- I'm gonna kick us off
with a bit of sharing.
I wanna tell you that this past fall,
October timeframe for many of you,
I'll bring you back, was
one of the most difficult
moments of my entire career.
I believe that since then,
I've been extremely open about the fact
that EEDC and myself in particular
as the lead of Innovate Edmonton
Division made a mistake.
We rushed the idea of an innovation hub.
We didn't do a good
job about talking about
the problems that we were
proposing to solve with this.
We didn't do enough community engagement.
We talked to a select
group of people about it,
and the community shared with us
that we left many of them behind,
and we accept the
feedback that we received.
I'm talking about this because I really
didn't want my mistake to jeopardize,
I think the opportunity that Edmonton has
to be a leader in technology
and to be one of the best cities
to create your new tech startup.
So over the holiday break,
I spent the whole time really
doing a bunch of self-reflection.
And I was really concerned and questioning
whether I was the right
person to be in this role.
Whether what I had done
would perhaps jeopardize
the success of my team,
and put their work at risk.
And I wondered really
whether I had the ability
to regain the community's confidence
to build this social capital
that I thought was
necessary to really drive
transformational change.
And so, I came back in January
and I do not have the
answers to those questions.
But I came back determined really
to try as hard as I could.
Many of you heard me say this,
I fundamentally believe
that feedback is a gift
and we received many gifts in the fall.
But, I think that really
what that has given us,
is that failure, that one idea
has allowed us to dig deeper.
It has activated this community.
And I think that, that's really what
we don't want to pass us by.
It surfaced important sentiment,
about what is working in this community,
in this system, and what is not.
And it's time for us to come together
to ask more questions,
together as a group,
to really push forward together
to create important change in this space.
And so for those of you that,
this your first time, I
wanna welcome you here.
My name is Cheryll Watson and I lead
the Innovate Edmonton Division of EEDC.
I also wanna recognize some
important people in the room here.
And so we have Councilor Walters,
who's joined us today.
Thank you so much.
We have Councilor Cartmel.
Hi, great awesome, thank you.
And then next to his Assistant
Deputy Minister John Brown,
for the Science and Technology
Department of Economic
Development and Trade.
So thank you very much for being here.
Let's start really why we're all here.
So we all would agree that we were founded
because we're all collectively, I think,
constructively dissatisfied
with the effectiveness
of the Edmonton Innovation Ecosystem,
and we are inspired to work
together to make it better.
And there's a lot of us in the room,
and I really want to tell you,
that I am grateful, personally grateful,
every time you show up to this meeting.
And I hope that it's
more than the free drinks
and food that we provide at the end of it.
I hope that you find value in this room,
and so I really wanna
thank you for your time
because I know how critical our time is.
And so there are a lot of us in this room.
And maybe I'll press the right button.
And so this is my piss-off slide.
I know I am gonna miss
somebody here on this slide,
but it really shows you the
diversity of this group here.
We have in the room, we have
entrepreneurs in the room.
We have cheerleaders in the room.
We have service providers, investors,
and we've got a lot of
important organizations.
I'm sure we missed someone,
so if you're looking at this,
and you don't believe that
your represented here,
maybe raise your hand,
or let me know later.
Let Alex know later that we missed you,
because we wanna talk
about this community more.
Because we're all gonna
be working together
for the next year, I hope,
I'm really building this
innovation ecosystem.
So that's my slide that then
has triggered someone, I'm sure.
Let's talk about what we're
gonna do today together.
It always takes us a
little time to convene,
and so that's great.
The work that we're
going to do together now
needs to be deliberate.
And so we're going to work together
on a proposed timeline and everyone
has them on their tables here,
to really validate the
work that needs to happen
and whether we have it at the right pace.
But even more importantly,
we need to identify
indicators and measures
that are going to let us know
that what we're doing is working.
Because it would be a shame
to have all of these people
in the room and we don't even know
if what we're doing is effective.
We're gonna talk together
about what measures
we should be using to measure our success.
And then many of you, I hope know
that we're doing entrepreneur
engagement, right now.
So Chris Henderson is
gonna get up and talk to us
about what we've heard so far
and what our path is forward.
And then at the end
we'll do announcements.
So if you have something you wanna share
with people in the room,
please take that time.
So be thinking about what
you wanna tell people.
If there's something you want them
to be involved in, raise your hand.
And we're going to also
do a draw at the end
for some tickets to a
hockey game in the future,
where we have the EEDC suite,
were we bring together people
to hopefully make business
connections and collaborations.
So we're going to do some
draws for those seats later on.
And then we'll do some
networking at 4:30, 5:30.
Okay, so that's how we're
gonna spend the time.
Everyone good?
Okay, let's jump in.
