Tech Thursday Live!

Tech Thursday Live! is your home for conversations that took place at in-person events hosted by Tech Thursday.

Tech Thursday Live! is a technology podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 19 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Unknown Host hosts Tech Thursday Live!, a technology show with 19 episodes published.

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  Tech Thursday Live!

  Clearco's Story, Ultimarii's Fundraise, Taste in AI | Andrew Curtis, Doug Schweitzer, George Bugg

  Sep 28, 202657 min

  Episode 2 of Tech Thursday Live!, recorded in front of a studio audience in Calgary. Phil and Mark cover the latest tech news, including Canada's new tax cut on business investment, the banks and pension funds committing billions to Canada, and Apple's iPhone Duo. Our guests include: Andrew Curtis, CEO of Clearco, on recapitalizing the company, the new $100M facility from Macquarie Group, and what DTC brands are seeing heading into Black Friday. Doug Schweitzer, Co-Founder and CEO of Ultimarii and former Alberta cabinet minister, on using AI to get major infrastructure approved faster, fresh off a $13M+ Series A led by BDC. George Bugg, Staff Product Designer at Ramp, on taste in the age of AI, and why he built an AI version of himself and then stopped using it. Hosted by Philippe Burns (Tech Thursday) and Mark Le Dain (Fuelled). Recorded live in front of a studio audience in Calgary. Presented by Ramp. Timestamps 00:00 Welcome to Tech Thursday Live!00:42 Andrew Curtis, CEO of Clearco13:01 Tech news: Digital Transformation Canada17:08 Canada's 6.4% tax rate on new business investment18:51 RBC, CIBC, BMO and Teachers' pledge billions20:48 Blackstone's Jon Gray on Canada's growth22:26 Is Carney leveling up Canadian business?24:05 Founder interview: Doug Schweitzer, Ultimarii33:02 Portage and Radical Ventures close huge funds33:39 Harvey's pivot to AI implementation37:52 Zelenskyy, Carney and North Vector Dynamics39:32 Meta's Muse43:09 The foldable iPhone44:48 A word from Ramp45:12 George Bugg, Ramp, on taste in the age of AI54:46 Founder Myth of the Week55:22 Jobs and wrap

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  Tech Thursday Live!

  How Questrade is Building a Bank

  Sep 25, 20261h 5m

  Questrade has been building for 27 years. It's one of Canada's first online brokerages, it's now a Schedule I bank, and it has never taken outside money. Recorded live at Model Citizen in Calgary, this conversation covers why Questrade chose the harder path into banking, how AI changed the way the team ships, what the rebrand is really signalling, and why they think the competition is the Big Five rather than other fintechs. Featuring: Hwan Kim (Chief Product Officer, Questrade Financial Group) Andrej Simeonov (Head of Technology, QT Experience Platform) Ralph Sadowski (Product Director) Hosted by Philippe Burns (0:00) Intro (1:20) 27 years of Questrade (6:54) Becoming a Schedule I bank (11:36) Building an engineering team in Calgary (13:53) Changing the culture (19:54) How AI changed the way they ship (23:55) The rebrand and what it signals (27:25) Profitable, self-funded and growing (32:57) Competing with the big banks (37:55) Audience Q&A (50:03) Who Questrade is actually built for Tech Thursday connects the boldest builders in Canadian tech. Events run weekly across Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Toronto. techthursday.ca

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  Tech Thursday Live!

  Ep. 1: The Alberta Data Centre Bubble?

  Sep 17, 20261h 8m

  Our first episode in the new live format, recorded in Calgary. Hosted by Philippe Burns and Mark Le Dain, CRO at Fuelled.Graham Harrison makes the case that 99% of Alberta data centre projects will fail, and it has nothing to do with power or permits. Nic Beique of Helcim on raising a $53M Series C, ten years of bootstrapping, and giving the Globe and Mail an exclusive he couldn't control. Sandy Gilbert on why Canadian founders leave, why Canadian buyers say no, and the Eventbrite problem nobody wants to talk about.Also: the coming copper catastrophe, a $500 toothbrush with a camera in it, and why data centres don't have parking lots.Presented by Ramp. With support from Skip, BLG, Crestview, Operator Invites, and Buffs.Next show: September 24th.Subscribe to the Calgary Tech Newsletter for the recap and the full job list.

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  Tech Thursday Live!

  GeologicAI: $100M Raised to Make Mining More Efficient

  Aug 25, 202638 min

  GeologicAI builds robots that scan drill core and tell mining companies where to dig. They spent their first eight years doing research projects for oil companies in Calgary, pivoted to mining in 2019 against nearly everyone's advice, and raised a Series A thirteen years in from Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy, BHP and Rio Tinto. They're now capital break even, 330 people, and building a new scanning unit every three weeks. CEO Grant Sanden and CTO John Mortimer on the long road to product market fit, buying their own copper mine in Arizona to prove out the product, what a 17 year mine development timeline means for the copper crunch, and why hard science has to come before the LLMs when a billion dollar decision is on the line. Recorded at GeologicAI's assembly facility in Calgary.

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  Tech Thursday Live!

  How Rob Khazzam (Float) and Jeff Adamson (Neo Financial) Are Re-Engineering Canadian Fintech

  Jul 23, 202640 min

  Five banks own 96% of the Canadian market. The relative cost of banking has barely moved in a century. Rob Khazzam co-founded Float and just raised a $60 million Series B. Jeff Adamson co-founded Skip the Dishes, then Neo Financial, and scaled it to 600 people. Both are building independent technology companies inside one of the most protected industries in the country. In this conversation: how homebuilt fintech platforms are pressuring the incumbents, how early fintech advocacy on NSF fees shifted consumer costs nationally, why Rob runs Float on a day-to-day survival mindset, the "misfit" advantage in hiring against rigid institutional experience, the accountability frameworks from the early days of Skip and Float, why a Schedule I banking license isn't the answer most founders think it is, and what a decade of open banking consultations actually means for who owns your data. Moderated by Philippe Burns, Co-Founder of Tech Thursday. Fireside chat from our first annual Tech Founder's Stampede Summit in Calgary, co-hosted by House831, with help from the C100 and Fintechs Canada, welcoming 50 founders from across Canada. Sponsored by Float, BLG, Boast, RBCx, PNC Bank, and Fortinet.

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