Innovation is the intersection between present and future in Alberta

Source: Ben Forrest · CALGARY HERALD · | April 29, 2022

Alberta Innovates provides funding and expertise to bridge the gap between academia and the business community

Source: Alberta Innovates plays an integral role in driving economic diversification, accelerating innovation and strengthening the province’s innovation ecosystem. SUPPLIED

Ask Laura Kilcrease for a quick overview of Alberta Innovates, and she gets immediately to the point.

“We are the engine that drives innovation in Alberta,” says Kilcrease, chief executive officer for Alberta Innovates, speaking from an office in downtown Edmonton.

In practical terms, Alberta Innovates is the largest and only cross-sectoral research and innovation agency in the province, and a crucial player in Alberta’s knowledge-based startup ecosystem.

The agency is a bridge between academia and the business community, providing the funding and expertise to commercialize leading research and helping startups scale more quickly into multi-million-dollar companies that employ thousands of people across the province.

“Alberta needs an entity that’s looking to the future of what we need to do in the next one to 30 years,” says Kilcrease.

In 2021 alone, Alberta Innovates supported nearly 1,500 clients and over the last few years it has supported the creation of more than 2,400 net new jobs in Alberta-based small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs).

There is potential for thousands more jobs and tens of millions in economic activity to be generated from Alberta Innovates’ accelerator program and others focusing on a range of key areas: clean resources, health innovation and platforms, emerging technologies, applied research, post-secondary investments, entrepreneurial investments and agri-food innovation.