In partnership with CABI Leadership Summit Sponsor - Istuary Innovation Group,
CABI is pleased to present the Agenda for the
2015 CABI Leadership Summit in Kitchener-Waterloo, ON.
Agenda - March 30, 2015
The Accelerator Centre
8:00 am
Registration, Breakfast
8:45 am
Welcome Remarks
Gail Gillian-Bain, President, CABI
Paul Salvini, CEO, The Accelerator Centre
9:00 am
Open discussion followed by open forum
 Topic – How are Accelerators & Business Incubators collaborating?
 Moderator- Peter Mugridge, Vice Chair, CABI
 Presenter
Marcus Daniels, Co-founder and CEO of HIGHLINE, Vancouver, BC
HIGHLINE is a seed stage investment platform which helps early stage tech companies
scale their businesses, establish global connections and secure follow-on capital.
Through specialized accelerator programs, they deliver timely staged investing (up to
$200K) and rapid connectivity in key global markets starting with Vancouver, Toronto,
New York City and San Francisco.
10:15 am
Coffee Break
10:30 am
Panel discussion followed by open forum
 Topic – New Entrepreneurial Trends (Open Data and Cyber Security) and
How We in the Industry Can Be Prepared
 Moderator – Patrick White, Director Business Operations, L Spark, Ottawa
 Panelists:
Bryan Smith, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, ThinkData, Toronto
Prior to ThinkData, Bryan was the Sr. Policy Advisor to the President of Treasury Board of
Canada, where he helped draft Canada’s Action Plan on Open Government, launch
Canada’s second generation Open Data Portal [data.gc.ca], and championed the CODE
Hackathon in an effort to highlight the economic potential of Open Data.
Craig McLellan, CEO Thinkon, Toronto
While building high-availability applications for Fortune 500 clients of Hosting.com,
SunGard and other large US cloud providers, Craig also builds companies. In the last 22
years, he has grown several ventures and teams, all solving real market problems
through smart technology.
11:30 am
Debrief on morning session
12: 10 pm
CABI Leadership Summit Sponsor
 Ethan Sun, Founder and CEO, Istuary Innovation Group, Vancouver
12:20 pm
Break
12:30 pm
Lunch
 Keynote speaker
Pat Riley, CEO of the Global Accelerator Network in Boulder CO and former
executive with Techstars.
In 2010, two co-founders of TechStars had the grand idea to connect the top
mentorship-driven, seed-stage accelerators around the world. At the time, TechStars
was becoming more well-known and accelerators were popping up everywhere.
Alongside the White House’s Startup America Initiative, the Global Accelerator Network
launched to align top accelerators and create a standardized model for their success.
The rest is, as they say, history.
1:45 pm
Panel discussion followed by open forum
 Topic - Role of Universities/Academics in Incubation
 Moderator – Michelle Simms, Innovation Services Genesis Centre, St. John’s
 Panelists:
Dr. Paul Salvini, CEO, Accelerator Centre, Waterloo
The Accelerator Centre (AC) is a world-renowned, award-winning network of facilities
dedicated to developing and commercializing technology start-ups in partnership with
the University of Waterloo.
The Accelerator’s in-depth programming, unique accountability model, and long-term
view (up to three years) distinguishes them from other accelerators and incubators
within the Canadian commercialization landscape
Ian Hand, Director, VentureLabs, Vancouver
VentureLabs® is a world-class business accelerator program delivered by Simon Fraser
University (SFU), the University of Victoria (UVic), the British Columbia Institute of
Technology (BCIT) and the Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECUA+D), in partnership
with the BC Innovation Council (BCIC), government and industry partners
2:30 pm
Coffee Break
2:45 pm
Panel discussion followed by open forum
 Topic - Creative Funding Models
 Moderator – Shane Pegg, Vice President, Strategic Initiatives
 Speaker:
Tim Jackson, EVP Corporate and Community Development and Lead
Executive, MaRS Centre for Impact Investing, Toronto
Tim has an extensive background as an entrepreneur and business leader. A founder and
partner of Tech Capital Partners (an early-stage venture capital firm), he served as CFO
and CEO at Waterloo tech firm, PixStream. He has also served as CFO, CEO or board
member for numerous technology companies and other organizations
3:30 pm
Review of Day 1 Sessions
4:00 pm
Networking Reception and tour of the Accelerator Centre
Agenda - March 31, 2015
Communitech
8:30 am
Breakfast
8:50 am
Opening Remarks Iain Klugman, CEO Communitech
9:00 am
Panel discussion followed by open forum
 Topic – Maker/Hacker spaces are generational but what is the ROI for
accelerators/business incubators
 Moderator – Gary Brownstone, President and CEO, The Eureka Project,
Winnipeg
• Panelists:
Sylvain Carle, General Manager, Founderfuel, Montreal
At FounderFuel, they believe start-up success is more about the people than the idea.
