If you’re in business looking for an edge, you can do two things: Read this publication, and attend the Technology for Success (TFS) Trade Show and Symposium.

Unlike other shows that focus on a particular industry, this event, to be held Nov. 8 at Edmonton’s Shaw Conference Centre, is broader in nature.

“Our event is the only provincewide, inter-industry technology event,” says Brad Guthrie, executive director, Edmonton Capital Region Innovation Centre.

“We’re bringing Calgary companies up to Edmonton for this as well.”

Greg Gazin, Business Edge
Lascia Krokosh, industrial liaison and research assistant, will be at the Alberta Synchroton Institute (ASI) booth. The ASI got its start at a previous Technology for Success show.

The show is a three-in-one event, with three symposiums combining to create this year’s theme: The Business of Technology.

The topics and the speakers were selected not just by the organizers, but a visioning committee whose members were drawn from the community.

“They (the committee members) felt very strongly that this be a ‘Business of Technology,’ and the three key components that were relevant at the time were financing, marketing and human resources,” says Lorrine Hamdon, regional co-ordinator, Canadian Technology Network, and one of the TFS organizers.

The symposiums are:

* Accessing Capital – Managing Financial Challenges after the Downturn. The presenters are: Mike Volker, director, Industry Liaison Office, Simon Fraser University, and director of Vancouver Technology Angel network; and Jeff Meyer, vice-president, CDNX, Calgary.

* Talent Management – Attracting, Retaining and Motivating Staff. The presenter is Bob Yamashita, senior consultant, Simpson and Associates, Calgary.

* Prospecting for Opportunities – Identifying Technology Opportunities that will make it in the market. The presenter is Bruce Alton, director of business development, Micralyne Inc., Edmonton.

Guthrie says the trade fair provides networking opportunities, proudly pointing to a relationship created at a previous TFS show that became something of a Cinderella tale.

Ken Schmidt, president of DK Cubed Scientific, tells the story:

“A few years ago, one of the U of A professors (Ron Cavell) I knew from my days in chemistry asked me to do a little project for the CLS (Canadian Light Source) to try to show there was industrial support for the project in Alberta . . . so they could get capital funding.”

The Canadian Light Source, Canada’s national synchrotron, is a $173-million facility under construction in Saskatchewan. CLS uses high-energy electrons to produce extremely bright light that has tremendous capabilities in industrial applications and research.

Schmidt, who has a doctorate in chemistry, asked for a few hundred dollars to set up a CLS informational display at Tech For Success, which he said would allow Alberta industry to find out about the light source.

Schmidt met a number of people at TFS, including officials from the federal Western Economic Diversification program.

Things went from there, and eventually, they obtained startup funding from the Alberta government for the CLS project.

The project became the Alberta Synchrotron Institute, a non-profit association of the Universities of Alberta, Calgary and Lethbridge, with funding from the Alberta Science and Research Authority, the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, and Western Economic Diversification.

The institute’s mission is to educate and assist Alberta’s scientific communities in using the CLS.

Schmidt’s effort helped contribute just under $10 million to the CLS.

“The light source is the biggest scientific project undertaken in the last 20 years,” he says.

Schmidt credits TFS as a mechanism that encourages relationship building.

“The difference was that these people didn’t know us from Adam and they saw us all there at the trade show as a group – it helped with our credibility,” he says.

Mark your calendars. You never know what may happen.

Web Watch:
www.technologyforsuccess.com
www.asi-cls.ca