So this is a draft timeline
that I'm gonna hopefully be able to remove
on behalf of all of us,
the draft word after,
although I didn't put it on there.
We really want to validate whether
these are the right steps.
(scrambling)
Hey, thanks.
Thanks Tiffany.
- [Tiffany] We're so grateful
(faint speaking off mic)
(group laughing)
- So we wanna validate whether
we have the right steps,
the right processes.
I want to surface any
questions about that,
and then we're going to also talk about
these proposed measures
that we've pulled out
of the startup genome assessment
that was done on our city last year.
And we're going to figure out,
we're going to validate whether
these are the right measures,
and try and determine if there's things
that are missing that we think
that would be good indicators or outcomes
for us to measure, but
we have to make sure
that we can measure them.
And so these were things that we know
we can measure right now,
and so I'll leave this
slide up as we do our work.
But there's also some other information
on your table that will support this.
Specifically, what is the
Annual Rainforest Scorecard
and what is that measure,
and so there's a one-pager
on what that is there, okay.
Sorry, I'll let you take that picture.
Okay, so here's what we're going to do.
We're going to spend about
10 minutes talking together
about the timeline and about the measures,
and I think that we should,
I'm looking really for feedback for us.
So that then when we finish this session,
we can take draft off our work,
and I know it wasn't there but,
we can really apply the timeline
and start to work together on it.
And so I'll ask that you
identify a note-taker,
and that you take your
notes on these flip charts,
so that then we can take it away after,
and make any adjustments.
You can even make notes
on the sheets provided.
And then we'll do a brief kind of report
if there's certain tables that wanna share
what they talked about
within those parameters,
they can do that.
Okay, any questions,
before we get started?
Okay, and by the way, this was feedback
that we received that you wanted
to do more work in this room.
Yeah, that's why your doing this.
So great, okay, let's go!
There's the measures.
You have the timeline.
(group chattering faintly)
Okay, thank you, everyone.
I'm gonna look back on this
and we're gonna call this,
like how to confuse a crowd.
I'm the worst facilitator ever.
I don't know if I gave clear instructions,
but good, I'm looking forward
to what questions you had!
Why don't we just spend a few minutes,
Christine already volunteered.
She wants to share.
If there's anyone that
briefly wants to give
a few highlights, briefly,
noting that you have
three pages of notes, so that's awesome.
A couple of things, and hey,
I wanna remind everyone as well,
we're recording this so that
we can post these recordings
for people that missed the
meetings, if that's not evident.
And that's why you need
to speak into the microphone, please.
- Can you hear me?
Yeah, okay, so I think the first thing
that stood out to us is
that there's no benchmarks,
so we have no idea.
It's like saying yellow.
Is yellow good, bad--
- Right.
- We don't know what this means.
- Compared to, right.
- Yeah, yeah.
- [Cheryll] So compared to what.
- I'm gonna go through funding stuff,
'cause that's my favorite topic, really.
So ecosystem funding by startup.
So is that non-dilutive or dilutive?
I think that's important--
- Right.
- I mean, I think there's cases
to be made for too much
non-dilutive funding,
there could be things with that.
The number of raises and a
how much has been raised.
I think we should be noting that as well.
Get some more funding.
Where is the funding coming from?
Government, angel, VC, other--
I think that's.
- Okay.
- Kind of important.
And then we thought about funding
as in funding the ecosystem.
We're not talking about that at all.
So maybe--
- Oh.
- There's an opportunity for talking
about funding the ecosystem
and then measuring service
provider effectiveness.
Who's doing the funding to the ecosystem?
We don't know what early stage means.
I mean, I have my own definition,
but not necessarily
shared by everybody right.
We should--
- Right.
- Be capturing volunteer
hours in the ecosystem
as an unpaid work, like
this meeting right here.
(paper crinkling)
Customer reach.
What does that mean?
- Okay.
- Foreign.
- I don't know what foreign means.
- Right.
- Does it mean.
- Outside of Edmonton or does it mean
outside of the country?
- [Cheryll] Right.
- Sector, I think we
should be measuring sector.
What else do I got in here?
Startup output.
What does that mean?
- [Cheryll] Number of startups per year--
rated.
- Okay, so then.
- We went, it's irrelevant if the open one
then close the next day, is
that a good metric, really?
Just question.
So we need a definition.
- [Cheryll] - Okay.
Okay.
- [Christine] That's it.
- Awesome.
Good, okay, good start, thank you.
Any other tables wanna share.
Mike?
- [Mike] We'll go next.
- [Cheryll] It'll catch up to you.
- Is this working, is it on?
Yeah.
So, we came up with a few questions.
Sorry, this table, you
can't see what I'm doing.
First one is, are the timelines realistic?
