Sasan P.

The CRA just posted an RFP asking for a local solution to generate Java code. Canada is finally waking up to what we should have been building all along. We spend $50B+ annually on R&D. Less than 2% of that IP gets commercialized. Over half gets assigned to foreign companies. The gap isn't invention. It's translation. Vision to execution. Idea to Production-Ready code that stays here. When a federal agency asks for local AI tooling to build software, it's a signal. Not just procurement. Recognition that exportable IP and sovereign capability matter. This is the bottleneck I've been watching for years. Brilliant innovators who can't build alone. Risk-averse capital that won't fund pre-revenue deep tech. A translation layer that costs $400k or doesn't exist at all. The RFP is small. The shift it represents is not.

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​Canada has an innovation problem. More specifically, we have an innovation-to-commercialization problem. ​In my latest article, "My Mission: Fixing Canada's Innovation Problem," I dive into why we excel at invention but often fail at turning that IP into globally competitive companies. ​This is more than a passion project for me; it's a mission. I'd love to hear your thoughts. ​Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/dkh7QPWz Chris Carder Chris Adams David K. Nafis Ahmed Mandhir (Manny) Kalia Claudia KrywiakRahul Nirula Amber French Martin Basiri Mike Kirkup Alex McCallum Werner Muller Bruce Brown Kurtis Scissons Skaidra Puodžiūnas Benjamin Bergen Colleen Cole Kate Tomen, PMP, MMIE Amir Asif Vigen Nazarian Michael Badham Jim Hinton Sep Assadian Gerry Fung, P.Eng., CPA, CMA Dr .Tom Corr DBA, ADipC, MBA, ICD Eva Lau Ali Esfahani Raymond Luk Keith Loo Nicholas Nadeau, Ph.D., P.Eng. Bart Streppel Brendan Skiffington Jie Chen Stephen Gravel Shawn Poland Mike Commito, PhD Cheick Ismael MAIGA P.Eng Kevin Nguyen Bohdan Zabawskyj Kyle Briggs ​#Canada #Innovation #Tech #VentureCapital #Startups #Commercialization #CanadianTech

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Heard Chris Urmson from Aurora Innovation at Elevate Toronto this evening. Visionary, no doubt, and one of the original minds in self-driving tech. But like many AI CEOs, he’s selling a utopia that skips over the human cost. Automation isn’t saving workers, it’s shifting where value and control sit. The trucking shortage isn’t a technology gap, it’s a respect gap. Pay better, treat people better, and see how fast the current labour crisis disappears. AI can make work safer, smarter, and more meaningful, but only if we build it with people, not around them. Props to Susan Li from Fox Business Network for cutting through the PR fog and asking tough questions. We need more of that honesty in the AI conversation … and everywhere else.

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Product leaders from across Canada met today for PLX Lean Coffee for a discussion of hot topics from the trenches! We took on two burning issues: HOW TO PRIORITIZE - CUSTOMER REQUESTS, LONG TERM VISION, ETC. - We discussed the high stress environment of competing priorities and how to allocate scarce resources among so many priorities. - Key to our discussion was that this was a very early stage start up (3 co-founders) in a very competitive and fast-moving market. - "What do you need to do to raise your next round of funding" became the key question. From that, clarity came quickly. - The company needs to turn four beta customers into long term contracts. We discussed what that would take, and how the success of the trials was being measured and communicated to the customers. - The co-founders must be completely aligned. There is no room for pulling in different directions. - The product leader decided her most important next action was to come up with better metrics for the trials, communicate progress against those metrics consistently with those customers, and let those metrics drive the decisions on product priorities. WHAT IS THE PLACE OF PRDs IN A WORLD OF VIBE-CODING AND NEED FOR SPEED? - A product leader shared he was questioning the value of the PRDs he is currently expected to deliver. - There were not many fans of PRDs in the group. PRDs require a lot of time to research and write and require lengthy sign-offs. They assume all requirements can be known up front. - The preference was for multiple flexible documents, most which live in Jira and Figma, that are more useful to developers and designers. Vibe-coded prototypes can be used very effectively to communicate requirements. These are the "what" and "how" parts. - Some parts of the PRD are still needed - the "why" parts - product strategy, link to business goals, success metrics. This is done for the product leader's own thinking and to communicate up. It does not have to be a PRD. With participation from Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto, Lean Coffee keeps growing and getting better. If you are a product leader (CPO, VP, Director) and want a great place to bounce questions and ideas off your peers from across Canada, join us for our next one.

