The latest on local tech from Taproot Edmonton
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By Mack Male

Thanks for checking out the Tech Roundup! Each week we bring together the latest tech headlines and upcoming events to help you stay up-to-date on what's happening in Edmonton's tech community. Get it delivered to your inbox!

Rainforest Alberta expands Lunch without Lunch YEG

Last week's well-attended Lunch without Lunch event organized by Rainforest Alberta featured Adrian Banica, a serial entrepreneur and current member of the A100. Adrian shared his entrepreneurial journey and highlighted the importance of opportunities. "Be aware of opportunities that present themselves and grab them, then ride them until the next one comes along," he told the crowd. The major turning points in his life came when he grabbed opportunities "that seemed crazy at the time."

Adrian Banica speaking at Lunch without Lunch YEG

After his remarks, the room opened up for networking and discussion. The event was popular enough that a second one has been scheduled for today at Enterprise Square featuring investor Teruel Carrasco. Expect that frequency for the next few months. "Lunch without Lunch will typically run the 1st and 2nd Tuesday of every month at Enterprise Square."

Did you know...the name "Rainforest" comes from the 2012 book The Rainforest: The Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley, written by Victor W. Hwang and Greg Horowitt. There's even a company now called Rainforest Strategies that helps clients with the approach it outlines. Here's more on the rainforest analogy.

Edmonton as a Challenger City for AI

A group of business, government, and community leaders gathered last week at the "Challenger City" event to discuss how Edmonton can capitalize on its leadership in artificial intelligence research. "This isn’t something we can tinker with," Mayor Iveson told attendees. "There is an urgency to capitalize on our advantage as a global AI hub."

Sponsored by Deloitte, Market Gravity, AltaML, EEDC, and Servus Credit Union, the event featured talks by Cory Janssen and Bruce Alton of Edmonton.AI, Jonathan Schaeffer from the University of Alberta, Cam Linke from Amii, Dalibor Petrovic from Deloitte, and more.

Photo courtesy of Mayor Don Iveson's office

Edmonton is a world leader in the science of artificial intelligence and that could help us "to become a net importer of brains rather than a chronic exporter of them."

Check out the #YEGAILAB hashtag on Twitter for updates.

Local AI Headlines

  • Warren Johnston has announced he is leaving Startup Edmonton to join Amii. "If you’re one of the thousands of entrepreneurs, instructors, hackers, investors, students, etc that I’ve crossed paths with at some point, thanks," he wrote. "It has been a slice to say the least!" About his new role, which starts today, Warren says he will be "continuing to support the tech community and helping to build Edmonton into one of the world’s top cities for machine intelligence!"
  • Dr. Alona Fyshe has joined Amii at the University of Alberta. She was previously in the Department of Computing Science at the University of Victoria, and after earning her masters at the U of A, worked on machine learning at Google.
  • OpenAI says it has created software using reinforcement learning "capable of beating teams of five skilled human players in the video game Dota 2." The University of Alberta's Jonathan Schaeffer told Bloomberg that reinforcement learning is likely to play a part in getting the field closer to artificial general intelligence.
  • The RoboSub 2018 competition starts July 30 and a team from the University of Alberta is ready. “It’s really cool to see how a lot of these technologies for artificial intelligence have become a reality and have been dynamically implemented within our own team,” said Jon Machinski, the business team lead for the project.
  • OneBridge Solutions Inc. has been nominated as a finalist for a 2018 ASTech Foundation award for its machine learning technology that "assist pipeline operators and regulators to achieve their stated objective of predicting oil and gas pipeline failures, to save lives, reduce costs and save the environment." The company is the only Edmonton organization nominated this year. The winners will be announced on October 26 here in Edmonton.
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Local Tech Headlines

  • The date for Pitchfest Edmonton has been changed to give the organizers more time to prepare a great event. It'll now take place on Wednesday, November 14 at the Shaw Conference Centre.
  • TheFutureEconomy.ca has a special feature on innovation in Alberta that includes interviews with Patrick Lor, Aaryn Flynn, Karina Guy, and David Lloyd. "Although energy will remain a central component of its economy, emerging sectors such as health tech, digital tech and biotech – as well as others – are attracting attention, investment, talent and occupying a greater role in the vision for Alberta’s diversified economy."
  • Last week NAIT kicked off "a summer camp for kids who are learning to build, program, and race their own drones." Fun!
  • Stephanie Enders spoke with Danelle Fash, Marketing Manager at Testfire Labs, and Kieran Ryan, founder of POGO CarShare, about their marketing approach and advice. "Both highlighted that in early days the direct access you have to customers is fertile ground to learn more about what they want from your brand, create a wave of ambassadors for your product, and improve on your marketing efforts every day."
  • Does your startup need a COO? SAM COO Ashlyn Bernier discussed the role with Startup Edmonton.
  • "Roughly 410,000 Albertans are now self-employed," an increase of 43,000 from a year and a half ago, reports CBC using new figures from Statistics Canada.
  • Edmonton's downtown has absorbed 300,000 square feet of vacant space so far ths year in technology, artificial intelligence, and public sector offices, says CBRE Edmonton's Jeremy Deeks. Most of those offices have moved into the "loosely defined Innovation Corridor" that also contains Startup Edmonton and TEC Edmonton.
  • ICYMI, Eugene Chen of Darkhorse Analytics shared this cool visualization of Edmonton's growth from 1917 to 2017.
  • Hungry? Startup Edmonton's Stephanie Enders and Testfire Labs' Nathan Beck were among the prominent Edmontonians who shared their favorite things to eat, drink, and snack on with Avenue Edmonton.
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Upcoming Events

MacEwan University is hosting Inspiring Innovation Through Technology this week, a series of workshops for teachers centred around the theme of innovation and technology. "The goal of this event is to provide hands on, active learning workshops to educators where they will be given an opportunity to learn new technologies and to create curriculum with the purpose of bringing the knowledge and experience back to their classrooms to inspire and engage the next generation of thinkers and tinkerers."

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Thursday, July 12, 2018

  • The next Open Hardware Meetup starts at 6:30pm at Startup Edmonton. This month they'll look at "what you can do with Google AIY Voice kit for Raspberry Pi."
  • The next Edmonton Bitcoin Meetup takes place at 7pm at the Bitcoin Solutions Offices.

Friday, July 13, 2018

  • The next AI Seminar at the University of Alberta features Levi Lelis. The event starts at noon.
  • IBM Canada is hosting a briefing on modernizing applications, preparing for the cloud and the API ecosystem, and harnessing digital automation. The free event starts at noon.

Monday, July 16, 2018

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Heads up:

Have news or events to suggest for future editions? Let us know!

Beyond Edmonton

This roundup was sponsored by:
Taproot Edmonton, publishing curiosity-driven stories about our city, cultivated by the community. Want to sponsor a future edition? Email us!
Copyright © 2018 Taproot Publishing Inc., All rights reserved.


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