There's a lot to do.
There's a lot to take on
in each of those sections,
so is that realistic?
So we have to have them to look at that.
Again, it's aggressive, so what
are the resources required?
At the same time, who are those resources?
Where are the coming from?
So trying to gauge that.
One of the questions was why
are we ending in December, 2019?
Should we have a longer
view on that in terms of
like a project plan?
What does it look like moving forward?
And then, we had a good discussion
on the startup output--
- Yeah.
- [Mike] So what is the, I
guess, what is the endgame,
or the end goal?
What number of startups
really moves the needle?
- [Cheryll] Sure.
- [Mike] 400 or is it 3,000--
what makes the difference.
- Right.
- [Mike] In the economy
and really changes things?
- [Cheryll] After that, compared to what?
How did we decide that's the right number?
- So is it a thousand
and a thousand by when
or 3,000 by when, right?
So what is that and what does it mean?
And then next thing is once
we have the startup output,
we have 400 or a thousand,
how do we help these companies scale?
So startup is one area, and
then scaling is another.
- Okay, thanks Mike.
- [Mike] That's our one page.
- Do you guys wanna talk
on that assessment phase
that we talked a little bit about?
I thought that was kind
of a good ah-hah moment.
- [Man] Yup, for sure.
Whatever I miss, just let them--
know.
- Or whatever else.
- Yeah, for sure
- You wanted to.
- [Cheryll] Highlight (laughs).
- Absolutely, so one
thing that we talked about
at this table, was just the assessment
and how the assessment is
happening at the end of the year,
and at kind of a crucial
time when there's also
different types of holidays
and stuff like that.
Whereas, we were talking about,
how it would be best to
have it set up and done
at the beginning of each year,
which would then cap the
entire year's worth of outputs
and everything like that.
Just in terms of timing,
assessment of the previous year
should happen in the following year.
- Well and the point that we
were talking about as well,
was these indicators, like we're not
gonna be measuring this until next year.
So what are those immediate indicators
that we can use to
determine whether or not
we've made a good decision,
so that we can pivot quickly
and not wait for a whole year
to go whoops, that didn't work?
How do we measure early success?
Yeah.
- That makes sense.
- [Man Presenting] Anything
else you guys wanna--
- Yep, yep.
So on the same lines as they mentioned,
how do you know which startups
are gonna continue to succeed?
That's where those early
assessments are important,
is how can you predict
what's a more likely way
to help them succeed and
same with that scale up?
And then we found that a lot of projects
are looking to start in that new year,
so it's a bit of a rush
timeline in our opinion.
Same with the strategy in the implements.
We saw a similar theme with the strategy
and implement over the summer.
We often see that stuff
generally moves slower
over the summer with those
increased holidays and what not.
But a general more length
in timeline on getting
a lot of these programs in place,
and then starting to
assess how they're working.
'Cause if you start some one week,
and the next week you come back,
you say, "Yeah, it's working great.",
(laughs) you just have not
information to base that off of.
- Alright.
Anyone else wanna highlight?
I'm hoping that you took copious notes
and we're gonna assign table numbers
so that we can try and connect back.
Like if you can put your team member names
on your list so that if we have questions.
Myrna, did you wanna
highlight a few things?
- So I'm here to just
poke a little bit more,
'cause we focused on just that,
and not so much on the timeline.
But one of the things I always like to do
is step back a little bit about what is it
that we wanna measure?
Is there an agreement on
what a healthy ecosystem looks like?
Because I think that
might look differently
depending on where you are coming at,
in terms of the ecosystem.
And so I think, and then
when you like at what
do we agree is a healthy
ecosystem, is it diverse?
Are there companies that are here?
Are they growing?
Are they contributing to the economy?
Are they creating jobs?
Are they creating a place
for our students to go to?
All of those kinds of things,
I think are an important consideration
and are not in those numbers.
Also when you look at who is
generating those measurements?
That's something we
talked about as a group,
is where are they coming from?
If they're coming from just
a particular organization
that not a lot of people know about,
or that has uncomfortable
questions that you don't like
to answer maybe in a public forum,
don't know where the data is going.
The data is going actually
to some organization
that's American-based.
Those kinds of questions, I think we need
to be conscious of before we rely
on those statistics to pivot.
A little bit more about
company survival rate too.
Just to say, startups are a thing,
but really what's more
important is are the companies
that are starting healthy?
Are they lasting?
What's their two-year,
what's their four-year?
What's their five-year trajectory?
And are they succeeding?
And I think maybe even doing
a qualitative summary of things
that people want to
volunteer from the ecosystem,
about how their companies are doing,
and what's important to them,
might give you a little
bit more of the numbers
that I would be interested in.
That's just me.
And type of company too.
