Before Summit Stream, I spent two decades designing and scaling the systems that move innovation forward. That experience grounds the advisory work.
ADVANCED COMPUTING ACCESS
Partnered to open the first Quantum Super Hub at Tecconnect in Lethbridge, then helped extend the model across all eight of Alberta's regional innovation networks.
The hub opened in June 2025, giving businesses, students and researchers in southern Alberta direct access to a hybrid platform that combines quantum annealing, gate-based quantum computing, artificial intelligence and classical high performance computing. The part that matters is not the hardware. It is that the access sits inside a community incubator rather than a research institution, and that it was built so no technical background is required to use it. A rural region gained working access to advanced computing before most major centres did. In November 2025, SuperQ Quantum and the Alberta Innovation Network agreed to extend the model to every regional innovation network in the province, with public access opened in January 2026.
EMERGING TECHNOLOGY INCUBATION
Vice President of an emerging technology incubator, Tecconnect, for 15 years.
Tecconnect was the first technology incubator of its kind in rural Alberta, built as a community-based centre rather than inside a post-secondary institution. That choice was contested at the time. Locating it in the community meant the incubator was shaped by regional need rather than an institutional mandate, and it is a substantial part of why the surrounding network took hold. Over 15 years the focus moved with the technology, progressing from geospatial and information technology through to advanced computing and quantum, so that companies in a region of this size had access to emerging capability on the same terms as those in far larger centres.
REGIONAL INNOVATION INFRASTRUCTURE
Founded and led the Regional Innovation Network of Southern Alberta (RINSA), connecting entrepreneurs, institutions, and opportunity across the region.
I designed and implemented the Entrepreneur Integrated Journey Plan, a case-managed intake and progression model for the region. Rather than treating programs as separate offerings, the plan mapped the path from ideation through to scale up and assigned a dedicated business advisor at each stage, matched to the expertise that stage required. Intake established where a founder actually was rather than where a program assumed them to be, and case management held continuity as they moved between partners, services and stages. The result was a coordinated pathway across the ecosystem rather than a set of separate doors.
INCLUSIVE INNOVATION
Created the Women Entrepreneurs in STEM and Rural Women in Technology initiatives, both first-of-their-kind programs expanding participation among underrepresented, Indigenous, and rural innovators.
The barrier facing women, Indigenous and rural founders in southern Alberta was rarely ambition or capability. It was access to the mentoring, networks and specialized programming that existed reliably in Calgary and Edmonton and almost nowhere else. Women Entrepreneurs in STEM secured 1.68 million dollars in federal funding through the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy and delivered three years of programming and mentorship in rural and remote communities and alongside Indigenous and newcomer entrepreneurs. Rural Women in Technology extended the same approach and received the EDAC Community Award of Excellence for Regional Collaboration and Partnership. More than 1,800 women took part across the two initiatives, and the independent RINSA evaluation identified this engagement as a standout success while naming what it required: time, effort and respect sustained over years rather than delivered as a program cycle.
INDIGENOUS ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP
Built sustained partnerships with Treaty 7 nations and Indigenous economic development organizations, opening technology and entrepreneurship supports that had not previously reached those communities.
Tecconnect and RINSA became members of the Indigenous Resource Group alongside the Kainai, Piikani, Siksika, Stoney and Tsuut'ina Nations, and in 2018 partnered with Business Link to host the region's first Indigenous Entrepreneur Summit. That work extended into an Indigenous technology incubator program and into direct referral pathways for Indigenous founders. The independent RINSA evaluation identified this engagement as one of the network's standout successes, and attributed the shift to a deliberate decision to put resources behind the stated intent. It also recorded the caution that mattered most. The objective was never a separate stream for Indigenous entrepreneurs. It was the same access, on the same terms.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ACCESS
Co-created ElevateIP Alberta, giving founders across the province practical access to intellectual property strategy.
Within that work I placed particular emphasis on Indigenous intellectual property, specifically Traditional Knowledge and Traditional Cultural Expressions. Conventional intellectual property frameworks were built around individual authorship and fixed terms of protection, and they do not map cleanly onto knowledge held collectively, transmitted across generations, and carrying cultural obligation rather than commercial ownership. Recognizing that gap changes what useful advice looks like. It means naming the limits of what registration can protect, and working alongside communities on the protocols and agreements that operate where formal intellectual property does not reach.
EVIDENCE INTO DECISION
Initiated an independent ten-year evaluation of the region's innovation network, and redirected strategy on what it found.
I approached Alberta Innovates with a business case to document ten years of the network, publish what worked and what did not, and share the lessons with other regional networks. The study was conducted independently and published by the funder. Findings were released to partners as the fieldwork proceeded rather than held until completion, which allowed decisions to be made while a new funding agreement was being negotiated. The most consequential finding was an uncomfortable one. Entrepreneurs reported excellent startup supports that fell away as they began to scale. Economic Development Lethbridge and Tecconnect redirected their mandate toward scale-up and growth in response, including a dedicated senior role and a resource system to track companies across the region.
