The Pulse: Oct. 26, 2023

Here's what you need to know about Edmonton today.

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Essentials

  • -4°C: Cloudy with 30% chance of flurries. Wind becoming northwest 20 km/h near noon. High minus 4. Wind chill minus 13 in the morning and minus 8 in the afternoon. UV index 1 or low. (forecast)
  • Purple: The High Level Bridge will be lit purple to raise awareness about Rett Syndrome. (details)
  • 7pm: The Edmonton Oilers (1-4-1) play the New York (4-2-0) at Rogers Place. (details)

A panel of five people sit on stools behind a small audience in front of a blue screen with text reading "How I Got Started in Community."

Flightpath Ventures relaunches as members-only network


By Colin Gallant

An organization that started in 2012 as a venture capital fund is rebranding as a community for growth-focused innovators.

The new version of Flightpath Ventures is a private club focused on leadership, mentorship, and apprenticeship, where "members come together to build and scale companies, while impacting the communities they're based in." It is still becoming its new iteration, co-founder Ken Bautista told Taproot.

"Right now we're in early access, which is also bringing some of our brain-trust members in, so we're actually creating content with some of our members," he said. The idea is to "co-create content that we can distribute wider, so it doesn't just require in-person or a one-to-one type of engagement," he added, "because with all these people, time is always a limiting factor."

Bautista wants to provide an alternative to open-to-all tech meetups that already exist in the ecosystem, such as Edmonton Unlimited's Community Coffee or the many options collected by Technology Alberta. Flightpath should be a "curated" environment, he said, where entrepreneurs with traction can meet peers at their level, as well as more established mentors — and even investors.

"The first development of Flightpath is: Can we bring together 100 awesome brains and builders? Some are founders, some are investors, some don't identify with either one of those things, but they want to make something happen," Bautista said. "You have to build relationships with them, so then they can all become allies, and then want to invest in each other. … It's a two-way street."

Memberships in Flightpath go for $49.99 per month at the "Community" level and $299.99 per month at the "Builders" level. The distinction between the two is a matter of accountability rather than hierarchy, Bautista said.

"If you're a Builders member, you can either be an early-stage company or emerging or a growth one. And then you have access to things like our core groups, which are small accountability groups. I kind of think of them as therapy groups," he said. "They're very peer-minded, with this idea that you have someone that is at the same stage as you in a small group that you keep working with."

Between 30 and 35 members have signed on for the early-access version of Flightpath, Bautista said, though he declined to name any. "Their names will start popping up," he said.

Flightpath's original incarnation was co-founded by Bautista and Cam Linke (now CEO of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute) in 2012 as a venture capital fund connected to Startup Edmonton. It seeded Edmonton success stories such as DrugBank, Poppy Barley, and Samdesk.

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Headlines: Oct. 26, 2023


By Kevin Holowack

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Digital rendering of a traffic circle at the intersection of 36 Street and 139 Avenue, which is being navigated by a truck and an Edmonton Transit Service bus

Calls for public engagement: District planning, Hairsine, and St. Albert's budget


By Kevin Holowack

Here are some opportunities to offer your input on civic initiatives, including renewal projects in Meyokumin and Hairsine, district planning, and St. Albert's proposed 2024 budget. (Please ensure you live in affected areas before answering surveys.)

  • District Planning — Phase 3 — The City of Edmonton has entered a new phase of engagement around its District Planning project, which aims to introduce new planning categories called districts where residents can access most daily needs within 15 minutes. Phase 3 is the final phase of engagement before the project team recommends its plans to council in May 2024. Online public engagement sessions with project staff are scheduled for Oct. 26, Nov. 7, and Nov. 16. Other engagement opportunities, including the option to chat one-on-one with the project team to complete various surveys on revisions to draft policies and geographic plans, will be open until Dec. 1.
  • Hairsine Neighbourhood Renewal (advise) — The City of Edmonton has released a final design for the Hairsine neighbourhood and alley renewal along with a report that explains how it arrived at the design. The project team has now entered advise-level engagement and is inviting residents to complete an online survey to ensure the final design reflects the project's vision and guiding principles. The survey is open until Oct. 31.
  • 2024 Proposed Budget Survey — The City of St. Albert is seeking feedback on its proposed financial plan and 2024 budget. The results will be presented to council before budget deliberations. Residents are invited to complete an online survey, which closes on Nov. 7.

More input opportunities

Photo: A rendering of one proposed redesign of the intersection at 36 Street and 139 Avenue as part of the Hairsine Neighbourhood Renewal project. (City of Edmonton)

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