Tech Roundup

Headlines

• The provincial Ministry of Technology and Innovation is holding Agency 2026, a national AI hackathon in Ottawa on April 29. The hackathon aims to investigate how provincial and federal grant money flows to organizations. There is space for 90 participants in person, plus virtual spots available for remote participants.
• Kurtis Broda, co-founder and COO of Wyvern, argues that Canada's space sector generated 25% less revenue in 2024 than in 2014 because the government is not a reliable buyer for Canadian space companies. He pointed to the cancellation of the $43-million Canadian Lunar Rover — which involved more than 30 Canadian companies — while the paused $1-billion Canadarm3 contract stays on the books.
• Startup TNT community development lead Jesse Wiebe is leaving the organization after five years for a new national role. Wiebe developed Startip TNT's agri-food arm. The organization's spring Agri-Food Summit finale in Calgary awarded a $100,000 investment pot to dental hygiene startup Toothpod on April 9. Finleaf Technologies, a circular nutrient recovery platform, and Corol, which makes bio-polyol from canola, also secured deals. He cited Canada's "structural crisis in early-stage capital formation" as the problem he aims to solve, with his transition set to be complete by the end of September. Operations lead Jonah Tetz is also stepping away after four years.
• Edmonton Unlimited hosted 134 partner-led events in 2025, a 10% increase over 2024, the organization said in its report to community.
• Chris Cassin of Zero Point Cryogenics was among those at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the first full-stack quantum computer in the Canadian Prairies at the University of Saskatchewan. The university is positioning itself as a quantum innovation centre, with plans for a corridor connecting to the University of Calgary's Quantum City hub.
• Plantae Technologies is raising $140,000 through Goparity Canada, a crowd-lending platform to raise capital outside of traditional investment means. It's part of a $280,000 goal to scale production of its sustainable materials for industrial applications.
• Arden Tse of Yaletown Partners commemorated the end of Fit for Tech, a workout-and-networking event for the tech community that he launched with Future Fields CEO Matt Anderson-Baron in 2023. The event provided an alternative to environments where alcohol is served, Tse told Taproot when it started.
• NiaHealth co-founder and CEO Sameer Dhar discussed reimagining preventative care on The Thin Air Labs podcast. NiaHealth can test blood for early signs of more than 1,000 health risks. Dhar previously founded Sensassure, an elder-care incontinence monitoring company that was acquired in 2016.
• New documents obtained by CBC News provide details about the Edmonton Police Service's AI facial recognition bodycam pilot. The model came from Corsight AI, an Israeli company whose technology has reportedly been used for mass surveillance in Gaza. A system outage prevented matches for several days and may have extended the pilot. The new follows a mix of criticism and praise for EPS chief Warren Dreichel regarding a February visit to Israel.
• A student-at-law received a rebuke from the Law Society of Alberta after using artificial intelligence to draft an appeal of his 20-month suspension. He was suspended last year for taking clients without informing his articling supervisor and misleading investigators. In his AI-generated submissions, he cited a "hallucinated" case. The legal regulator's appeal panel rejected his appeal, saying that he did not grasp the gravity of AI misuse and upheld the suspension, along with $18,000 in costs.
• Alberta Agriculture and the University of Calgary tested thermal drones with AI to detect wild boar, achieving detection accuracy of more than 75% in field work. The project also produced a habitat suitability map to predict where feral herds are most likely to be found in Alberta.
• MacEwan University's Social Innovation Institute is seeking equity-deserving entrepreneurs — including immigrants, Indigenous entrepreneurs, women, and people with disabilities — to participate in hour-long listening sessions for a research study on inclusive entrepreneurship.

Jobs and opportunities

• Samdesk is hiring an intermediate frontend feature developer.
• Zero Point Cryogenics is hiring organization-wide, with openings for a chief operations officer, installation and production technicians, quality control staff, R&D scientists, and a machinist.
• Lab2Market is accepting applications to multiple programs helping graduate students and postdoctoral researchers explore entrepreneurship.

Happenings

Here are some events coming up over the next seven days:

• April 14: Innovation in Gaming for Entertainment and Health starting at 12pm online
• April 15: Place Brand & Innovation: Examining the intersection of brand and business starting at 9am at Edmonton Unlimited
• April 15: ASTech Awards Information/Office Hours Sessions starting at 1:30pm
• April 15: Smart Sustainable Technology Showcase #1 starting at 4pm online
• April 16: Top 20 Pitch Night starting at 5pm at Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute and online
• April 17: The Business Athlete: Application starting at 7:15am at Results
• April 17: Tourism Week Kickoff at Coffee with the Chamber starting at 8:30am at Parallèle Alberta

And here are some upcoming events to keep in mind:

• April 23: Tech in the City: The future of Edmonton's Built Environment at Fu's Repair Shop
• April 28: Antigoni Studios Launch Event at Brew and Bloom (Southside)
• May 2-10: natIgnite at University of Alberta (Donadeo Innovation Centre For Engineering)

Visit the Taproot Edmonton Calendar for many more events in the Edmonton region.