There's a focus on are
they small, are they large?
Are they sector-specific?
What sectors are growing?
What sectors aren't?
What sectors do we want to grow?
There's a lot that isn't up there.
- Yeah, agreed, thank you.
Okay, well thank you
very much for your work.
And as I said, hopefully lots of ideas
for us to think about.
Thanks for making your notes.
Please put, as I said,
team names before you leave
on your piece of paper,
so that we can go back for clarification.
And so I think then,
probably what I'd like to do
at this point is move onto Chris.
And before I introduce Chris,
I'll tell you as well,
something a little bit about me,
is that I like to learn
things the hard way.
But there's a gift in that,
is that I tend to hopefully not make
the same mistakes twice
because the first time is so painful.
And so we heard loud and clear
that we did not engage the full spectrum
of tech entrepreneur in the city here,
and so we hired a professional
to help us do this.
And so we engaged ZGM to
perform this engagement for us,
so that we could make sure
that they were reaching out
to the community and making sure
that we were collecting all voices.
We also heard that we
needed to be transparent
with what we were
hearing and so we will be
publishing the results
of those survey sprints
every time we get information,
it's being made live.
And so good, bad, ugly is gonna be
shared with the community.
And then another really important thing
about hiring Chris and team to do this,
is we want this to be unbiased.
We want there to be no
perception that we're involved
in influencing any of the results,
and so we are paying their bill,
but we're not engaged or
involved in the process.
These were some of the principles
that we approached Chris
about when we hired them.
Maybe this is a good point
then to introduce you Chris
and you can validate
whether or not I'm telling,
whether I'm truthful in these principles.
But here you go.
Okay--
- Is there.
- Is there a clicker?
Thank you very much.
- It's right here.
- Okay.
- And are you good with the podium,
or do you want handheld--
or would you like this?
- No podium.
- No podium would be great
- Okay, great.
- Great, awesome.
Chris Henderson!
- Hi everybody.
(group applauding)
It's great to be here.
There's a lot of new faces in the room,
a lot of familiar faces in the room.
So, yeah.
As Cheryll mentioned and as you all know
from the emails that you've been getting,
the copious amounts of
emails you've been getting
from me throughout the
week, I'm Chris Henderson.
I'm from ZGM Modern Marketing Partners,
and I'm the person that's running
the Innovation Compass process.
The goal of the process really is to talk
to as many entrepreneurs
as we possibly can,
collect their feedback and work with them
to create directions and recommendations
on how to advance Edmonton's
tech-enabled ecosystem.
I'm really excited about doing this work.
I believe this is a really
important sector in our city,
and is gonna be a big foundation
to any of the future
city building that we do.
So it's a pleasure to work
with the people in this sector.
Today I'm gonna talk to you
about just a couple of things.
No, too early Chris.
Today I'm gonna talk to you
about a couple of things.
One is the pilot engagence
we did in December.
I'm gonna talk to you about
the results of those pilots
and what we learned to build the process
that we're currently undergoing.
I'm also gonna ask you to do
a little bit of group work
with the sheets that
you have on the table.
And because if I can't get
a group of people like this
in a room and get some feedback out of it,
I'm not doing my job.
I'm not sure I'm gonna
have time to take questions
at the end of this, to keep us on track,
but I have committed that I would be here
for the entire networking component.
And I'm here until nobody
wants to talk to me anymore.
Yeah, I'm here till 5:30 or even beyond
if you wanna grab me elsewhere.
One thing I do wanna say,
is I know that we've got
a bit of a split of service providers
and entrepreneurs in the room.
I really, really wanna talk
to some of those entrepreneurs in the room
about helping me get into
your networks a little bit,
particularly with some of
the round table discussions
that we're gonna be having
throughout this process.
So if you're an entrepreneur,
I'd love for everyone of
you to talk to me today.
Okay, we started this process
with a pilot engagement
to get some early feedback and validate
the engagement methodology and make sure
that when we did something
a little bit bigger,
we knew that it would work.
And that initial pilot was
focused on three questions.
What are your perceptions
of the ecosystem?
What supports do you need?
And what barriers do you need taken away?
About 40 people, exactly 38,
but about 40 people showed
at four sessions, and which was not bad,
considering it was basically at Christmas.
The findings from these
sessions and everything
that we learned from the
engagement themselves,
we used to develop the YEG
Innovation Compass process.
That process launched
on the 25th of February.
It will have five sprint periods
between now and essentially
the third week of April,
were we're presenting summary findings
from previous engagements and then
asking you questions
based on those findings.
It's a pretty speedy iterative process.
We're collecting input, then
we're developing a summary
of that input, then we put it back to you,
and then we ask new questions
on the basis of that input,
and then we just repeat the
process three, four, five times.
