In Episode 17 of Bloom, Faaiza Ramji tells her new co-host, Karen Unland, about her experience at Inventures, the Alberta Innovates conference that took place in Calgary from June 1 to 3.
It was a long-awaited chance for the entrepreneurial and investor community to get together in real life again after the pandemic pushed the conference online for a couple of years. Ramji attended as the founder of Field Notes, and she says the "spontaneity of meeting and connecting and helping" was something she missed.
"So much of what we do in the startup game is based on how we connect with each other," she says.
"You can do that to some degree on Zoom — I think we've all become very good at it," she adds, but it's nothing like being in the same room, sharing a meal, reacting to an interesting speaker, or seeing someone out of the corner of your eye and making a connection.
Faaiza and Unland also discuss the strong showing by Nanostics and Fly and Fetch at a couple of pitch competitions associated with the event, and they look ahead to some other opportunities to mingle in person, namely Startup TNT's Investment Summit V and C-Tribe x Tech.
In our sponsor spot, Dawn Newton of Accelerate Edmonton continues her conversation with Taproot co-founder Mack Male about Alberta Catalyzer, a provincial pre-accelerator program for Alberta founders.
Bloom is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and everywhere else you get your podcasts.