While cowboys wrestle steers, bronc bucks and rope calves, Bow Valley College has a different kind of rodeo underway.
In its fourth year, the college's Innovation Rodeo kicked off today. The aim of the week-long event, which is the brainchild of Craig Elias, the college's Entrepreneur in Residence, is to connect entrepreneurs, enhance business knowledge and give promising young entrepreneurs a leg up.
The Idea sprang from a trip Elias took to Kamloops, B.C. for a kickstart program and an epiphany sparked from a fellowship idea in that city. The idea of bringing outside business experts in for networking and learning opportunities seemed a natural fit for an event like the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.
"By my calculations, we have 50,000 entrepreneurs come through during the Calgary Stampede, we need to connect with them," Elias said, and thus the Innovation Rodeo was born.
The event spans five days and includes four days of speakers and panel discussions all focused on business development and success. The final day features a pitch competition where the top two challengers from three regional competitions held through out the week square off for a chance at $17,500 is prize money – $10,000 for first, $5,000 for second and $2,500 for third. The winner of the regional B.C., also receive $2,500.
"It's like a Dragon's Den but more of a dolphin's den, they are friendly dragons," said Elias about the panel judging the pitches.
Competing in the challenge this year are students from the University of Calgary, Medicine Hat College, NAIT, Grant MacEwan University, University of Lethbridge, University of Alberta and Mount Royal University.
During the afternoons on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, there are also daily Innovation Challenges, where teams of four square off to see who can develop the best solution to a problem. The winning team in each challenge receives $2,000.
This year's speakers are focusing on everything from how to help startups build products people want, to how to grow faster sales, to how to export.
Past keynote speakers included Kip Fyfe, owner of 4iiii Innovations who founded Dynastream Innovations Inc. in 1999 and later sold the tech company to Garmin in 2006.
Those interested in attending throughout the week can still get tickets for the remaing days by going to http://www.innovationrodeo.com/.
