Every city chasing innovation talks about talent, capital and scale — few manage to align them. With momentum on our side, Calgary is staking its claim as the national leader in innovation.
In late 2025, amid economic uncertainty and high unemployment, Calgary Economic Development (CED) reiterated its commitment to Calgary’s Innovation Strategy, a long-term economic plan to add 187,000 jobs and more than $28 billion to Calgary’s economy by 2034. The investments are intended to support growth and commercialization across the tech, agri-food, energy-transition and creative services sectors.
At the centre of that ambition sits Platform Calgary. It’s a striking physical space, a non-profit, member-based organization, and, increasingly, the connective tissue of the city’s innovation ecosystem.
Where ideas land, launch and scale
For Jennifer Lussier, CEO of Platform Calgary, the organization’s role is simple to articulate, but complex to execute.
“Platform Calgary’s job is to connect and grow the tech sector here in the city,” she says. “We are that collision infrastructure for ideas, talent and capital.”
That collision happens daily. Since 2022, more than 370,000 people — including regular members working out of the building, community groups using the space and members of the public grabbing coffee from the café — have passed through Platform Calgary’s doors.
While some programs require a membership, the majority of Platform’s programs are intentionally free or low cost. They’re funded through a mix of municipal support, Alberta Innovates, federal funding, sponsorships and revenue from events, to remove friction at the earliest stages of entrepreneurship.
“When you’re a startup, you don’t want to be spending money you don’t have,” Lussier says. “We want to make sure it’s a neutral and trusted place for founders to get advice that is unbiased.”
That neutrality is part of what makes Platform Calgary a place where first-time founders, seasoned operators, students, investors and policy-makers share the same space.
Decades in the making
Platform Calgary occupies a striking, 50,000-square-foot space in the Platform Innovation Centre in East Village, anchored by high ceilings, exposed concrete and large industrial windows. It hosts pitch competitions, workshops, meetups, talent programs and large-scale civic events.
The organization’s roots stretch back decades. In 2019, Platform Calgary evolved from a rebranded Calgary Technologies Inc., a non-profit innovation centre tracing back to 1981 that had a partnership with Innovate Calgary, an organization focused on commercialization driven through the University of Calgary.
Terry Rock, Platform Calgary’s president and CEO from 2018 to 2025, said it became clear through talking to local entrepreneurs that Calgary’s growing start-up and technology community needed a neutral, open-door hub focused on founders, builders and operators — one not tied to any single institution.
“My first six months was just talking to people and I heard one common message, which was, ‘There’s no centre of gravity. It’s fragmented,’” he says of the tech scene in Calgary at the time.
Rock, now senior vice-president, operations & COO at Alberta Innovates, describes Platform as the outcome of years of ecosystem building. He says that locals such as the former board chair of Calgary Technologies Inc., Evan Hu, and entrepreneurs Brad Zumwalt and Peter Kinash played key roles in bringing Platform Calgary to life through advice, investment and connections.
Volunteer board members like Ray DePaul make a difference, too. DePaul, the executive director of the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Mount Royal University (MRU) and a longtime Platform board member, says he was interested in being a part of Platform because of the “rainforest” approach the organization was committed to, based on the book, The Rainforest: The Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley by Victor W. Hwang and Greg Horowitt.
“You’re going to get these sprouts everywhere, and the goal is to just let them grow. It isn’t to try to control them. It isn’t to knock them down and to make the lawns perfect,” he says, noting how it was important to him that Platform allows entrepreneurs to host their own events, test ideas publicly, and connect organically with talent, capital and customers.
Between 2021-2024, Calgary experienced the highest tech job-growth rate in North America, at 61 per cent.
“Ten years ago, no one would have believed that Calgary could be one of the fastest-growing ecosystems in the world, and it’s all because of the investment of time, more than anything else, that a bunch of people put into the city. And now we really seem to be hitting our stride,” DePaul says.
Built on the platform
For entrepreneurs like Mary Llaneta, co-founder and CEO of software company Hoodo, which provides a workflow automation platform to help auto dealerships streamline vehicle reconditioning, make-ready and delivery processes, Platform Calgary is less about any single program than the environment it creates.
“The most valuable part of Platform is the building itself and the people that are in it,” Llaneta says. “The environment is like a real-life think tank. You’re constantly hearing in real time what is working for others, how they’re solving problems, and you can apply that to your own business.”
Llaneta participated in multiple Platform programs, including the Velocity program and CEO Roundtable, crediting those experiences with accelerating her growth as a founder.
Prabh Paul Parmar, the CEO at AI-powered rental pricing platform TraceRent (and self-described “Chief Laughter Officer”), connected to the Platform Calgary community before he even planted roots in the city.
What began as an email exchange with a Platform Calgary member whose advice he needed quickly turned into Parmar reconsidering where he wanted to create his next business. “We said, ‘You know what, we’ve got to shift. If we’re going to build our company here [in Canada], we’ll make it Calgary,’” he recalls.
The next layer
As our innovation economy matures, Platform Calgary’s focus must shift.
Lussier points to access to customers as the next major hurdle, with many startups struggling to find companies willing to bet on their product or service.
“We want to be the place where a startup comes in and knows they can find their community, their peers and mentors, and catch the investor, but we also want it to be the place where they can know they’re going to get help commercializing an idea faster for that customer they’re trying to reach,” she says.
Talent is another pressure point.
While Calgary has become one of North America’s fastest-growing tech talent markets, sustaining that growth requires clear career pathways.
“We don’t want people to see tech as a stepping stone out of Calgary,” Lussier says. “We want them to see a future here.”
DePaul, who helps identify gaps in support for scaling businesses and provides programs that grow entrepreneurial talent at MRU, says that building strong networks will help keep talent around.
“Degrees are mobile; you can take them anywhere in the world. Networks aren’t. So, if we can make sure that students graduate with a network that they feel is there for them, they may not leave,” he says.
If Calgary reaches two million people with a cohesive innovation ecosystem intact, the economic upside will be substantial. More importantly, the city will have something harder to quantify: a culture that tells ambitious people they can build their future here.
5 Calgary Companies to Watch
*According to the experts in this story
Ambyint
AI-powered production optimization platform for oil and gas, helping companies boost output, lower costs and operate more efficiently.
InspiredGo
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NanoTess
Skin health technology to speed up the of healing wounds, from small skin tears to chronic wounds and a wide range of dermatological challenges.
CO2Brew
An engineered carbon dioxide-recovery system designed for smaller breweries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
OraQ AI
A clinical intelligence platform for dentists that uses AI to unify patient data for better, more holistic care.