The 2013 VenturePrize Awards will be remembered for its multitude of firsts: The first time a Student VenturePrize Award winner, Calgary’s Orpyx Medical Technologies, has gone on to win the VenturePrize Fast Growth overall business plan award. First time a female CEO, Orpyx founder and president Dr. Breanne Everett, has won the Fast Growth prize. First time a Calgary company has won VenturePrize, Alberta’s best-known awards honouring innovative, technology-driven startup companies in the province. First time that three of the four awards went to Calgary companies. Joining Orpyx in the winners’ circle was Surface Medical for the People’s Choice Award (see below) and the Screeners’ Award of Merit (SAM) went to Calgary’s StrokeLink. Way to go, Calgary! First time VenturePrize, in a most rewarding partnership with the Edmonton Journal, has had a People’s Choice Award:  The Journal developed, ran and publicized an online system for the general public to v ...

Once again, TEC Edmonton receptionist Audrey Dolinski and her crew of volunteers have done TEC Edmonton proud. To raise funds for the annual Christmas Bureau drive last month, Audrey shops for and stocks the TEC Centre snack canteen all year round.  This past Christmas, using the canteen's 2012 proceeds of $3,500 plus another $750 raised from a fund-raising drive at the TEC Centre, TEC Edmonton was able to provide about 20 families in need with a Christmas festive dinner. The groceries for six  Christmas Bureau "hampers" were purchased, sorted and then delivered  by TEC Edmonton volunteers to six large low-income families registered with the Christmas Bureau. Each family had at least eight members.  "We always put way more into the hampers than we're supposed to," says Audrey. "It's Christmas!" The rest of the funds went to the Christmas Bureau, which ensures no one in Edmonton goes without a festive meal at Christmas. The TEC Edmonton donation ...

The 11th Annual TEC VenturePrize Business Competition is open and accepting registrations from innovative Albertans starting technology-based businesses.  The winner and finalists will be announced at the annual awards dinner to be held April 17, 2013 at the Westin Hotel in Edmonton. The province-wide competition is produced by start-up business incubator and accelerator TEC Edmonton.  Registration can be done online at www.ventureprize.com. Up for grabs is $150,000 in prizes, but the rewards for all who enter are much greater. Competitors are given invaluable business tools to help them build viable, technology-based ventures. Professional support, mentorship, financial incentives and business training are part of the package. Since the first VenturePrize in 2002, 23 of the 29 start-up companies that have won or placed in the competition are now flourishing in Alberta. These companies include Scanimetrics, Synodon, SciMed Laboratories, Yardstick Software, Nirix, DataGardens, Simple Solar H ...

  TEC Edmonton's Annual Report 2011/12: Creating Value, Diversifying Economies is now available online to all who care to view it. The report includes interesting facts like the number of contracted TED Edmonton clients in the latest fiscal year (80), revenue generated by 70 TEC clients in 2011/12 ($73.4 million) and the number of entrepreneurs and researchers advised by TEC Edmonton in 2011/12 (529). TEC Edmonton business clients highlighted in the report include Innovative Trauma Care (pg 6), the Edmonton Waste Management Centre of Excellence (pg.7), Drivewyze (pg. 8), Metabolomic Technologies Inc. (page 9), SinoVeda (pg. 10) and Namsor (pg. 11). What we do, and how we do it, can be found on a two-page spread covering pages 12 and 13. It's an excellent overview of TEC Edmonton's three divisions, Entrepreneur Development, Business Development and Technology Management and explains how they operate as one cohesive unit. TEC's volunteers and sponsors are acknowledged on Page 15, ...

 The 2012 TEC VenturePrize Awards are a wrap. Produced by TEC Edmonton, the 10th annual awards and dinner are being called the best VenturePrize Awards ever. VenturePrize is much more than its NanoVenturePrize, Fast Growth and Student competitions for Alberta-based  innovative startup companies.  It’s even greater than its $300,000+ in prize money and services. It’s a celebration of Alberta’s burgeoning innovation/high tech/start up business sector, of its hundreds of risk-taking entrepreneurs, of bringing recognition and awareness to the sector with its huge importance to future economic development. The TEC VenturePrize Awards could not possibly have been carried off without a huge community effort. As the saying goes, it takes a community to raise a company. So here’s a host of thanks to the small army of volunteers and organizations who dedicated time, energy, cash and services to making the TEC VenturePrize Awards 2012 such a success. Organizations/Companies Alberta Innovates – Technolog ...

It was a rather remarkable pre-event reception held last Thursday April 26, 2012 at the Shaw Conference Centre, before the doors opened to all 550-plus guests attending the 10th Annual TEC VenturePrize Awards and Dinner Celebration.  The reception was held to honour the great business mentors and organizations that have worked with TEC VenturePrize on a volunteer basis since it began 10 years ago, never missing a year, putting in countless hours of volunteer mentoring of all the entrants, of screening the applicants and being the actual judges. TEC VenturePrize, you see, is much more than the mere handing out of awards and prizes to rising new innovative Alberta companies. It's also a business education program for all the entrants, providing them with a series of seminars and one-on-one business advice free of charge. Nine seasoned entrepreneurs have felt so strongly about the need for such a program that they have never missed a year of helping out with no compensation other th ...