OLDS — About 120 people from around the world – online and in-person – took part in the first DiscoveryLab@AgSmart Pitch, held in recent weeks in the Werklund Agriculture & Technology Centre and heralded by its founder.
In a Dragon’s Den-style event, 17 entrepreneurs or company representatives each got a chance to persuade people to invest in their budding companies or ideas. The pitches were heard online and in-person in the building’s lecture theatre.
Olds College vice-president of development Todd Ormann and Joy Agnew, the college’s vice-president of research, also addressed the crowd.
The July 29 event was so successful that founder Michael Overduin anticipates holding more at the college in the future.
The pitches were agriculturally-oriented, which fitted in well with the event’s association with AgSmart, Olds College of Agriculture & Technology’s fifth annual outdoor agricultural display and innovation expo.
Companies promoting their ideas included one to use artificial intelligence to treat bone diseases, especially osteoporosis (declining strength and density in human bones); a company developing bioplastics (plastics made from plants rather than petroleum); and a firm that wants to ensure people can obtain vitamins regardless of their dietary restrictions or religious beliefs.
Overduin is based at the University of Alberta. Originally from Ontario, he worked around the world and founded DiscoveryLab seven years ago. It runs events every three months or so.
“I really just enjoy helping my colleagues in companies that are trying to grow and reach new customers, both in Alberta and across the world and I’ve also begun a few companies,” Overduin said during an interview with the Albertan.
“I just love the experience, trying to help people in that space find other people to help them on their journey. It’s a community of peers basically that we’re trying to build.”
Overduin said the DiscoveryLab event held in Olds College was the first one they’ve run in conjunction with AgSmart.
“We’ve never had an ag tech-focused event,” he said. “We’ve had sessions at our events where we’ve had teams present on ag tech, but never one event, a whole day event focused specifically on ag tech, so that’s what we did today for the first time.
“And we’re hoping to make this an annual event. I think everyone’s really enjoyed it, so our plan is to be here next year.”
Overduin said planning for the DiscoveryLab event at Olds College began earlier this year.
“We joined up about five months ago and said ‘let’s give this a try and see how far we get.’ And everything just clicked into place. The people here in Olds have been very friendly, welcoming. It’s a natural partnership,” he said.
“And at AgSmart, they wanted to expand the event, to be more technology-centric, so to get other teams from across the world here to talk about their latest technologies, ideas, partnerships and to really make this a global event here in Olds.
So that was the goal. And then it’ll take us a couple of years to make it a really big event.
It feels friendly and small; everybody gets to know each other. We’ve got about 120 people here today, so it’s a good group, but I think we can certainly continue to grow this.”
“In the past what we’ve done is anyone can present virtually on anything that has some sort of technology or scalable value. And then we would try and have different sessions on different sectors. But we’ve grown to the point now where we can have one event per sector every year at least.
“We’d like to be able to have an event on all the key sectors: one on let’s say on food and beverages; one on more the farm, which is what this one is about; and then another one on biotech, on health technologies; another one on manufacturing – nano technologies for example; another event on energy.”
He said next year’s event will likely focus on the biotech sector. If necessary, it could run for more than one day.
Although the entrepreneurs pitching potential investors didn’t come from Mountain View County or surrounding area, Overduin noted that the event still had a local connection.
In addition to the presentations by Ormann and Agnew, several Olds College employees chaired pitch sessions, as did Olds College student Maxwell Olson, whose father Mark runs the Carstairs-based ag tech company Flokk Systems Inc. Mark also made a pitch regarding herd management and traceability technology.
The lecture theatre in the Werklund Agriculture & Technology Centre was pretty full. Overduin said if organizers need more space for future editions of the event in Olds they’ll look for larger venues. He said they’re applying for funding to enable that to happen.
But he also pointed out that sessions given this year were available online and that will continue to be the case. He noted that there’s virtually no limit to the opportunities for people to participate that way.
