Tech Thursday Live!

"The whole thing is f*cked. It's really messed up because we haven't spent the time and the attention to build the critical infrastructure across the entire thing."Jesse Wiebe said that on stage in Ottawa last week. He runs the Canadian Startup Capital Association, has invested in over 40 startups, and spent five years scaling Startup TNT into one of the most active early-stage capital programs in the country. He's also one of the few voices arguing publicly that Canada's startup ecosystem isn't broken because there isn't enough capital. It's broken because the capital that exists isn't being activated.In this episode, Jesse joins Caroline von Hirschberg (Spring Activator) and Suzanne Grant (Capital Angel Network) for a candid panel on what's actually broken in Canadian early-stage funding, moderated by Darryl Bandoro of Tech Thursday Ottawa.Along the way: the 5% for Canada framework Jesse is pushing every accredited investor to adopt, why most Canadian fund managers are operating as "first to be second," how government LP money creates perverse incentives for consensus picks, and why a Regina parking company can't get the University of Saskatchewan as a customer but can land UCLA, Stanford, and MIT.This is the audio version of the Tech Thursday Ottawa panel originally recorded May 2026, co-hosted with Deloitte's Technology Fast 50.Read the recap on the Ottawa Tech Newsletter at ottawatechnewsletter.substack.com.Tech Thursday is Canada's largest tech community event series, hosted weekly across Calgary, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Ottawa.

Energy and mining are two of the largest industries by Canadian GDP. They've been generating high-quality data for decades. The infrastructure is there. The problems are real.So why is almost nobody talking about how much AI adoption is actually happening inside them, or how much further it could go?Three founders building AI for Canadian heavy industry sit down to walk through what's actually working, what isn't, and what an AI-native energy or mining company would even look like.Featuring Keri Lee (Blue Marvel AI), John Mortimer (Geologic AI), and Josh Malate (Ultimarii), with Philippe Burns moderating.Along the way: why "AI goes to die in IT," what the rise of Chief AI Ethics Officers means for innovators, why one Canadian oil major recently burned through $10 million in cloud credits in a single week, and why human judgment becomes more scarce, not less, as inference costs fall toward zero.This is the audio version of the Tech Thursday panel originally recorded in Calgary, April 30th, 2026.Read the recap on the Calgary Tech Newsletter at calgarytech.substack.com.Tech Thursday is Canada's largest tech community event series, hosted weekly across Calgary, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Ottawa. Sponsored by Boast, Neo Financial, Skip, Motiv, Alberta Innovates, Crestview Strategy, and BLG.