Edmonton Unlimited spearheads Edmonton Startup Week

Alberta has a lot to boast about when it comes to female tech leaders, and our next guest is no exception. Catherine Warren leads the newly-rebranded Edmonton Unlimited as a vital cog in Alberta's tech entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Dive in and join us as we do a deep dive to learn more about Edmonton Unlimited, their leader and Edmonton Startup Week that they're spearheading the week of October 17 to 22.

Bio

Catherine Warren, CEO Edmonton Unlimited

Living and working in Canada, the US, UK and Europe, Warren has served as a C-suite executive for publicly-traded companies, academic institutions and government-business enterprises.

Most recently, as Chief Executive Officer of Vancouver Economic Commission, she led the team in attracting $3B in foreign direct investment to the region, with a portfolio including the Vancouver Film Commission, the world’s largest animation and visual effects sector, smart cities technologies such as AI, 5G and quantum computing and the green and impact economies.

In more than two decades as a tech advisor, Warren’s track-record includes mergers and acquisitions for digital distribution and digital IP, raising capital and liquidity events for tech companies, consulting to national media funds, hedge funds, crowdfunds and coaching executives on strategic growth and monetization. Earlier in her career, she was the start-up COO of a broadcast software company that she and her partners took to the Nasdaq and grew to a $300M market cap.

Warren has a bachelor’s degree in physics from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, with a focus on climate change, and a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York, where she did her original thesis work onsite at MIT covering the launch of its digital Media Lab.

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

Transcript

Jon:

On Shift, we've had the opportunity to speak with many talented and innovative women in Alberta's tech ecosystem. The list includes people like Jana Reger from True Angle Medical Technology, Laura Kilcrease from Alberta Innovates, Susan Groenveld from Sylvester AI, Bonnie Drozdowski from InnoTech Alberta, Myrna Bittner from Run With It Synthetics, Connie Stacey from Growing Greener. The list goes on, and we're keeping up with that tradition with our next guest. Sit back. Welcome.

Good morning and welcome to Shift by Alberta Innovates. Today my guest is Catherine Warren, CEO of Edmonton Unlimited. Catherine, how are you?

Catherine:

I'm doing great. And it's very nice to be hosting you in our podcast studio.

Jon:

Absolutely. I look around, I'm like, man, we need some digs like this, because my podcast studio's typically in the basement of my house.

Catherine:

A lot of podcasters are in your closet under a big duvet.

Jon:

Right. Yeah. And then with COVID and all that, everybody was doing it via Zoom. And so it's so nice to actually sit down and talk to someone face to face.

Catherine:

It is.

Jon:

So thank you. I think you're one of our first guests actually face to face.

Catherine:

The Honor is mine.

Jon:

Well, let's dive right in. Why don't you tell me about Edmonton Unlimited and your organization's role in the Alberta innovation ecosystem?

Catherine:

You got it. So well, we're a relatively new organization. We opened our doors in December of 2020. Very much children of the pandemic. And it's our role to be the municipal innovation authority and convening body for all of the incredible innovators and innovation support infrastructure that we have in Edmonton. And then with the help of good people such as yourselves at Alberta Innovates to also coordinate the Edmonton Regional Innovation Network the year end.

Jon:

Right on. Yeah. Yeah. We just had the Alberta Innovation Network meeting, as you know, where we convened all the regional innovation networks. And it really speaks to the volume of activity that was going on because I know you guys were getting ready for startup week, you're planning a big move. It was a pretty chaotic time, but it was great to convene everybody there at that time. So you guys recently went through a name change. Can you describe that to us and why did that come about and how did it come about?

Catherine:

Well, we had inherited a placeholder name. So when our organization was stood up, it was done so under the moniker of Innovate Edmonton, which as it turns out, was inherited from a prior division of an economic development entity that's now defunct. And so it was always our intention to launch our new organization with a bold vision and a new strategy, and then to figure out this community that we're serving. And then with those two things, the strategic vision and the knowledge of the community to then organically and authentically develop a new name and identity. And that name is, as you've just said, Edmonton Unlimited. And it speaks to our potential as well as the reality of our limitless innovation ingenuity that we have in our city.