Each sprint which lasts one or two weeks,
three of the sprints last two weeks,
and two of the sprints last one week.
The intention of them is to drill down
until we get you solid
validated recommendations
and directions coming from
the entrepreneurial community.
We are trying to do this work
a little bit differently.
One thing we learned from
the piloting engagements,
versus what we ended up developing,
is that we can't bet everything
on a couple of town halls,
or a series of town halls.
Even if we're hoping to get 160 people
or 200 people or 250
people at four town halls,
it is not getting the
kind of rich feedback
that you wanna get out of those.
So, this process is a bit more
of, not a quick and dirty,
but it's a bit more of a one-on-one,
out in the streets kind of process.
We're engaging people one-on-one.
We're using the small pure
organized round tables.
We're doing residencies in the spaces
that you're actually working in.
We're talking to as any
people at as many events
as we possibly can.
Tomorrow I'll be at the Tech Night,
and then there'll be some messaging
at Rapid Fire Theatre for
the people from Tech Night,
that are going to the
Rapid Fire Theatre event.
And then using the online
platform at Innovationcompass.ca.
So that's the two
processes that we've had,
the one before Christmas and the pilot
and the current Innovation Compass.
I wanna just talk a little
bit about what Cheryll
was talking about and the
principles that we based
this engagement on.
One thing that we heard loud and clear,
is that the audience wanted
more control over this process.
So we've developed a process
that has no predetermined questions,
and that needed to be entrepreneur-driven.
Your input needs sprint determines
what is going to be the
next set of questions
in the sprint following it.
Our goal is to listen to
as many as it is possible
and get clear validated feedback.
One of the parts of the process
I'm excited about and this
is sort of part sales pitch,
part report on what we've already heard,
is the entrepreneur round tables,
I really believe that entrepreneurs
are extending out their network,
getting a group of six to nine
or six to 10 people together
to have a more informal
two-hour chat with me about the
sprint questions that
we're currently asking
is one of the best ways that
we're gonna get feedback.
It allows us to relax a little bit.
It allows us to go a little bit deeper
to talk about issues in a different way,
and it allows more people, I think,
to actually contribute
in the engagement session
than you would if we were all sitting,
like if I had you know, 40 chairs here,
and I had a flip chart.
That's a good way to do
things in some cases,
but I wanna have some more
organic conversations about this,
and so that's something.
I've got a few of these booked already,
and really looking forward to them,
but I'm hoping I can get entrepreneurs
to extend their networks
and build even more.
If we could do 30 of
them over this process,
that would be amazing.
If you do wanna organize
one of these sessions
please come talk to me after.
The one thing I also wanna say is that
from the emails and the
phone calls that I've got,
since we launched this process,
I'm really kind of overwhelmed
with how generous this community is.
People have been giving feedback.
People have been offering
their own network.
People have been offering space.
People have been asking us to come
to meet with their groups,
coming to talk with their companies.
The feedback has been really good
and I'm really feeling that people
really do wanna be
involved in this process.
Another major principle is
that this was third-party run.
As I've described, we're
really serious about
listening to clear constructive
and honest feedback from you.
EEDC and Innovate Edmonton
will provide staff resources,
as we request them.
I mean, obviously to a point,
and they'll provide logistical support,
but they won't be at the sessions
that you're attending and
they won't be approving
any of the synthesis or
analysis of your input.
We'll just be taking that.
Basically, we'll stop
collecting input on Sunday.
We'll write a report
and we'll put the report
up on the Monday with
a new set of questions.
My colleagues and I will run
the process in the sessions.
Hopefully we'll rely on community members
to help us out with that.
And then we'll be available
to you as a community
entirely so that we can listen to you
in whatever way works best for you.
I'm really optimistic about
the potential of the process,
especially what I've seen so far.
And I'm thinking about what
it looks like on April 22,
I'm getting pretty excited about it.
Before we get into the
feedback component of the time,
I wanna talk to you a little
bit about the findings
from the pilot sessions.
This will give you a good
idea of where we're at,
and what I'm about to
show you is what people
are currently reacting
to in the current sprint.
So this is what we're presenting to people
and then asking them two questions
which we'll get into at
your tables in a minute.
And you can answer those questions
even not in this room,
at Innovationcompass.ca.
So why I say that the engagement sessions
and the pilot came out with a lot of areas
that we can definitely improve on,
these sessions did really
reflect a lot of optimism
around the city and the potential
for the innovation sector as a whole.
I would say that four things
really popped out at me.
First Edmonton is our home.
There's a lot of attachment
to other people to Edmonton,
and make this the smartest place for them
to launch a startup and
continue to build a business.
The feedback that we heard a lot is
that this is a very supportive
and encouraging community.
