Tag: alberta

Freezing Cold & Lots of Snow

Temperatures have been icy cold today here in Edmonton. When I went to work it was minus 30, with a wind chill of minus 46. And it got worse during the day! I had to shovel my way from the house to my car, thanks to the crazy snow drifts.

This graph shows the temperature here in Edmonton since midnight. Nasty isn’t it?

The Edmonton Journal is reporting that there were 106 crashes causing property damage today. There were only 4 collisions causing injury however, compared with 8 a week ago.

109th Street Outside the office Where I usually park

We weren’t the only ones experiencing the cold today. Calgary hit minus 49 with the wind chill this morning, and indeed most of Alberta experienced similar temperatures. I heard that St. Albert was minus 62 with the wind chill this morning. Even Yellowknife, where my parents live, was colder than normal today with temperatures of around minus 40 and closer to minus 50 with the wind chill.

I’m working from home tomorrow. It took forever to get to work today, and when I did I almost got stuck! My co-workers ended up turning around and going home. I don’t expect conditions will improve much overnight. City officials claim it’ll be more of the same until later this week. For everyone using transit, officials say buses are running up to 30 minutes late, which means prepare for an hour. Express buses are making more stops than normal, however. Garbage collection is also going to be delayed, apparently.

For everyone in the Edmonton area, here are some sites you may want to keep an eye on:

Stay warm and drive safe!

Ed Stelmach not afraid to sue

Post Image The big political news today of course, is the New Hampshire primary (as I write this, CNN has projected McCain for the Republicans and shows Clinton and Obama in a tight race). But there’s a different political story I want to share with you, one that hits a little closer to home.

From the CBC:

[Alberta] Premier Ed Stelmach is ready to take legal action against a university student who bought the rights to the domain name edstelmach.ca.

On Dec. 3, [Dave] Cournoyer received a letter from Stelmach’s lawyers, accusing him of stealing the premier’s persona. It demands that the blogger hand over the domain and the advertising revenue generated from it to Stelmach or face litigation.

Legal squabbles over domain names happen all the time. Usually they are handled a little better however, especially when a politician is involved. I didn’t have a very high opinion of Stelmach before this little debacle, so how do you think I feel about him now? His first reaction is to sue?

I can’t say it any better than Cournoyer himself:

Though I am still surprised that the +150 staffed Public Affairs Bureau failed to complete the simple task of registering a $14.00 domain name, I am even more surprised that Premier Ed Stelmach’s first reaction in this situation was to threaten to sue an 24-year old blogger and debt ridden University of Alberta student.

Might as well play the student card if you can. Daveberta (as Cournoyer is known) says he is seeking advice from legal counsel.

Read: CBC News

Finally a reason to like Stelmach, perhaps

Post ImageI’m not a huge fan of Alberta’s current premier, Ed Stelmach. Just like Chris, I miss Ralph Klein. There was no guessing with Klein, and certainly no extended periods of silence. You knew exactly what to expect, and he never disappointed. With Stelmach on the other hand, there’s just dead air.

In the past I’ve written that raising money for tech in Alberta sucks. I would have to say that it still sucks. But perhaps Stelmach will make it suck less. That’s what the Journal would have you believe anyway:

After years of empty rhetoric and inaction under Klein, a sea change may be underway. Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach and Advanced Education and Technology Minister Doug Horner seem intent on finally addressing some of the issues that have hindered development of the province’s tech sector.

The two established a task force back in March to examine tech commercialization in our province, and the report finally came on Friday. And before I say anything else, kudos to Horner and his department for making the report available online (pdf).

Among the findings:

  • Creation of a government-backed, $100 million Alberta Enterprise Fund with $200 million in projected matching investments from the private sector
  • Creation of a 25% investor tax credit
  • Creation of an Alberta-specific SR&ED tax credit to match the federal program

Other things include additional facilities and tech centres, and improved access to intellectual property. The Journal article quickly points out that “the recommendations outlined above are hardly revolutionary.” You can say that again! We need to implement each one of those things just to get on par with provinces like Ontario and B.C.

The thing to keep in mind is that a report is nothing more than words on paper. Stelmach and his government still need to act on the report’s findings before anything will change. Still, this is a lot further than Alberta has ever gotten in the past. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to write that raising money for tech in Alberta rocks.

Read: Edmonton Journal

Energy is the new dot-com even in Alberta

Ten years ago it was fashionable to say that you worked for a dot-com company, or better yet, that you had started a dot-com. These days, it seems dot-com has been replaced by anything related to the environment, especially clean energy. Perhaps the title of my post should read especially in Alberta, as it should be no surprise that energy is a big deal here. Clean energy (read: not oil) is still somewhat unique though.

