Calgary’s high-tech community is reaching for the summit as several companies band together to promote an aggressive new “e-image” for the city.
If the idea is successful, organizers say it could mean huge economic benefits for local advanced technology firms. Called Silicon Mountain North, the concept has already attracted more than a dozen dot-coms, tech companies and the Canadian Venture Exchange, who all want to brand Calgary as a high-tech hotbed.
“We think there’s something more that can be done, and we think as an industry, it’s time for us to contribute,” says Krista Grant Haysom, vice-president of marketing for NextClick: the Personalization Agency. Ottawa and Vancouver are ahead of Calgary in promoting their high-tech sectors, she notes. “We found it frustrating that Calgary hasn’t been in that same vein.
“There are a lot of struggling dot-com companies down in California. If they knew what real estate costs up here and what it costs to operate a business, I think they’d be on the first plane heading north.”
The Silicon Mountain team — which includes founders NextClick and Stickman Interactive, a graphic design, Web and new media agency — is gathering letters of support to begin organizing the marketing movement and form a steering committee.
Delilah Panio, business development executive with CDNX, Canada’s junior stock exchange and a public venture capital source for emerging companies, says the exchange wants to play a lead role in helping build the new economy.
“The government groups have a huge role to play and I think they’re doing a great job in Calgary,” she says. “But what attracted us to this Silicon Mountain North group is that these are the companies who are actually out there every day talking to other key stakeholders in the industry, especially outside of Canada. And that’s something government resources just don’t have.”
Alberta Innovation and Science Minister Lorne Taylor returned from a mission to Silicon Valley last week with a $1-million investment in a master’s degree program in Internet technology at the University of Alberta.
One of the Calgary businesses aboard the trip was Solutions Technology Group, a sales and marketing group which focuses on technology for startups to enterprise-level companies in Canada and the U.S.
“I feel we haven’t been doing enough,” to market Calgary as a high-tech hub, agrees company president David Smethurst. “It’s initiatives like this one that are starting to create the profile.”
Another company quick to sign on to the Silicon Mountain North concept was Tripeze.com, a full-service Internet travel agency headquartered in Calgary. “The value of the dot-com and technology community in Calgary is really undervalued compared to other Canadian and U.S. Centres,” says Sol Zia, manager of database marketing and business planning for Tripeze.com.
Silicon Mountain North wants to be the voice for Calgary’s tech sector to bring the community a higher national profile while acting as an advocacy group locally, Zia adds.
NextClick founder and CEO Scott Martin says many U.S. companies don’t realize that Calgary has a thriving tech community, which can be a disadvantage when local firms enter the emerging and American markets. “We’re looking to develop a reputation,” he says, noting the Silicon Mountain moniker was already taken by Denver.
“It’s very early,” says Grant Haysom. “Right now, we’re trying to take it from a conversation happening between some high-tech movers and shakers . . . to something that actually has shape and substance to it.
“Once industry gets involved and starts to put dollars behind making a difference, and going after dollars where they exist . . . we’re going to see some results.”