Jon:

Well, that's cool. Well, congratulations. The branding looks wonderful. I'm so happy that we get to work with you guys. It's really great. And I got to say, as an aside, your team is unreal. We've spent a lot of time helping set up and participate in Startup Week. And your team is... They're always eager to help. And kudos to you guys.

Catherine:

That's great. I mean, everyone we hired was hired through Zoom, and that's what happens when you're building something new in a challenging time. You can't always get together. And the fact that we have gelled so well and built a culture is amazing. And then we grew in part through acquisition. So we acquired Startup Edmonton. We acquired some of the key assets of Tech Edmonton. And then, as I mentioned, did some administrative consolidation for the year end.

Jon:

Okay. Wow. So it's a big group coming together.

Catherine:

Yeah, very much so.

Jon:

What are you guys sitting at right now off the top of your head staff wise because there's been a significant growth?

Catherine:

So we have about 35 individuals. They're dedicated largely to programmatic delivery for the startup, scale up, and post-secondary communities. And then we also have an accelerator fund. So like we support the Silicon Valley accelerators with an Alberta footprint, those being Plug and Play, 500 Global, and Alchemists through the TELUS Community Safety and Wellness Accelerator. And then most recently we onboarded a whole new team for something that we call Capital City Pilots. And this is a whole new program to enable startup and scale up businesses to participate in a novel procurement experiment with the city of Edmonton and deploy their IP on city owned assets. And then as a result, they'll get a flagship client that they can point to when they're doing international business development or when they're trying to attract investment. Another benefit, of course, is that City Hall becomes innovative through this process. And then finally it helps put innovation into the public realm, we want to make these innovations visible so that Edmontonians have a sense of pride about homegrown innovation.

Jon:

Right on. That's awesome. So let's go back to Edmonton Unlimited and just the goals you guys have. Now that you've come together and you talked about acquiring all of startup and Tech Edmonton and the resources there, what are the goals of Edmonton Unlimited as you move forward?

Catherine:

Well, first and foremost, we are positioning our city as an inclusive global innovation capital. We are a city of innovators tackling great global challenges. Things like the climate emergency, public health, food security, digital inclusion, reconciliation. Areas where Edmonton has very specific bench strength. And fortunately for us, this is exactly what international markets demand, and it's where enlightened investors want to put their capital. So we are very much right place, right time to be focused on what I like to think of as big enough problems, these transformational problems, and where you really have a chance to make an impact and have a legacy for years to come.

Jon:

Now, tell us a little bit about your background. What brought you to Innovate Edmonton formally and now Edmonton Unlimited?

Catherine:

Well, going way back, I suppose I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. My father specifically was a biotech entrepreneur, and he ultimately had the patent, the portable aids testing kit. And my mom was an internet search pioneer and her business inside-

Catherine:

... her and her business inside information, which she still runs to this day, does corporate and government competitive intelligence using online search methodologies. So I grew up in this kind of crucible of risk taking and exploration and being on the cutting edge of important things, trends, and transformations. Early in my career, I focused on digital transformation, specifically what artists could learn from scientists and vice versa. I did my graduate work at Columbia University in New York and focused on MIT's digital media lab where I got to interview some amazing artists and scientists and look at how they would work together. I think in a lot of ways that really shaped my understanding and appreciation for interdisciplinary innovation, the importance of cross-pollinating ideas from different disciplines.

And then from there, I moved to Austin, Texas and worked in computer publishing. So these were very early magazines for companies like Hewlett Packard and Sun Microsystems and Unisys and Dell and others. They were trying to build a fan base for their equipment. And so we had all of these titles. Eventually, I took the company to Europe and established a beachhead for us in London and ran the European operations for the company, which we also grew through mergers and acquisitions of other small titles in Europe. So that was kind of my first taste of international business development, first taste of M&A, and also where I really developed my commitment to innovation and technology.

And then more recently in my career, I developed a really great partnership to build what became a publicly traded company that does broadcast technology software. My partners and I eventually took that onto the NASDAQ and grew it to a $300 million market cap. So I had that experience of first of all, being ruled by two masters, the markets and the clients, the whole experience of raising capital and the whole Securities and Exchange Commission regulatory environment, and managing through all of that.

