Tech Roundup

Headlines

• PulseMedica won the award for Most Edmonton Startup of the Year, and business operations lead Dom Beaupre won Best Supporting Actor of the Year, at the YEG Startup Community Awards on May 7. The annual awards for Edmonton's startup community also recognized Polymorph as Disruptor of the Year, Aqtiva as New Startup of the Year, and Messed Up Mondays as Community Initiative of the Year. Janice Baskin of the Edmonton Regional Innovation Network was named the Community Champion of the Year. Dawn Osland, founder of Osland Medical Billing Tools, was named MVP, and Shauna Woo, program lead for the ThresholdImpact Venture Mentoring Service, was named the Connector of the Year. Kamaru Beyan received the award for Rising Star of the Year for her work in femtech.
• Fairly Staffing is targeting national and cross-industry growth for its staffing services platform. For now, it is focused on the dental business, with 600 clinics and 3,000 temps on its roster. But following an investment by the Accelerate Fund and inclusion in Scale Up Canada's Edmonton50 list, other forms of regulated labour could be its next target. "We still need to dominate in dental," CEO Amir Reshef told Taproot, "but it's so clear that even if it's a vertical that looks extremely different, there's a lot of the same challenges."
• The first cohort in Edmonton Unlimited's Wired for Potential program for women tech founders and leaders includes Meghna Singh of BuildBase; Aisha Abdul of Fairly Staffing; Jalene Anderson-Baron and Ela Dudek of Future Fields; Anne Halpin of Glycobead Diagnostics; Angelique Loesel of Hi Finance; Natasha Delany of Indigenous Projects and Events; Sarah Harper of My Fertility Labs; Catalina Vasquez of Nanostics; Nina Karpoff of RNARevive; Nasim Morawej of Recon Intelligence Corp; and Leyla Kara of SpectraCann. They'll meet with coach Lori-Ann Muenzer over the next year.
• Catalina Vasquez, co-founder and COO of Nanostics, has been accepted into NEXT Canada's NEXT Founders program. "No sugar coating, no empty buzzwords, just honest conversations pushing us to go deeper into the real problems, their causes, and what meaningful solutions actually look like," she posted about the first week in the program for growth-stage founders seeking to scale their businesses into world-class ventures. "A powerful reminder that real learning comes from making consequential decisions and being accountable for them."
• Andrew Karesa of blueBell Village has been selected by EY Canada for the 2026 Entrepreneurs Access Network, which provides access to mentorship and networks. His company's blueBell Connect app helps to coordinate caregivers of people living with dementia.
• Bitcoin Well said in its first-quarter financial results that revenue rose to $34.9 million, while adjusted EBITDA was -$0.6 million, largely due to increased spending on advertising and marketing. It reported more than 71,000 unique users in its Bitcoin Portal. Founder Adam O'Brien opposes the federal government's plan to outlaw crypto ATMs. "I don't think that anyone thinking about this for more than two seconds is under the impression that getting rid of Bitcoin ATMs stops fraud in Canada," he told BetaKit. "Can you show me the logic here of how we're actually trying to prevent fraud and not just playing whack-a-mole?"
• RUNWITHIT Synthetics won a pitch competition held during the Alberta Aerospace & Defence Summit in Edmonton, as the growing pool of government funding for defence attracts business interest. At the summit, the Alberta government pledged $1.2 million for defence-related projects, $1 million of which will go to Alberta Aviation, Aerospace and Defence for a new initiative called Leading Industry Forward Together, or LIFT.
• First Nations, Métis, and Inuit business owners and professionals focused on relationship-building at the Indigenous Trailblazers Summit on May 5. "It's the only (event) in Canada that actually brings together Indigenous entrepreneurs, Indigenous tech professionals, Indigenous consultants, and business allies from across Canada, and it's 100% community-owned," founder Reg Potts told CTV.
• vrCAVE has been nominated for two Auggie Awards and is calling for supporters to cast votes in its favour in the VR escape rooms category for best indie creator and best location-based experience.
• Gillian Thomson, founder of Skipper, is shifting her focus from manufacturing the shower cap she invented to selling the patent. "It's been 5+ years of dreaming, designing, sourcing, negotiating, spending, pitching, worrying, shipping, celebrating, deliberating, researching, trying this, trying that," she posted, adding that she's proud of what she accomplished and looks forward to sharing what she has learned.
• The University of Alberta is investigating a cybersecurity incident involving a learning management system called Canvas, in a breach affecting thousands of institutions. The university said passwords and financial information are not stored in its Canvas site and have not been exposed.

Jobs and opportunities

• Edmonton Unlimited is hiring a senior events manager.
• The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute is hiring a machine learning resident to work with Calgary-based Zamplo.
• Zero Point Cryogenics is hiring a quality and inventory control technician.

Happenings

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

• May 12: The Defence Opportunity: Navigating Investment & Procurement Pathways starting at 9:30am at Edmonton Unlimited
• May 13: Luncheon with the Hon. Steven MacKinnon: Strengthening Canada's Supply Chains and Trade Corridors starting at 12pm at Fairmont Hotel Macdonald
• May 13: Bioeconomy Guild Night starting at 5pm at MKT Fresh Food | Beer Market
• May 14: Exploring Defence and Aerospace Opportunities starting at 8am at Villeneuve Airport
• May 14: ERIN Community Initiative Session #2 starting at 9am online
• May 14-15: Global Economic Diversification Summit at Edmonton Convention Centre
• May 15: Friendly Fridays - May Edition: Collaboration by Design at 2:30pm at Reimagine Architects
• May 19 to 22: Upper Bound at Edmonton Convention Centre

And here are some upcoming events to keep in mind:

• May 20: Advanced Manufacturing Summit at NAIT
• May 27: Alberta Women Entrepreneurs Connect Event at Heavy Metal Place
• May 27-28: CIC Forum: Built by People, Powered by Technology at University of Alberta

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