Clients develop their business within an ecosystem of experienced entrepreneurs, top
executives, VCs, and Angels that have been assembled specifically for each client.
James Bastow, Co- Founder and President, Kwartzlab, Kitchener
Invention – Innovation – Cooperation
These are the driving forces behind the creation of hackerspaces, and behind
Kwartzlab. Kwartzlab is a member-run, not-for-profit community of makers that
provides an environment to learn, teach, work-on, build and create next generation
technology; including software, hardware, electronics, art, sewing, woodworking,
metalwork, games, etc.
10:15 am
Coffee Break
10:30 am
Panel discussion followed by open forum
 Topic - Are Canadian Accelerators and Business Incubators making a positive
impact on innovation and producing high growth companies?
 Moderator – Gail Gillian-Bain, President CABI
 Panelist:
Jeff Chesebrough, CEO, Innovate Niagara, Niagara Region
Innovate Niagara is a member of the Ontario Network of Entrepreneurs (ONE), a
network of regional and provincial not-for-profit organizations that deliver services and
programs to help entrepreneurs start, grow and succeed.
As a Regional Innovation Centre for Niagara, Innovate Niagara connects innovators to
the people and programs required to bring their innovations to market through a suite
of in-house programs, resource partners and network of incubation facilities.
Iain Klugman, President and CEO, Communitech, Waterloo Region
Communitech — Canada’s hottest technology cluster. Under Iain’s leadership,
Communitech has become one of North America’s leading tech enabling organizations,
supporting the growth of more than 1,000 small, mid-sized and large technology
companies. He is the architect of Communitech’s five-year, $107 million digital strategy,
which delivered more than $900 million in economic impact in 2012. He believes
passionately in the power of the entrepreneur-driven economy, and its ability to deliver
big results for Canada.
11:30 am
Debrief on morning session
12:15 pm
Lunch with keynote speaker - DEEP Centre
This is a working lunch Q & A regarding a Business Accelerator and Incubator (BA/BI)
Research Project lead by various federal government departments and CABI. This project
is an in-depth analysis of the state of the business incubators and business accelerators
(BA/BI) industry in Canada.
1:45 pm
Panel discussion followed by open forum
 Topic - Keeping up with global trends and national best practices
 Moderator – Tim Ellis, CEO Cadence Venture Partners, Waterloo
 Panelists:
Sunil Sharma, Co-Director of Founder Institute Toronto
A thriving accelerator program delivered concurrently in over 80 cities worldwide,
making it by far the most global accelerator program in the world.
Sunil is an Executive-in-Residence for Communitech, one of the world’s highest impact
innovation support catalysts.
Pat Riley, CEO, Global Accelerator Network, Boulder, Colorado
It’s good to be GAN. 6 continents, 59 cities, 50 accelerators—1 standard for
entrepreneurial excellence. At the Global Accelerator Network, we set the bar for startup accelerators and founders with our short-term, mentorship-based program and
guidelines
2:30 pm
Debrief/Where do we go from here/Outcomes
3:30 pm
Tour of Communitech
CABI and Leadership Summit Sponsor, Istuary Innovation Group, wish to thank you for
participating in the 2015 Leadership Conference.
Please remember to complete the CABI Summit Survey
Istuary Innovation Group
Istuary Innovation Group (Istuary) is a Canadian pioneer in building international incubation platforms for
technology innovations and start-ups. The company is uniquely structured and positioned to integrate
technology research, venture capital and business consulting into a unified growth platform. The goal of
the company is not only to foster the most innovative start-ups to achieve business successes globally, but
also to establish a bridge between North America and Asia, to connect entrepreneurs, exchange
technology resources, and gather funding between markets wherever desired.
Istuary enjoys an extraordinary growth since its inception. In current stage, they have over 60 staffs in
headquarter in Vancouver Canada and Seattle in USA, while 130 employees in six different branches in
China e.g. Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Ningbo, Shenzhen. In the next two years, Istuary
incubation centres will further expand into Toronto Canada, Los Angeles USA, and five more cities in China.
As Istuary grows, it aims to cultivate more and more Canadian entrepreneurs into global leaders of
tomorrow, and turn their ideas into successful and sustainable global businesses.