I think that's probably Edmonton-wide,
not just in the entrepreneurial
or innovation community.
The University of
Alberta, among other PSEs,
is a big driver.
The University has been a
crucible for a lot of the,
you as individuals but
also a lot of the work
that's come out of
Edmonton and contributed
to organizations and businesses
that make up our ecosystem.
The last two points is
that there's a feeling
that Edmonton is really just
the right place right now.
I think a lot of us have felt this,
particularly over the last
10 years, maybe 12 years.
And there's a sense that
across the whole city
in a variety of areas and sectors,
and this one in particular,
that we're at a bit of a tipping point.
There's a unique energy
and enthusiasm here,
and there's a momentum particularly
if you look at a sector like AI,
we're seeing a lot of progress.
It's not a perfect city.
It's not a perfect ecosystem.
There's a bit of anxiety about how
we're harnessing that
energy in that enthusiasm,
but generally speaking,
Edmonton's a pretty
exciting place right
now if you're starting
or running a tech-enabled business.
So I think a lot of your probably
feel those foundations today.
Hopefully the city councilors
in the room particularly.
But that's I think a lot of the reason why
this room is so full today.
Now let's talk about some of the areas
that we can focus on for improvement.
So again, this is the feedback
that we heard from the groups.
It's not my feedback,
it's not my assessment.
It is the collective wisdom of the group.
The first is that programs
are not delivering
the value that entrepreneurs
believe they should.
To an extent service providers
while they're clearly
well-intentioned, they're
not necessarily aligned
with the needs of entrepreneurs
and are perceived primarily as
distributors of public funding programs.
These service providers need
to align with each other
a little bit better to get the most
out of the ecosystem as a whole as well.
A lack of entrepreneur
leadership in connectedness.
Right now a lot of the
participants in the sector
feel that its service provider-led,
and they believe that it should
be more entrepreneur-led.
However, there's no clear
group of entrepreneurs
taking the reigns of the ecosystem
at a grassroots level,
and while there's a lot of
promising work happening
across Edmonton, done by entrepreneurs,
a lot of it's happening in
silos and isn't necessarily
connected to one another.
There needs to be better
ways to connect entrepreneurs
so that they can socialize,
network and collaborate
as effectively as possible.
Another piece of feedback
was that the general theme feedback,
is that the programs are hard to access.
Many granting programs
are difficult to navigate.
Funding tends to go to those already
in a good financial position,
and focusing a lot less
on early stage startups who
need the money the most.
In lieu of private
investors, while the city
builds its investor inventory,
granting from governments
and the participants thought
that granting from governments
and public sources should
ideally be less restrictive,
and allow them to put
money to whatever they need
to build their business
in the most effective way.
Access to new customers and markets.
Ultimately a lot of entrepreneurs
have ambitions to look
beyond their local market.
This is an area where they see
a lot of positive assistance
from EEDC and government providers.
This can be something as simple as helping
them get into major industry trade shows.
A lack of local customer support.
Entrepreneurs want to see
engagement perhaps even
the incentivization of local businesses,
organizations, to engage
the products and solutions
being developed by Edmonton
innovation businesses.
The access to capital is challenging.
Within this ecosystem there seems to be
a bit of a risk aversion to investing
in long-term growth potential
with early stage capital,
with more money going to businesses
and products with an
established cashflow potential.
This makes it difficult
obviously for more startups
to reach a critical mass and
contribute to the ecosystem.
And then the last big piece of feedback
was the changes in the
economy have impacted
the supply demand landscape.
The downturn in the resource sector
has eliminated a bit of a reliable source
of early adopters for products and ideas
that the innovation ecosystem
has been delivering.
And now we're finding
ourselves in a situation
where we need to find and better identify
and seek out new customers
and sometimes less fruitful sectors.
You can read these.
There's a much longer summary of this.
There's about a 12-page
summary of this information
available on the Innovation
Ecosystem website.
Sorry, the Innovationcompass.ca website.
There's also an executive summary of this,
but on the sheets, there's two sheets
at your table right now, that
have a mini-summary of this.
Basically more or less what
I just said about the areas
for future improvement.
So I wanna take a bit of time.
If I can get you guys
to break into two groups
at your table, groups
no smaller than four,
no larger than six.
And you can answer these three questions,
one based on the mini-summary,
what do you believe
are the most important areas of focus
for this ecosystem to thrive?
Two what have you seen
in other jurisdictions
that we should consider here?
And three is there any
feedback about the programs
offered by the tech-enabled ecosystem
that you want to give to
Innovation Edmonton at this time?
So these are the questions
that we're actually asking in this sprint.
The questions in the first
pilot we're very high level.
Therefore, the feedback ended
up being pretty high level.