A number of investors who made lots of money during the dot-com boom are now turning their attention to the environment. Vinod Khosla is perhaps the most high-profile of these investors, but he’s certainly not the only one. Here is a VentureBeat article on Khosla specifically, and a great Economist article on the trend in general.

Shane and Evan Chrapko are two Alberta boys that have followed the now predictable path from dot-com millionaires to clean energy entrepreneurs:

The one-time Brosseau farmboys are co-CEOs at Highmark Renewables, a new biofuels company based near Vegreville.

They were impressed with the technology developed by feedlot owner Bern Kotelko and the Alberta Research Council to convert cattle manure and other waste to a biogas that produces electricity, ethanol or plain heat, Evan says.

The dot-com they founded was called DocSpace, and they sold it for a cool $568 million USD, which gave them about $75 million each. If you do a search for DocSpace now, you won’t find much, and that’s hardly surprising. I attended a talk that one of the brothers gave at the University of Alberta a few years ago, and I simply could not fathom how they sold their company for that much money. They definitely made the most of the boom.

It’ll be interesting to see how successful Highmark becomes. The brothers took on another company back in 2003 called Time Industrial, and had this to say at the time (careful – Word document):

“But Time Industrial has a very real possibility of being 10 times or even 100 times bigger than DocSpace. It’s a second once-in-a-lifetime chance. You don’t get too many of those.”

That company went public in 2005, for far less than DocSpace, and the brothers have now moved on to Highmark (to be fair the company was bankrupt when they took it over). They have (thankfully) toned down the hyperbole, and they’re operating in a really hot sector, so maybe they’ll find success once again.

The Chrapko brothers no doubt got this article in the Journal because of their success in the past, but I’d be willing to bet there are dozens of similar stories to be told here in Alberta. Perhaps not with numbers as large as DocSpace, but certainly entrepreneurs transitioning from high-tech to energy.

Read: Edmonton Journal (Archive)

VenturePrize 2007 with Leonard Brody

Post ImageEarlier today, Dickson and I attended the luncheon and awards ceremony for the 2007 VenturePrize business plan competition. As you probably know, we competed last year and narrowly missed out to ProExams (now ProTraining). The ProTraining guys invited us to join them at their table this year, and we happily accepted!

First of all, congratulations to the grand prize winner, Picomole Instruments, and to their competition – Business Infusions Inc. and Nirix Technology (I was pulling for Nirix as I had met and talked with CEO Steven Hsu in the past and was following their progress though the semi-finals). All of the elevator pitches and videos were very well done. In fact, I’d say the videos this year were far better than any of the videos created last year. Much flashier! The other big observation was that this year’s event seemed much smaller and a little more low-key than last year. I suspect this is because last year was extra special with the grand opening of Hall D.

The guest speaker today was Leonard Brody, who talked about Canada and entrepreneurship. Leonard is currently a director of NowPublic, a partner at Growthworks Capital, and has advised many of our country’s politicians. When he started his presentation, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be that good. That’s just the initial impression I got, perhaps because he was so distracted by the lapel microphone.

When he finally got things rolling though, I was impressed. He’s a great speaker and he’s obviously done his homework. Instead of sharing experiences however, Leonard chose to focus on statistics from recent research. Of course, statistics can be manipulated, so I took everything he said with a grain of salt. That said, he was pretty much preaching to the converted (at least with me). Some of the ideas he talked about:

  • In recent years, Canada is an economic wonder.
  • We need to do a better job of telling our story as Canadians.
  • Mobile phones are going to be huge.
  • My generation spends more time on media than work. And we have to multitask.
  • “Smart” is irrelevant.
  • Continuous partial attention (related to the multitasking).

Basically, the Gen-Yers and Millenials are taking over and they don’t do things the same way as previous generations. The workplace isn’t ready for them. And you should join Facebook (okay he didn’t say that exactly).

I’d say his presentation was the highlight of the afternoon for me. Like Dickson remarked, they needed “victory music” or something in the background when they announced the winner of the competition! The loud applause followed by silence was somewhat off-putting.

One final remark on the afternoon – lunch was delicious! And I actually ate it this year (too anxious last year to eat). The main course was Achiote Marinated Chicken Breast, Black Bean Orange Salsa, Basmati Rice, and Seasonal Vegetables. Dessert was good too: Mini Citrus Cheesecake on Rosemary Crust, topped with Brambleberry Compote and Orange Sour Cream Drizzle.

Congrats to Picomole, and thanks again to ProTraining for the invite.

