Under clear skies and bright stadium lights, RE/MAX Field felt more like a festival than a business event.
Music from a DJ filled the ball field, people moved between food stations and startup booths, and a steady crowd gathered along the right-field wall where founders pitched under the lights.
Edmonton Startup Week’s Launch Party drew more than 500 people celebrating the city’s growing tech community.
Edmonton Unlimited CEO Tom Viinikka and Platform Calgary interim CEO Jennifer Lussier met with Digital Journal behind second base to discuss updates around the Memorandum of Collaboration (MoC) between their organizations. It was their first meeting in person since Lussier became interim CEO following Terry Rock’s move to Alberta Innovates.
The MoC, announced by Viinikka and Rock in May at Inventures, marked a turning point for two of Alberta’s main innovation hubs. The agreement formalized a commitment to align programming, talent development, mentorship, and investment support across both cities to help founders move more easily between ecosystems.
The partnership comes as Alberta’s innovation landscape continues to mature, with both cities recognizing that growth now depends less on regional competition and more on coordinated scale.
Turning the agreement into action
The MoC started to take shape in Red Deer over the summer. The two organizations and their leadership teams met there to put ideas on a whiteboard and work it like a design sprint.
Lussier said they met with donuts to turn broad intent into concrete steps. The two organizations already collaborate through Alberta Catalyzer, a joint pre-accelerator they’ve delivered for more than three years, so the MoC builds on that existing foundation.
“We started mapping out what it actually means to collaborate,” says Lussier. “What will be our first, or second, or third next step? And we focused on getting a little more tactical on some of the things that we could do together.”
Platform Calgary and Edmonton Unlimited mapped the first moves across five shared areas: mentorship, investment, programming, talent, and resources. They compared where each city was strongest, assigned owners and timelines, and began linking investor, mentor, and subject matter expert networks between the two hubs.
They also whiteboarded strengths and divided ownership, identifying where each city is better positioned to lead, and agreed to draw from each other’s large pools of subject-matter experts to share coaching and workshop resources across hubs.
Those sessions surfaced what Viinikka called “wild and crazy ideas” to test and laid out early timelines for pilot programs.
In a province where the Battle of Alberta is part of the lore, both leaders framed this as proof that competition can mature into collaboration when founders benefit more from connections than from keeping score.
For Viinikka, that meeting was about culture and coordination.
“Part of it is about the fellowship of being together, getting to know each other, and wanting to be on the same team,” he says. “There’s also an element of being open and transparent, making sure we’re answering the questions we all need to understand together, and teaming up on the topics we want to dive into and get ideas on. We get some really generative discussions there, as well as sharing plans and strategies.”
For example, Edmonton’s expertise in research and artificial intelligence complements Calgary’s investor networks and commercialization programs. Together, the two hubs are creating a clearer path for founders across the province to access the right people and programs when they need them.
Avoiding duplication is a major focus. Lussier said both organizations are now aligned on what programs each will run over the next 18 months.
“We’re not competing,” she says. “Not that we were before, but it’s even clearer now.”
On collaboration
That alignment showed up on the field at Launch Party, Edmonton’s flagship Startup Week event.
Founders from Calgary joined local entrepreneurs as investors and ecosystem partners from both cities gathered in the stands. It was a visible example of how the two hubs are programming together, with Edmonton Unlimited and Platform Calgary embedding each other in their flagship events.
Platform Calgary bussed investors, startups, and ecosystem partners to Edmonton that afternoon. They went straight into investor meetings at Edmonton Unlimited, part of building what both leaders called a true corridor for founder–investor connections between the two cities.
“The way we’ve formally embedded in each other’s signature events is a direct outcome of this collaboration,” says Lussier. “What we’re doing here today, and what we’ll do in Calgary in November, isn’t just ‘come to the party.’ It’s ‘bring your people, and we’ll match them up with whoever they need to meet.’”
That next stop will be Calgary Innovation Week, where Edmonton leaders will travel south to continue shared programming and investor connections.
Viinikka says the work now is about the “plumbing of collaboration”: aligning systems, sharing data, and making it easier for founders to move seamlessly between cities.
He confirmed that both organizations are developing a new joint program which will be one of the first tangible outcomes of the MoC. If everything proceeds as expected, public announcements about the program are targeted for Q1 of 2026.
While details are still under wraps, the initiative will build from the five shared focus areas they’ve already mapped out: mentorship, investment, programming, talent, and resources.
Lussier added that the partnership is also helping them avoid overlaps while strengthening their connection with Alberta Innovates, which recently outlined a business plan focused on simplifying how innovators access provincial support.
Viinikka said the MoC does not change Alberta Innovates’ role. The focus is on presenting joint opportunities that may be more attractive at a provincial scale.
“This is our attitude and the way we’re going to do business,” says Viinikka. “It’s not some new thing that’s going to take over the world. It’s just how we want to work together.”
For Lussier, moments like this reinforce the value of spending time together in person. “Even a little time together makes a huge difference,” she says. “It helps us get to know each other, recognize the teams, and build trust.”
Digital Journal is an official media partner of Edmonton Startup Week
