Innovation requires a strong foundation. For rural municipalities, treating community wellbeing as an empirical, investable asset is becoming a crucial tool for economic development. Moderated by the IRPP, this panel brings together researchers and local elected officials -including Yorkton City Councillor and researcher Dr. Stephanie Ortynsky – to discuss the realities of integrating “wellbeing frameworks” into city planning. Discover how …
This presentation by Alan Nixon traces the story of Estevan as a community built on energy—and continually reshaped by innovation. Starting with the early development of the region’s oil industry, Nixon explores how resource extraction, alongside coal mining and power generation, laid the economic and cultural foundation of the city. Estevan’s growth was never just about energy production—it was about …
In this session, Dr. Farhad Moghimehfar and Sarah Sinclair unpacks the innovation behind the Mountain Biking BC Insights Platform—a purpose-built digital system that transforms fragmented recreation data into a coordinated, decision-ready intelligence layer for rural communities. This isn’t just a website. It’s an integrated data infrastructure that combines rider surveys, GPS/mobile tracking, and regional analytics into a unified platform—allowing communities …
This session showcases the Solar Data Dashboard project as a hands-on research environment, where students in the Computer Science Training through Projects program built a real-time solar data system for public display. Through a partnership with Turning Sun Solar, this initiative demonstrates how innovative collaboration can develop both talent and infrastructure. Students will present on their learning outcomes, offering a …
Rural communities are innovating every day—not always through technology, but through new ways of owning assets, delivering services, and building resilient local economies. This session explores social enterprise as a practical, place‑based vehicle for rural innovation, particularly in communities facing market gaps, service loss, workforce constraints, and limited access to capital. Presented by: Verona Thibault
Canada’s economic future will not be built in its largest cities—it will be built in rural regions and in partnership with First Nations. This session explores how rural Canada already drives a disproportionate share of GDP, exports, and resource production, and why that role is becoming even more critical. It also highlights a major shift: First Nations are increasingly acting …
From farm to facility, to destination, our advanced proprietary Artificial Intelligence delivers consistent, real-time automated grain grading and quality insights at each stage of the supply chain. Eliminate subjectivity to drive productivity and profitability with ease. Presented by: Kyle Folk
Jaigris Hodson is the Canada Research Chair in Digital Misinformation, Polarization, and Anti-Social Media. Their research takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding how the technologies we use to communicate heighten our vulnerabilities to misinformation, polarization, and other on- and offline anti-social behaviors. Hodson uses novel, field-building approaches to map the relationships between polarization, misinformation, and online harassment, and to facilitate …
What happens when the people closest to a problem are the furthest from the decisions meant to solve it? In 2020, four Alberta ranching families launched Flokk Systems to tackle a critical gap in Canada’s livestock traceability system—one that regulators knew existed, but rural producers were expected to fix without the right tools. What followed was six years of effort, …
Laurie Wall’s journey isn’t just about food—it’s about evolution. From cooking on wood stoves to building a digitally connected culinary brand, Laurie has redefined what it means to be a rural entrepreneur in a modern world. In this session, Laurie shares how she leveraged technology to scale her business, amplify her voice, and create deeper connections with her audience—without losing …