It was such an interesting time because we were all focused on digital transformation for broadcasting very specifically. And you and I, right now, what we're doing with podcasting is just a manifestation of all of that, right?

Jon:

Yeah.

Catherine:

But at the time, we were helping large news organizations like CTV and Fox convert to a digital playbook. But what I learned from all of that was that technology was increasingly becoming a commodity. And the interesting things in my mind that were happening were strategic. So what audiences could do when they had two way communication with digital rights holders or producers or the talent, how that was going to change and bend the business models, the dependencies, the marketing, the sales, soup to nuts. And so I eventually started my own business called FanTrust, very much focused on helping large media companies come to grips with digital audiences and to value digital audiences and really appreciate them because for too long they were just able to ignore and really focus on things like ratings, which is a very blunt tool. But because of interactivity, they had the opportunity to really engage with audiences as people who had opinions and values, and were making demands, almost the equivalent of shareholder activism. So just really fostering that two-way trust was really what FanTrust was all about.

And then from that, I decided it would be really interesting to do more real world engagement. I've been doing this digital work for so long. And so that's when I took the leap into community building in the real world. I moved my career into economic development. I was the CEO of a very interesting digital neighborhood in Vancouver called The Centre for Digital Media that had campuses, game studios, art galleries, parks, transit, just this really cool crucible for interdisciplinary communities. And had so much fun with that. And then from there, went to helm as CEO of Vancouver Economic Commission, where the team and I brought in $3 billion in foreign direct investment in 18 months.

Jon:

18 months?

Catherine:

Yeah.

Jon:

Wow! That's significant.

Catherine:

It is. And it's kind of an example for me and a lot of lessons learned for me was that you can do well by doing good. So our whole model there was leaning into clean tech, to the climate emergency, to the opportunities that all of this afforded, and also the urgency around these things. So very much focused on the impact economy. And then from there, I was in Europe during the pandemic and kind of reflecting on what next. And very happy to say that a headhunter reached out and we connected about this opportunity to start what at the time was Innovate Edmonton and now Edmonton Unlimited.

Jon:

Wow! That is quite a story. You've got just a breadth and depth of experience that is formidable, and you've been all over the world. You mentioned Texas, Austin specifically. And of course, that's where our CEO, Laura Kilcrease, was working for many years. Did you had your paths crossed at that point?

Catherine:

No, but boy, we do have a lot in common, right? Because we have the UK connection, and that's where Laura's from and I lived and worked in London for five years. Also, the whole stint in Austin. Individually, she and I met our partners, and they both have a tie to University of Texas at Austin.

Jon:

Oh, wow!

Catherine:

And so we have that in common too. And we also live in the same apartment here in Edmonton.

Jon:

Oh really?

Catherine:

Yes.

Jon:

Oh, wow! Holy mackerel. May I ask, where are you from? Where were you born?

Catherine:

I'm originally from BC.

Jon:

Okay.

Catherine:

I was born in Victoria. I was raised in Vancouver, and I went originally to a bilingual school, and then I went to a public high school. And then my mom, who's an American, had always encouraged me to apply to U.S. universities, which I did. I did my undergraduate-

Catherine:

... Which I did. I did my undergraduate work at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. I studied theoretical physics and my thesis was on climate science, climate change.

Jon:

Holy mackerel.

Catherine:

My interest and understanding of the Greenhouse Effect goes back decades and decades. I follow these stories and am very committed to sustainability. I sometimes wonder if I had kind of stayed fully on that track, what kind of difference I could have made. I look at people like Greta Thunberg and her early start and her monomaniacal focus on this and how much she's accomplished and I'm just in awe.

Jon:

For sure, yeah. The youth and what some young people are doing these days is pretty impressive. You're in a position, not that I have to build you up, you don't seem like someone that lacks confidence or anything like that, but you're in a great position to do some pretty awesome things along with the partners in the Albert ecosystem.

