After the eureka moment comes the hard part — selling that idea to investors and potential customers. And that takes legwork. Getting on flights. Going to conferences. More flights. More meet-and-greets.
So putting 50 tech leaders from Alberta in the same place, at the same time, is a pretty big deal — because, while Alberta is their shared home address, the world is their customer.
That brings us to SXSW. When most of us see those letters, we think of one of the most famous annual music festivals in the world.
But the annual shindig in Austin, Texas, has become so much more than a place to eat great barbecue, slug back some Lone Stars and see some of the world’s top up-and-coming bands in intimate venues.
SXSW has expanded into film, comedy, product showcases and even psychedelics. And, yes, there’s a whole tech-incubator facet to it, as well. It’s a place where upstarts in the innovation space can introduce themselves to a wider audience.
This March, 50 visionaries from tech, AI, energy and health-science companies from this province headed to SXSW as part of a delegation organized by Alberta Innovates. In 2023, a similar trip saw $6 million worth of deals struck.
This year, David James, the Alberta government’s deputy minister of technology and innovation, made the trip.
Evan Chrapko is founder and CEO of Edmonton’s Trust Science, a fintech startup that has developed an AI platform designed to create a more equitable approvals process between lenders and borrowers. The AI is designed to take the bias out of the borrowing process in order to “find credit-worthy people who are good borrowers but are stuck on the outside looking in, like young people, or immigrants,” as well as people who have declared bankruptcy and find it almost impossible to get financing. The AI puts together a profile based on the entirety of that borrower’s circumstances. Was it a personal tragedy that led to financial disaster? Health issues? A home burning down?
When I speak to him via Google Meet, Chrapko’s at a Las Vegas motel that’s “way off the Strip.” He’s there for a conference, and he’s got to get the most bang for his buck.
“Being on the road is expensive, but being on the road is mandatory,” he says. “I live out of my suitcase. To make it sustainable or affordable on behalf of this Edmonton-based company, I can’t be like the hedge funds and stay wherever I see fit.”
This past March, Chrapko attended SXSW for the first time.
SXSW’s popularity as an uber-cultural gathering has made it very expensive to attend. Hotel rates will make you faint. And availabilities are thin. So, having one organization shepherd 50 companies to Austin at one time really helps out the budget of a start-up like Chrapko’s.
“SXSW is very pricey, very expensive to attend. It’s chaotic. If not for being selected, I might have foregone the opportunity, again.”
The hard truth is that Alberta tech companies need to pound the pavement because investment is tough to attract within this province. Canadian investors have a very negative international reputation, because they are so risk-averse. Because Canadians don’t like to take chances, their money goes to traditional industries. Americans, by comparison, are far more willing to see the value in emerging industries.
“In Alberta, if you’re not in oil and gas or real estate, they don’t know what to do with you. I have to be on the road,” says Chrapko.
“Apparently, many Canadian companies make the sometimes-fatal business mistake of sticking too close to home, a market which is only one 10th the size of the U.S.”
But, the depth of the AI talent pool in Edmonton is what makes Trust Science happy to call the city home.
“The anchor, the magnet, that makes Edmonton so attractive, the reason we’re based in Edmonton, is the extreme depth and breadth of the AI-know how,” says Chrapko. “The AI talent pool in Edmonton is no longer a best-kept secret, but it’s not shouted from the rooftops like it could be.”
While in Austin, Chrapko attended the “Backstage” event, one of the hottest mixers of SXSW. And, while there, a seven-digit deal he had been working on came to fruition, something he was able to share with his fellow delegates and festival-goers.
And, he brought his black cowboy hat to Austin — because Chrapko says he’s a cowboy at heart — and was surprised to be the only Albertan there with one.
Hydrogen power is maybe the biggest disruptor technology of the 21st century. The Alberta government is betting big on hydrogen, providing millions and millions of dollars’ worth of supports for hydrogen manufacturing facilities.
But this disruptor technology is itself being disrupted — by Edmonton’s Gölu Hydrogen Technologies Inc. Its hydrogen on-site generator uses all-natural ethanol for its base material. The generators can be used pretty well anywhere on Earth and don’t need any added infrastructure. Communities and industries can use hydrogen for power, without needing to build manufacturing plants that cost billions of dollars. Gölu could be a true democratizer of energy.
It’s a hard sell, though. People continually ask President and CEO Inder Singh how his team has created a new way to make hydrogen efficiently, and portably, when no one from within the energy sector has been able to dream up anything like it.
“This can be used by microgrid communities, far-off communities, new communities that cannot get connections that fast, or fleet owners who need a half-megawatt, megawatt connection,” says Singh. “They can all use our process anywhere. Even in the middle of nowhere. You don’t need to create new infrastructure.”
Because the innovators at Gölu come from the pharmaceutical world, they approached the energy sector with out-of-the-box thinking. Singh says the energy industry is saddled with “incremental improvements on the knowledge they have, which is from the petroleum industry.”
Singh predicts that this make-your-own-hydrogen technology can power a European town of 1,000 households with a $70,000-$80,000 tank that’s then filled with ethanol, It costs about $135,000 to fill the tank, and the supply lasts around six weeks. Compare that to billions needed for battery storage “and acres of land.” That tank would be about the size of three rail cars — compared to massive plants being constructed right now.
Imagine a remote town, powered by this. Singh says extra power could be set aside for greenhouses and electric cars — and that entire community could go off the grid.
“It’s the highest density of energy at the lowest cost possible, and it’s totally non-toxic.”
But, he’s got to sell this vision to the skeptics. And this is why a trip to SXSW was important.
“We get a lot of exposure by travelling around and going to targeted conferences. But those are designed for the people who are from the field. But Austin is for the general public. So this gives us the opportunity to bring it to the general market, so people can understand it.”
Last year, Singh and his team were invited to K-Days, and it was a lesson on how scientists need to change their narratives so they can talk to the general public. It was pretty good practice for Austin.
“It was quite an experience, but the interest from the general public was also very surprising.”
Singh says that he goes to at least one or two conferences a month. He’s recently been to Egypt, Dubai, the Netherlands and Germany. At the 2024 EGYPES Climatech event, the company won the people’s choice award for innovation. But it’s a lonely haul. While Alberta Innovates supported this trip, a lot of the time, he feels he is totally on his own.
“We get no federal or provincial government supports, because they think we are against their agenda, which is promoting oil.”
This article appears in the May 2024 issue of Edify
