There will be a third PowerUp! Entrepreneurs Conference in Olds, but not until March 2020, says Olds Institute for Community and Regional Development executive director Mitch Thomson.
Meanwhile, business people in Olds and surrounding area can expect to see several workshops offered by some of the speakers and facilitators who participated in the latest PowerUp! conference, held Nov. 6 in the Pomeroy Inn & Suites.
"We're looking at March 2020. And the reason for March 2020 is when we did it the first year, we did it in March and attendance was a little bit higher. We had 155 people the first time. This time, we had about a hundred participants," Thomson says.
"So numbers were a little bit down, but there have been several entrepreneurial and investment-type events in Central Alberta the last couple of weeks. So we found it to be a little bit more of a crowded space, so we will move back to the March timeline."
Olds Institute staff organized the conference with the help of a committee and several sponsors, including the title sponsor, Catapult Entrepreneurs of Red Deer, as well as ATB Financial, the Town of Olds and Mountain View County.
The conference began the night of Nov. 5 when a networking event was held in the Big Rack Rentals Cow Palace.
It featured presentations from Claire Buffone-Blair of Sundial Growers, the cannabis producer that officially opened its doors in Olds last month; and Alex Villeneuve of Ceres Solutions.
As the Albertan reported earlier, while studying at Olds College, Villeneuve figured out a way to use spent grain from the Olds College Brewery to grow mushrooms for restaurants. Protein from the mushrooms is also used to create an enhanced food source for cattle.
The next day, keynote speakers included ATB Financial chief economist Todd Hirsch and futurist Nikolas Badminton.
"Our futurist talked about the changing workplace and the dynamic of technology and industry and how the world's changing to become more environmentally sustainable and a whole bunch of things. How technology's driving that change," Thomson says.
"At the end of the day, Todd Hirsch talked about the Alberta economy and how it's adapting and how our workforces, our businesses, need to adapt to changing times as well.
"And then really, the bulk of the day in between was hands-on tools to manage your workforce, to develop your corporate brand, your staff and successful marketing."
The vast majority of attendees this year came from Olds and surrounding area, as well as a few from places like Red Deer. The previous conference attracted people from as far away as Okotoks and Camrose.
Overall, Thomson is happy with the way the conference went. He says organizers received lots of positive feedback from participants.
He's hopeful that by moving the date back to March, the 2020 event will not only attract more people but some from further away.