I just have to quickly say, when you talked about education and having that multiple different disciplines, theoretical physics always blew me away. When I was a younger and I went to university, I was straddling arts and sciences and I went back and forth between physics and English, physics and English. Do I do a science major or science or arts? I ended up doing a major in English and a minor in physics. Electron microscopy just ended my physics career cold, dead, in its tracks.

Catherine:

It's never too late, man. Get back in there.

Jon:

Well, I love reading about it and I can't let the cat out of the bag, but I got to tell you, Inventures 2023, we're looking at a pretty heavy physicist coming in and speaking.

Catherine:

Oh, that's exciting. That is a must on everyone's calendar, by the way.

Jon:

Inventures.

Catherine:

Yes. Physics are not, Inventures all the way.

Jon:

Woo-hoo, right on.

Well, speaking of Inventures, let's take a moment to hear from our sponsors, Albert Innovates.

Speaker 2:

I am an Alberta Tech focused innovator and need help with hiring, funding, investors, exporting, product development, commercializing, connecting, navigating supports, next steps, MVP, IP protection, market research, global expansion, industry insights and more.

Speaker 1:

We got a program for that. Alberta Innovates, come talk to us.

Jon:

We talked a little, you mentioned the accelerators and what's going on there and I was just curious. The introduction of the Scale Up and Growth accelerator program has presented Alberta tech companies with a unique global opportunity. Can you describe the partnership between Alberta Innovates, Edmonton Unlimited, and Platform Calgary that built and mobilized that one particular accelerator, the Alberta Catalyzer?

Catherine:

I mean, I'm so excited about the whole accelerator trajectory that we're all on. It's already wildly successful. Our involvement as Edmonton Unlimited in this whole mix is somewhat unique. On the one hand, we deliver Alberta Catalyzer which is a pre accelerator alongside our partner Platform Calgary. On the other hand, we're a funder alongside Alberta Innovates and JEI and PrairiesCan bringing these global accelerators into Alberta so our accelerator fund is very committed to all of these third party accelerators that we support. Alberta Catalyzer acts as this really cool bridge to prepare companies to then leapfrog into one of these world class Silicon Valley accelerators.

Jon:

Now, as a preaccelerator, is it, you don't have a focus on any particular technology? Is it, what do they say? Tech agnostic or sector agnostic, apologize.

Catherine:

Yeah, it is sector agnostic. It has an additional layer of focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion. We're really trying to keep people's options open for as long as this exploratory phase lasts, it's such a critical part of any startup journey. We have three streams.

One is called engage and that allows the participant to develop their minimum viable product, to do some market testing, and to validate that initial business model. Then we go into something called traction where they do more of a full-fledged marketing strategy where they have their first experience with the pitch deck and they do that customer navigation or customer journey mapping. Then finally what we call velocity which is more things like investment readiness, how to scale, how to access technical and other mentors. Once someone's been through that whole accelerator package, which is the catalyzer package, they're then far more prepared to apply to any one of the other three accelerators, which will then open the floodgate into Silicon Valley. Into awesome networks for funding and strategic deal making.

Jon:

Sure, that's great. Alberta seems to really, when I look at an organization like startup T&T, they're really building that angel investments side and the VC work going on. It's getting exciting in the province. There's a lot more of that going on. It also makes me think just about partnerships and the past you described. You've always had to work with lots of partners. It's not just, it's like innovation. It's not just one person that goes off and has that eureka moment. It's always working hand in hand. I don't think I have a specific question other than just to say there's always that community working together to try to, the rising tide.

Catherine:

That's very true. I mean, the Edmonton community is unique. A lot of it is self organized, a lot of it is self created and it became very clear to me right from the get go that what is needed from Edmonton Unlimited is a blanket of support for the activities that are already organic in the community rather than a command and control model.

On the other hand of course, we have to demonstrate real value back to the community. We are working hand in glove with some incredible partners to do that. We work municipally and regionally with Edmonton Global, for example, which is regional economic development aimed at foreign direct investment. We work with Explore Edmonton, our tourism partner. One of the gateways to international business...

Catherine:

One of the gateways to international business development is when international conferences come to your own city. It gives you, as a startup or a scale up, a taste of what that's like. It might inspire a subsequent trip to a Collision or a web summit, and then things just grow from there.

