Only 5 percent of Canadian workers and leaders say they are part of a game-changing innovator. These are organisations that build something new, take risks, and lead the market. Alberta’s Minister of Technology and Innovation, Nate Glubish, sees that figure as both a concern and a call to act.
“Canada…is lagging other major developed countries, certainly lagging the U.S. significantly in adopting technology in every industry,” says Glubish. “So this is no longer a question about who has the strongest tech sector. This is now a question about how the economy, writ large, adopts technology to become more productive.”
Glubish was responding to findings from Digital Journal’s national innovation study that explores how Canadians experience innovation inside their organizations, and sharing what the Alberta provincial government already has in motion to continue to fuel innovation in government and across the province.
Sitting down with Digital Journal at Inventures, Alberta Innovates’ annual conference in Calgary, he discussed how the province is strengthening its innovation ecosystem and modernizing service delivery through technology.
[Watch the interview in full in the video below]
Innovation in government and across the workforce
One example Glubish pointed to is how Alberta’s own government is using artificial intelligence to streamline operations. He shared a case where AI is being applied to reduce the time required for privacy impact assessments.
“We recruited a new Deputy Minister,” Glubish said. “His name is Janak Alford, and he’s a technologist.”
Glubish said Alford’s arrival accelerated Alberta’s internal adoption of AI, particularly in automating time-consuming government processes.
“The number of things we’ve been able to do in the Government of Alberta in just a few short months, to automate and to to improve the quality of the work that we’re doing, and to eliminate wasted time and to accelerate turnaround times and get answers to the citizens faster — it’s been mind blowing.”
One example he pointed to is the development of a custom AI tool to handle privacy impact assessments, which were previously a two-month process.
“Janak was able to build a custom AI tool in our own sovereign compute environment where we trained it on all the legislation, regulation and policy that defines privacy impact assessment… and in just one click, you generate a fully compliant privacy impact assessment that you can send to the Privacy Commissioner right then and there.”
The government is publishing many of its internally developed tools as open source, with the aim of helping other large organizations facing similar challenges. By sharing these solutions on platforms like GitHub, Alberta hopes others can adapt and reuse what works to save time, reduce duplication, and accelerate innovation across sectors.
Glubish also highlighted a $5-million partnership between Google and Amii to expand AI literacy across disciplines. The initiative is not aimed at computer scientists, he said, but at everyone else, including those in agriculture, education, business, law, and the social sciences.
“There should be some AI literacy training customized to the field that you are studying in,” he said. “As a teacher, how would I use AI to be better? As a farmer, how would I use AI to deliver better yields? As a lawyer, how would I use AI to do a better job for my clients?”
[Watch the interview in full in the video below]
From capital attraction to system-wide transformation
Alberta’s strategy began by targeting early-stage capital. Glubish explained that the Alberta Enterprise Corporation plays a key role by investing public funds into venture capital firms that commit to building a presence in the province.
“For every dollar we’ve put into those venture funds through Alberta enterprise Corporation, $5 has been invested into Alberta tech companies by those funds.”
Glubish says Alberta’s ecosystem is maturing, and several companies have reached billion-dollar valuations while remaining in the province.
“The fact that we now have 10 or 12 companies in Alberta that have a market cap of at least a billion dollars that started here and reached that level without having to leave — that’s a great feather in our cap.”
One area he sees an opportunity for improvement is in recruiting more product management talent.
“We’ve got outstanding research talent, we’ve got outstanding engineering talent, outstanding computer science and AI talent. But one thing that’s a little bit of a challenge, and it’s not just unique to Alberta, this is all across Canada, is that product management talent pool.”
Glubish believes the solution is keeping scale-ready companies in Alberta so they can create that depth over time.
“My goal as Minister of innovation is to make sure that we’re working with the sector to understand their needs wherever possible, getting out of the way as a government, and maybe every now and then, finding a way to solve a market failure, to make sure that they don’t have to leave.”
[Watch the interview in full in the video below]
Health innovation as a public and economic priority
Glubish says healthcare is one of the most important areas for applied innovation.
“We’re facing enormous population growth, so that has some growing pains. We have an aging population… the only way is through more innovation.”
He outlined several areas where innovation can help, including diagnostics, therapeutics, drug discovery, and efficiency in clinical settings.
“How do we make sure that our surgical suites are able to help the maximum number of people in a day that every surgeon can help, maybe an extra 10 or 20 percent of people every day?” he said. “All while doing it in such a way where you are reducing the overall burden on their workload.”
Glubish said Canada’s publicly funded, single-payer healthcare system allows provinces like Alberta to act as early adopters of new technologies. Because the province delivers care within that national framework, it can pilot and validate innovations directly in the health system. This creates opportunities for companies to demonstrate impact and attract investment.
“We can be a lead customer, which then makes it easier for the company that has built something new and revolutionary to also go and sell it to other markets and to attract investment,” he said.
He added that this approach can create broader economic benefits.
“You get the win-win of fixing a problem in healthcare, creating a really exciting company that’s going to create jobs, be more innovative, diversify our economy and attract investment.”
Glubish says that kind of alignment, between public outcomes and economic opportunity, is what will define Alberta’s next wave of innovation.For more insights from Digital Journal’s national innovation study, visit the Digital Journal Innovation Research 2025 page, and watch the interview with Glubish here:
Digital Journal is an official media partner for Inventures.
This article was created with the assistance of AI. Learn more about our AI ethics policy here.