Read: VenturePrize

Ottawa to help Alberta energy go green

Post ImageHere’s something you don’t hear every day – the federal government wants to help Alberta with it’s oil and gas industry! I think it’s great, as long as the funding is actually used appropriately. From the CBC article:

Ottawa will spend $155.9 million to make Alberta’s oil and energy industry more environmentally friendly, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Thursday.

The money will also support a project in Edmonton designed to convert municipal waste into electricity. Efforts to design a coal-fired electricity plant that releases almost no emissions will also be funded.

Already the announcement has been criticized by The Sierra Club, and I’m sure many more critics will follow. Harper has good timing though, as the Alberta government today “introduced legislation requiring about 100 high-polluting companies to reduce their emissions output starting July 1.”

Maybe this is the Canadian government’s way of saying, “yes, we value the oilsands as a strategic Canadian asset.”

Read: CBC.ca

Are bloggers talking about Edmonton?

Post ImageIn my last post I was sort of wondering who Edmonton bloggers are and what they are talking about, but perhaps just as interesting is what bloggers are saying about Edmonton. If you do a quick search for Edmonton at any of the many blog search engines, you’ll find a large number of results. Here are some interesting ones I picked out:

And of course there’s a ton of discussion about the Smyth trade.

So I guess the answer is yes! Bloggers are talking about Edmonton.

Edmonton Technology Startups

Post ImageWhen it comes to technology startups, it seems as though Edmonton can’t hold a candle to Toronto, Vancouver, or even Ottawa. Very rarely in my travels, physical or virtual, do I hear about really interesting tech things happening in Alberta’s capital city. Yet I know there must be. I mean, surely we aren’t the only ones, right? Nah, there’s others…we just need to help each other become more visible.

So the first step is to identify all the interesting tech startups (or established but relatively small companies) based in Edmonton. I’ve started tagging some, such as Zigtag, Nexopia, and ProExams, at del.icio.us using the tag edmontontech. I encourage you to do the same! Or, if you’re not into the social bookmarking/tagging thing, leave me a comment or email me with your Edmonton-based tech companies.

I suppose step two would be getting together with some of the companies to see what kind of interest there is in making our neck of the woods more visible to the rest of the world. I’d like to start changing Edmonton’s image with respect to tech startups. We have a great economy, relatively low living expenses, and lots of smart people. We’re just not regarded as all that great a place to start a tech company.

But first, step one. What Edmonton-based tech startups do you know about?

Telus finally upgrading broadband network

Post ImageDickson sent me this story today about Telus. I recently got rid of my Telus landline and while I am not a big fan of the company, I have been pretty happy with their mobile phone service, and until a couple years ago when I lost my static IP, I was happy with their ADSL service too. That said, the Internet offerings have always been truly “North American”, and by that I mean slow and expensive relative to the rest of the world. Finally though, Telus is going to make some changes:

Telus Corp. says it is investing nearly $800 million over the next three years to beef up its broadband network so it can offer its customers a wide range of new services, including high-definition television.

The company said its proposed infrastructure will allow it to double internet access, to speeds of 15 or 30 megabits a second.

That’s still a far cry from the 100 megabits/second you can get to your house in Hong Kong, for example, but it is markedly better than what we have now. Apparently the entire project will be completed by 2009 (at which time, the rest of the world will probably be faster still).

Read: CBC News

Red Deer Trip Recap

Post ImageMy trip yesterday to Red Deer with Tom went very well! He is all registered now and ready to start classes in September. My many years of registering for classes and creating timetables came in handy as Tom was one of the first to be done registering. The only thing left to do now is find a place to live!

I had never been to Red Deer College before, so I learned a lot about it. Here are some thoughts on the college:

  • The college is not nearly as big as I thought it was, in terms of physical space. I can’t seem to find out how many students are registered at the college, but it can’t be that many.
  • They did have wireless networks all over the place, but you need a student username and password to access it, which didn’t surprise me.
  • There was apparently the largest number of students ever at the registration day for kinesiology yesterday. Most of them were female.
  • In fact, I have decided I am in the wrong program. There are a few girls in computing sciences, and a few guys that look like girls, but Tom’s program has a ratio of about 4-1 girls to guys, and they are all extremely attractive.
  • Speaking of computers, they do have a technology program at RDC, but it’s clearly not the focus. The computer labs and stuff were excluded from our tour, described only as “being in the basement and sort of dark.”
  • They need to fix the signs for public parking, as it was quite confusing to figure out where to go!
  • The campus itself is quite nice – lots of grass and trees outside. Inside there seems to be a mix of old and new.
  • Parking is WAY cheaper than the UofA. The daily maximum is only $6! We ended up not paying for parking though, which was fine by me.
  • Everyone we encountered was friendly and helpful.

I think Tom is excited to get started in the fall. Looks like he’ll be quite happy at RDC!