Alberta IT leaders taking charge
By Wendy Peters
Senior Writer
Troy Media
CALGARY, AB, Sept. 24, 2010/ Troy Media/ – Breaking new ground, forging creative links, and educating by opening people’s minds to the beneficial wonders of cutting-edge technology is all in a day’s work for Alberta’s ICT leaders.
Leslie Roberts, president of GoForth Institute, is a good example of one of those leaders. Roberts is a leader in entrepreneurship, education and research and now ICT. She was the first person in Canada to be awarded a PhD in entrepreneurship. GoForth is a private nationwide institute dedicated to entrepreneurial education — the only one of its kind in Canada.
National entrepreneurship education
“We’re doing something quite nontraditional in the education sector,” Roberts says. “We are delivering the first national entrepreneurship education program for adults using a technology program.” Market research uncovered a demand for adult education delivered in a way that would suit working entrepreneurs.
“I was not intending to become a technology company, but I let the market drive us there.
“This is where I connected with the technology sector and with Calgary Technologies Inc. (CTI) helped us identify and select a program that would respond to the needs of the marketplace and protect our valuable content, streaming high-def video.”
Roberts says GoForth took the curriculum and “packetized” it, which condenses each of the 30 segments to a maximum of 20 minutes. The video lessons cost $295 per student for the full 10-hour course, and users can sign on and watch whenever it’s convenient.
“I had a background as a professor, and I really wanted to build something,” Roberts says. “The technology arrived at the right time, allowing us to deliver entrepreneurship education anywhere in the country. Having a tech partner makes it easy for us to stay at the forefront of Web videos.”
Another pioneer to watch, says Roberts, is Calgary-based Worldplay, a leader in video-compression technology, with whom she will be launching a new product that will lower the barriers to transmitting educational information worldwide.
Web 2.0 security
Roberts believes ICT drives every aspect of the economy, and that includes protecting the security of all high-tech applications.
Enter Wedge Networks Inc., a leader in Web 2.0 security for enterprises and service providers worldwide.
Wedge Networks’ CEO Hongwen Zhang estimates there are about four million viruses transmitted via the Internet, and he warns that they are becoming more aggressive with the proliferation of Internet usage. “Because of our clear vision for a clean network, Wedge is taking a leadership role,” he says.
Zhang has more than 18 years of high-tech experience and notes that Wedge offers a security solution “that is revolutionary in the sense that it offers great cost savings and simplifies day-to-day management.”
Endorsements for Wedge Networks’ products come from such industry principals as Wmode, a global leader in content management for mobile networks, and media companies.
Describing the Internet today as “the nervous system of the human race,” Zhang also sees significance in promoting and sponsoring partnerships. “We try to foster an ecosystem where we can bring value to society,” he says.
Not-for-profit ICT shifting focus
One of the beneficiaries of that sponsorship is TRLabs, Canada’s largest information and communications technology R&D consortium.
Under the stewardship of CEO Robert Tasker, TRLabs is bringing technologies to market that used to be limited in use to applied research. After 23 years in the ICT private sector, Tasker recognizes the challenges ahead, as did the board of TRLabs, which realized a new mindset was required to “lead the way to commercializing technology.”
When Tasker first joined the innovation sector he admits to making a simplistic judgment: “It’s a very fragmented ecosystem,” with a number of players like TRLabs, but little collaboration. “I see a huge opportunity for TRLabs to take a leadership role in partnerships, rather than competing for not-for-profit dollars from government.”
Alberta Innovates is a prime example of successfully consolidating high-tech organizations, Tasker says. He believes that Alberta Innovates CEO Gary Albach “understands and recognizes the fragmentation problem and hopes to create one technology-industry association with a more consistent voice.”
Another problem Tasker is addressing is the lack of venture capital available for small businesses. “Canada is attractive to investors, so we must help coach SMBs to find what venture capitalists want and what they must do to attract them.” The Alberta ICT Council is heavily involved in this initiative globally, Tasker says.
Time to put teaching into practice
Prior to joining TRLabs, Tasker spent 10 years as an executive with Telus, where Ibrahim Gedeon is chief technology officer. Internationally educated, Gedeon is a great believer in Europe’s approach to education, where he grew up with “engineering as applied science.”
In the U.K., he says, most professors practice their specialties. “In Canada, super smart people get educated but never practice. I want to make what we’re doing more practical so industry sees the benefits. What’s changing the ICT sector is the legacy of what telecom and other providers can do for business and consumers.”
But Gedeon says the ICT community must pull together more. For its part, his company sponsors the Telus Innovation Award, “of which 30 per cent goes to communicating innovative ideas.”
Looking ahead, Gedeon is intent on turning engineering into applied science. He sees it as a moral responsibility because it can do the most good on a global scale.
