Innovation isn’t always about flashy startups and billion-dollar ideas — it’s about asking the right questions.
And at KPMG Ignition Thursday, Calgary’s innovation community came together to do just that.
Hosted at the KPMG Pitch Stage in Platform Calgary, this month’s event tackled one of the most important (but often overlooked) aspects of innovation: research.
Because, while buzzwords like “disruption” and “cutting-edge,” are often thrown around boardroom tables, innovation can be built on the kind of research that takes years to develop and even longer to implement.
Featuring industry experts and researchers, it explored how AI is reshaping innovation, why corporate boards often get in their own way, and how academia and industry can actually work together instead of just pretending to.
What is Ignition Thursday?
KPMG Ignition Thursday didn’t start in Calgary. It began in Vancouver, where KPMG’s local Ignition Centre wanted to create more opportunities for conversations around innovation. It quickly gained traction, focusing on startup growth, scaling businesses, and Vancouver’s technology scene.
More than 30 of these events have since popped up in 25 different countries. Seeing the need for something similar in Calgary, Kerry Harmer, leader of KPMG’s Ignition Centre in Calgary, launched the series locally six months ago.
“Essentially, what we do is really an opportunity for us to bring the innovation ecosystem together,” says Harmer.
She added that they’re actively working to ensure a broader conversation — one that includes voices that don’t always get heard.
“That was one of the reasons I started Ignition Thursday in Calgary,” she says. “What voices do we have in the room? What voices are we hearing? What voices are speaking loudly, and where are the gaps? What voices are we not hearing in these innovation conversations?”
Each month, the event tackles a different topic, often driven by input from the community.
“In December, I put out a bit of a survey to the folks who were in the ecosystem and asked them, ‘What do you want to talk about?’” Harmer says.
Research and innovation came out on top, leading to this month’s panel.
A research-driven approach to innovation
The format is flexible — sometimes it’s panels, sometimes it’s open discussions. Some events are invitation-only, while others, like this one, are open to the public.
“It’s evolving,” says Harmer. “I don’t have any strict rules on what it’s going to be or what it should be, other than to support the ecosystem and the conversations that we want to have, that we think need to be had.”
This brought February’s session to research.
“We’ve got some really smart folks in the innovation ecosystem who are doing some research, and I wanted to know what’s top of mind,” Harmer explains.
So she reached out to panelists who could speak to different aspects of innovation research, from corporate strategy to AI to industry-academic collaboration.
Enter this month’s panel:
- Rorisang Hlahatsi-Baloyi: As an innovation leader and Doctor of Business Administration (DBA, meaning research that blends academic rigor with practical business applications) candidate, she talked about her work in AI-driven autonomous robotics in agriculture — aka, how AI is changing the way we grow food.
- Mike Procee: An energy industry professional and DBA Innovation Practitioner Scholar, Procee broke down his research on how corporate boards influence innovation (or, in some cases, block it).
- Carmen Rieder: As industry engagement lead at the University of Calgary, she shared how the university is working with companies to translate research into real-world impact.
AI: The unstoppable force in innovation research
If there was one recurring theme throughout the discussion, it was AI. Love it or fear it, AI is no longer optional in innovation.
“I think, right now, you cannot say ‘innovation’ without including artificial intelligence,” says Hlahatsi-Baloyi. “Even artificial intelligence has evolved from the time it started until today, and it’s still evolving… By the time I’m done with my research, my concern is that the type of AI that I’ll need to focus on would be super AI, which is something that doesn’t exist right now, but it’s also seen in the future.”
This research isn’t just theoretical, either. She’s working on a framework that could help farmers worldwide adopt AI-driven agricultural practices.
“At the end of my research, I’m hoping there’ll be a framework that could be reused by myself and other farmers within the globe, not just within Alberta,” she says.
But AI is also changing how businesses approach innovation in real time.
“Doing your research or your doctorate in the age of generative AI is very, very exciting, but it’s also very, very tough to keep up with,” says Procee.
“Even teaching at MRU [Mount Royal University], how does that impact the students’ learning experience? It’s a completely different experience now… It went from having a nice, clean bell curve of answers to now everything on the top rung of things.”
AI is forcing companies, researchers, and institutions to rethink how they define innovation, and how they measure success.
Boards, bureaucracy, and and how the enable corporate Innovation
If AI is revolutionizing how businesses innovate, corporate bureaucracy can stand in the way.
Procee has been studying how corporate boards influence innovation, and let’s just say his research is showing a gap.
Mike Procee. Photo by Jennifer Friesen/Digital Journal
“Why do large organizations struggle to innovate?” he asks. “Large organizations have more rigid structures. These same rigid structures that allow them to be successful… they become inhibitors and barriers once you’re trying to innovate later.”
He pointed to Blockbuster as a classic example of boardroom-driven failure.
“Blockbuster is where I spent most of my Friday and Saturday nights growing up, picking movies and getting a pizza,” he laughs. “Everybody uses Blockbuster as the example of when the large fail to innovate.”
“But there’s an interesting story behind Blockbuster that some of you may not know…,” he adds.
According to Procee, Blockbuster’s leadership knew the industry was changing.
They had plans for an online streaming service — until their board shut it down because they were too reliant on late fees.
“You had a visionary CEO leader conflicting with the board of directors,” he says. “In the end, John was actually dismissed in 2004, 2005-ish… and then he was replaced… but by that time, the model was changing too quickly, and they weren’t able to catch up or pivot.”
In other words, corporate boards can be a major blocker to innovation, even when the right people inside the company see the writing on the wall, however, when implemented in the right way, they can also be a driving force for innovation.
Bridging the gap between academia and industry
While corporate boards struggle with change, academia has its own problem: a research-to-action gap.
Carmen Rieder, industry engagement lead at the University of Calgary, shared how the university is working to bridge that gap by collaborating with industry.
“We are on a mission to discover new knowledge and translate those discoveries into applications for the benefit of our communities,” she says. “For three years running, the Association of University Technology Managers ranked UCalgary as the number one Startup Creator research institution, and last year we brought in $588.5 million in sponsored research revenue.”
One of the university’s biggest focus areas is transdisciplinary research — which, despite sounding like a made-up word, is key to solving complex problems.
“Thinking about keeping it transdisciplinary — it’s a strange word — my husband said: ‘That’s not a real word,’” she laughs. “But at the University of Calgary, it is. It brings together experts from different fields and people from all walks of life to address real-world problems.”
Where innovation research is headed next
So, what’s next?
- AI isn’t slowing down: Hlahatsi-Baloyi warned that the field is evolving so fast that researchers have to constantly adjust. “What I’m doing now, it may change in a couple of months, not in a couple of years,” she says.
- Corporate innovation needs to catch up: Procee stressed that companies need to stop reinventing the wheel and start actually using the research that’s already out there. Whatever you’re doing in an organization … start by looking at what’s already been done and where the research will be,” he says. “You’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t look at what’s already been done.
- Collaboration is non-negotiable: Rieder reinforced that the best innovation happens when academia and industry work together — not in silos.
Harmer wrapped up the event by reminding the audience why conversations like this matter.
“Collaboration is really why we do Ignition Thursday,” she said. “Innovation isn’t a solo activity.”
It harkens back to the notion that the best ideas happen when you have the right people in the right room (the word Rieder mentioned — “transdisciplinary” — comes to mind).
“We know that innovation happens in lots of disparate areas, and sometimes there are voices that are not being heard,” says Harmer. “It’s about bringing those different voices into the conversation to really understand more… and also understand where the opportunities for us to collaborate.”
Read more about the Ignition series here.