Now we're trying to drill
down, just one level
and then next week we'll
drill down into another level,
and two weeks after that, we'll
drill down to another level.
Then we'll do a prioritization exercise
and then this process will more or less
complete at that point.
So if can give you five
to seven minutes on each
of those questions, you can
break yourselves into groups
at your table, and assign a note taker.
And again start.
(group chattering together)
Thank you very much for
engaging in that last exercise.
If you can leave the sheets on the table.
If you wanna host an
entrepreneur round table,
grab one of the cards on the table
or come talk to me or both.
I'm very interested in
finding time to talk to you
and your network in informal fashion.
So yeah, thank you very much
for listening to me today,
for engaging with one another
and I'll turn it over to Cheryll.
(group applauding)
- Okay thank you for all of
the work that you did today,
and we are looking forward
to taking all of your notes
and incorporating them
into continuing to develop
the innovation strategy timeline,
to work on the measures.
We're looking forward to
incorporating the feedback
into the process that Chris is driving.
So thank you.
Now at this moment, before
we get to announcements,
remember I gave you warning
that if there's anything
exciting you wanna
share with the group, you have time.
But I would offer Councilor Cartmel,
if there's anything that
you would like to offer,
any remarks or reflections
might have on the time
you spent with us today,
that would be great.
Are you good to use this podium?
Okay, well thank you.
- So first of all, thank you very much
for inviting me along and
allowing me the privilege
of sitting in and listening to
some of the things you have to say.
I won't take a very long time,
'cause the more I talk,
the more I'll display
just how little I know about any of this.
A few things that came to
mind in some of the things
that Cheryll said at the beginning
in terms of moving too fast
and disturbing the community
and sort of activating
the community to action.
I think that's really exciting.
You know, this is a hard thing to navigate
when it's not something
that you're part of
on a everyday basis.
I'm envious of my table
mate, where they get to
focus on one particular part
of one particular thing.
As City Councilor you're
trying to kind of take
in all kinds of different things
at all kinds of different times,
and sometimes you're at a bit
of a loss as just what to do.
I think that as the City,
we get into a bit of trouble
when we think that the corporation
that is the City of Edmonton, is in fact,
the City of Edmonton.
I think that we get
into a bit of a trouble
just genuinely when we forget
that we are just one part
of this great big
organization that is a city.
And so we try to find the places where,
what our role is when it
comes to economic development,
to when it comes to
the business community.
What is our role?
Is it at times to incubate,
to do what private sector
won't or private sector can't,
and is it to get out of
the way and allow things
to evolve and to peculate and to move
without putting up barriers
and without putting up constraints.
I know that is a constant dilemma
that I think we find ourselves in.
So that's one thought that occurs to me
as I'm listening to all this.
It's very encouraging to hear things like
YEG and Edmonton is at the
right place at the right time,
that we're at a tipping
point of really moving
this environment and
this ecosystem forward.
That's exciting for me, both as a citIzen
that's lived here all my life
and as a City councilor, and I'll share
one final thought with you,
that I am looking for feedback on,
and that I hope to learn more about,
and that is as challenged a few days ago,
that in order for Edmonton through EEDC,
and generally that is our tool
for these kinds of things,
if we are going to somehow
incubate and incent
the development of an
innovation ecosystem,
we're gonna have to take risks,
and that's a hard thing to do
as an elected representative
to take risks with other people's money.
But if we're gonna make this work,
then we're gonna have to
think like a tech firm.
We're gonna have to jump in, take risks,
fail, recover, repeat.
And that's the sense that I get
from the things that you do,
and I think that we're
gonna have to develop
the courage and the intent
to do that as a city,
so that we can support
and incubate and somehow
inspire and incent this
ecosystem to develop.
So thank you very much
for the opportunity.
I'm really looking
forward to all the things
that I've yet to learn about
all of this, thank you.
(group applauding)
- Thank you.
Okay, whoops, I going to go backwards.
Any announcements that anyone has
that they'd like to share
with the ecosystem events,
information, celebrations.
- I just remembered every
Wednesday we're gonna serve
at lunchtime, we have
Rainforest lunch without lunch.
Bring your own lunch.
And we share stories and
connect with each other.
So come on out.
- Lunch without lunch.
Work can I serve?
Every Wednesday 12 to
one, you get to hear.
- [Man] Every Thursday we
do it at the ETC quarters.
- Thursday nights four to six
at the Events Technology
Center at research park.
Great, okay.
Awesome.
Okay.
- [Man] I think from my perspective
there's that whole story
norming, forming, performing.
(mumbles)
It's really awesome because
we're a really diverse group.
There's a lot of representation,
student, scale up,
startup, investor.