And then on the downtown vibrancy side of things, we work with the Downtown Business Association, with the Chamber of Commerce, and others. So it's very much part of the fabric of the city of Edmonton. And our whole goal is to bring these supports forward, specifically this week, in support of Edmonton's Startup Week.

Jon:

Yeah, and lots of activity going on. If people haven't checked it out, they can go to the website, Startup Edmonton week, I believe. I don't have the URL in front of me, but they could Google it. And there's still time, I believe, to build a schedule and check out some of the events.

Now, you had mentioned some of these conferences, and earlier, you'd mentioned adventures. And of course, I just want to get a little more of your perspective on that and what that means for Alberta, to have a conference of that magnitude. We see Collisions out east, or Collision rather, out east, and that's great, but what does a conference like Inventures mean for the Alberta region?

Catherine:

Well, on the one hand, it's kind of a Team Alberta approach to greeting people to hosting, eventually to going back out into the world. That's really critical. So they get to hear all of the big picture strategies, visions, pitches, not just from the companies but from the support infrastructure that exists in Alberta. So if you are an international investor and you come to this market, you go to Inventures, you have this great experience, but it's all pointed at Alberta, and it creates this incredible momentum around our province and kind of an all roads leads to Rome approach, and understanding, that's so valuable.

Secondly, I would say for companies to showcase in the context of so many other cool innovators. It really reinforces the need to attract and maintain local talent. You start to see that there's a whole universe of cohorts that you can tap into. Alberta Innovates did a great job involving the post-secondaries, that was also critical to hear their vision. In Edmonton alone, we have 250,000 students, so we're obviously a major Canadian education capital, and I really felt that, whether you're a local or an international visitor to Inventures, you start to see that momentum.

Jon:

That's wonderful. Yeah. So we're going to see you there then.

Catherine:

You are definitely going to see me there. Yeah, it's already in the calendar.

Jon:

Oh, right on. So we'll catch up then again too. But let's wrap things up, Catherine. I could probably talk to you for hours. It's fascinating. But are there any final words that you'd like to let our listeners know about Edmonton Unlimited, about yourself, about the ecosystem, something exciting coming down the pike?

Catherine:

Well, let's just talk for a moment about Edmonton's Startup Week, which runs from today, October 17th to the 22nd. We are hosting nearly 80 free events all across the city. We have some incredible corporate and other sponsorship, including your own, Through the [inaudible 00:28:01], which is so nice.

You can go online, you can sign up for a whole range of workshops, of panels, of social events, of networking activities. So we have events and topics that range from how to validate or test a business idea that you might have, something called Machine Learning in the Wild, where you really see the difference between artificial intelligence in movies and television, and what really goes on-

Jon:

Oh, that's really cool.

Catherine:

... in the lab. Yes. And then we have things like managing a fast growing organization, or moving from startup to scale up, how to recruit. So a lot of super diverse topics.

We have a bunch of mixers and meetups, and socials, including the Women in Tech Breakfast, Startup TNT's Happy Hour, a farewell party that's happening here at Mercer to thank so many of the founding mothers and fathers of Edmonton Startup Week. And then we have Launch Party, which is Thursday, October 20th. It's being hosted at the Edmonton Convention Center. And this is a chance to see 10 hot startups that have been picked by the community, for the entire city of Edmonton, to follow over the next year. To cheer on their successes.

Jon:

Right on.

Catherine:

To watch how they grow, and for them to really know that the whole city is behind them.

Jon:

Oh, that's fantastic. So on that note, if people want to have a look at the schedule, they can go to edmontonstartupweek.com and then /2022-schedule, and you can build your own schedule there to come and attend some of these events, and check out what's going on. It's very exciting times. And Catherine, this was a pleasure to have you on Shift. Thank you very much.

Catherine:

Thank you so much, Jon.

Jon:

On behalf of everyone at Shift, thanks a lot to Catherine for joining us today. I'm Jon Hagan. You can find us online at Shift.Alberta Innovates.ca, or via email at Shift@AlbertaInnovates.ca. Take care.