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Heavy-hitter speaker lineup at Platform Calgary today: Jennifer Lussier, Nate Glubish, Brad Parry, Deborah Yedlin, and Judy Fairburn. One theme from today was IP. Most early-stage startups treat it as a downstream afterthought, in large part because of costs and the pressure to just keep moving. Minister Glubish spoke about the importance of keeping IP local (Alberta/Canada). It immediately reminded me of an interview with Jim Balsillie (Former co-CEO of BlackBerry). He argues: this isn’t a niche legal topic, it’s one of the biggest value-capture games in the world. He’s described the “innovation/IP economy” as a multi-trillion-dollar sector, and argues that countries that don’t build the infrastructure to create, protect, and retain IP end up paying the rent while others collect it. He goes on to say, it’s the same pattern we’ve seen with raw materials: we export the “raw” part, someone else does the refining, and then we buy back the finished product at a premium. Except now, in a digital economy, IP + data are the new raw materials, and “refining” means owning the rights, building defensibility, and scaling commercialization here, not exporting the upside. As founders, our default mode is: hustle grind ship collect customer feedback iterate pivot …and often IP protection/infrastructure gets pushed downstream. It’s encouraging to hear Alberta is talking about investing in the conditions that make it easier to build and keep valuable IP at home, not just create companies, but keep the long-term value here too. Podcast episode that sparked this thought for me: https://lnkd.in/eGczMYMy Here’s the question: At what stage do you think founders should start taking IP seriously? Day 1, after product-market fit, or once revenue is real? It isn’t cheap to protect IP, so when do you do it?

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Clunky UI kills sales. Clean UX creates and accelerates sales. Because clients don’t buy features. They buy experiences they can trust with their clients. That’s why NDEX Systems Inc. -- the backbone of wealth management technology for 14,000+ advisors and 350+ firms across North America -- partnered with us at INSART. The mission: take the most complete, normalized, and secure portfolio data platform in Canada... and redesign the interface to unlock new adoption and sales opportunities. 🚀 NDEX already sets the industry standard with: → 300+ direct custodial feeds → 8,500+ supported data extraction sites → Real-time reconciliation & exception alerts → Export-ready data via REST API 👉 But the real transformation came from rethinking how advisors and firms experience that power: 1/ Navigation that accelerates workflows 2/ Performance built for massive data sets 3/ Responsive design across every device 4/ Interfaces designed to support end-client conversations and trust Swipe through the screenshots to see how a legacy interface evolved into a modern platform → built not just for data, but for growth. Great UX is when advisors stop thinking about the software and start focusing fully on their clients. Laurent Bensemana and Benjamin Amar, CPA let's keep building together! 👉 Here is the real question: What core UX principles do you believe every fintech platform should follow to accelerate sales? #Fintech #UXDesign #WealthManagement #PortfolioManagement #NDEX #INSART #WealthTech #SalesEnablement

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There is an opportunity right now in the Canadian tech/founder support ecosystem to rapidly update the approach for an AI world A lot of good people, both building and supporting, simply want to see the Canadian tech ecosystem succeed and this is the time to recalibrate to achieve that Without IMMEDIATE action several legacy structures in the ecosystem risk delaying Canadian tech growth vs global peers Example 1. A lot of programs, grants and incubators are milestone based. This no longer applies. In just the last week many public exec teams pulled guidance or said they are recalibrating everything, because of how quickly AI has changed their business, and these are established businesses. By comparison there are still programs in Canada that require multi year milestones to be met by founders. Iteration is the source of innovation and milestones can constrain. 2. A lot of grants, incubators etc review applications over weeks and months (some grants are several months). I can think of several well known Canadian tech founders that have been changing their agentic architecture or approach weekly. If you run a business using any type of agentic tools (which should be every competitive tech business right now) you would submit a grant that is outdated in a week and completely disconnected by the time you review it with the provider. 3. A lot of Canadian awards and credits recognize headcount. This model (SRED etc.) is very good for multi-year, human driven, R&D initiatives. It is not good at recognizing the cost of compute and the rapid iteration on top of it. We don't want to incentivize the wrong thing in the ecosystem. Founders have advisors walking them through traditional org design, to then build things manually, and then apply for SRED, when they need to iterate using AI tools. 4. A lot of incubators provide pitch coaching, intros to legacy advisors, and PMF workshops, but founder needs have changed entirely in the past few months. i.e. people now need an incubator that walks them through cost optimization on interference. They don't even need PMF advice in the same way anymore cause what if their market is just agents. AI is presenting an opportunity to rapidly improve on some of the above for the benefit of all in the ecosystem

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