And we're seeing some crazy
collisions between them.
And each of us has kind
of agreed to go off
and essentially serve as a
representative of our own groups,
because we're so into it with that.
And I'm really glad about scale up,
because there's not that many of us.
(group laughing)
They got thousands they gotta fix then.
But it's a really smart group.
You guys did well picking.
These are good people.
I'm likin' it.
And the timeline's a little strained.
We've got to deliver fairly quick here,
so we're definitely
starting to engage right now
and if somebody doesn't engage
with you from your specific
group within the next month,
month and a half, reach out to us,
start pokin' us, email, however
you can get ahold of us.
There is a EACOS website that's posted up.
I don't have the address--
- [Cheryll] It's eacos.ca
- Gee I could have remembered that.
(group laughing)
Eacos.ca.
- Yeah.
And if nobody's reached out
to you, reach out to us,
and we'll definitely talk to you.
- Yeah, thanks Trent.
Good update.
Yeah, hi, Chris.
The mic.
- [Chris] So at the
Rainforest Alberta Meetup,
everyone stands up and says what they do.
It's always very powerful.
We did that at the EIEC meetings before,
but obviously we're not
doing that anymore for time.
It would be really nice to
have something at the front
when we walk in so you
can see what products
and what companies are
in the room, right now.
- Right, right.
- [Chris] And who do I need to talk to,
'cause I know there's a
new product in the room,
and I know that not all
of us know each other
and not all of us have the time to network
at the end of this--
- Yeah.
- [Chris] So if we could
streamline this process
to push receptivity in the ecosystem,
'cause there's a lot of
decision makers here,
so that would be nice.
Just a simple board--
- When you come in you kind of sign in.
- [Chris] What's your name?
- Okay, yep.
- [Chris] Just write it down.
That would be nice, thank you.
- Okay, yeah, good feedback, thank you.
Roberto, do you wanna talk.
What's your new company?
- Hello, hello, thank you Chris.
Chris is actually my mentor
at the student innovation center at UA.
- [Cheryll] Nice.
- So essentially just I
launched a company called
the Server Tab.
It's still in its beta stage,
just lookin' at restaurants,
to pair with but essentially
it's a tablet ordering systems,
like taking it a step further
with some AI applications
and stuff like that.
Really big plans, really excited
to network with you guys
today, yeah, cool, thank you.
(group applauding)
- [Cheryll] Hey, great
congratulations, awesome.
Make sure and hang around
and let know people
what help you need after.
Okay, we're gonna do a draw.
So as mentioned earlier,
we're giving away two
sets of tickets to the
March 30 Oilers game
between Anaheim Ducks.
So here's how this is gonna work.
This the surprise, you
didn't know what you were
putting your business card in for,
but we're gonna draw two of them.
You're gonna come up and talk to Alex,
and you're gonna confirm
whether or not you're available
because we're gonna exchange information
so that we can make sure that
the date works for everyone.
So I'm just gonna put my hand in here.
We have Jen from Tech who's a winner.
Okay great, awesome.
(group applauding)
Oh Adrianna, awesome that's really great.
Okay, so these are our winners.
We're gonna connect you with Alex
who you can confirm your availability
and if not, we're gonna
go back to the basket
and we'll track people down later on.
Busy slide here.
So thank you again for
coming and giving your time.
The next time we meet it
will be Thursday April 11,
and this is important
because the next week,
I'm going to have the opportunity
to go before City Council
to talk about some innovation investments
that were going to be
requesting to hopefully fund
some things that are surfacing
the entrepreneur engagement,
and so we wanna share
with you at that time,
what we're going to be
presenting to Council,
so that you have an early heads-up on
what we're going to be talking about.
We're also going to
share the sprint results
from the Innovation
Compass, and then Chris
talked to me about having Chris, I think,
present on data-driven program development
and a bit of a dive into that subject.
So these are our agenda
items that we're proposing
for the next meeting.
We have a date.
That's the first time I
think that we've told you
the next date at this meeting.
So that's a big win.
And again, feedback is a gift.
I would appreciate it if
you would leave me some
and so you can do that.
I don't think we have cards on the table,
but there are pieces of paper.
What you leave on the table,
we'll collect and I always
appreciate your suggestions
on how we can make
these meetings a really
good use of our time.
What we can do better, always wanna know.
I will repeat Chris' statement.
We are at a tipping point,
and it is the people
in this room, all of us
together collectively
that are going to be able to figure out
what we need to do for the
future success of our tech
companies, how do we get
more of those scale ups
so that Trent is overwhelmed
with his peer group,
and thank you again for your
commitment to this work.
Thank you.
(group applauding)
Stay around, have a drink,
have a piece of pizza,
talk to each other, find
out we can help others.
