabis industry, having co-founded CanniMed Therapeutics that was acquired for 1.2 billion dollars, who has since started his new venture, ZYUS, harnessing the power of cannabinoids to develop treatments that improve quality of life and well-being for patients.

For more information on Global Biotech Week and the amazing virtual events from Ag-West, visit http://www.globalbiotechweeksask.ca/

We talked with Kirk Morrison and Gillian Delgaty of Krugo. As you might remember, Kirk joined us on the show earlier this year just prior to the world as we knew it shutting down, including everything Krugo had been working on up to that point as a travel and entertainment app that helps people find unique, in-person experiences.   

It would have been easy to throw in the towel, as an early-stage travel startup facing up to a year or even longer without recreational travel and large in-person experiences. Instead, Kirk, Gillian, and their team drilled down to the core of why Krugo exists in the first place, helping people find unique experiences wherever they go.   So, they made the ultimate COVID pivot to launch KrugoFest, a unique music festival using hotel balconies for the perfect socially distant staycation experience.   

We talked with Kirk and Gillian about why a tech startup would organize a music festival, how they pulled it off in a matter of weeks, and what made it   

We’re having conversations with tech leaders on how they’re facing the COVID-19 crisis head-on, how startups and tech companies can approach the challenges ahead, and how the world changing before our eyes will present unique opportunities for startups and innovators.