Recap: Innovate BC @ GLOBE Forum 2024

Innovate BC took part in GLOBE Forum 2024 at the Vancouver Convention Centre earlier in February, connecting with delegates from across industries and areas of impact all toward accelerating solutions for a regenerative, resilient, net-zero economy.

We were also thrilled to host a panel highlighting the Integrated Marketplace program and the exciting work that’s taking place at the Vancouver International Airport (YVR) Testbed.  

Developed by the Province of British Columbia as part of the StrongerBC Economic Plan and supported by PacifiCan, the Integrated Marketplace works to accelerate and de-risk the adoption of domestic innovations and assist key areas of the provincial economy to decarbonize, increase competitiveness and strengthen health and safety.   

L to R: The Honourable Brenda Bailey, Minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation, The Government of British Columbia (Moderator); Gurmesh Sidhu, Co-Founder & CPO, Moment Energy; Lynette DuJohn, VP, Innovation, Vancouver Airport Authority; Nathan Nankivell, VP, Integrated Marketplace and Government Relations, Innovate BC; Naina Sloan, VP, Programs & Partners, PacifiCan.

With an exciting group of speakers representing different aspects of the program, and hosted by the Honourable Brenda Bailey, Minister of Jobs, Economic Development, and Innovation, the panel explored the incredible value in reducing risks for technology adoption through collaboration with local innovative solution providers and provided an overview of some of the learnings to date, which we’re pleased to share some of now. 

Takeaways from ‘Electrifying YVR: Connecting Goals to Innovative Solutions with the Integrated Marketplace’ 

Panelists: 

• The Honourable Brenda Bailey, Minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation, The Government of British Columbia (Moderator) 
• Nathan Nankivell, VP, Integrated Marketplace and Government Relations
• Lynette DuJohn, VP, Innovation, Vancouver Airport Authority 
• Gurmesh Sidhu, Co-Founder & CPO, Moment Energy 
• Naina Sloan, VP, Programs & Partners, PacifiCan 

Announcing Moment Energy’s project at the YVR Testbed 

To kick-off the panel, Minister Bailey announced new battery energy storage system project from Coquitlam-based Moment Energy, which is working to provide high speed charging capacity for the public and fleet vehicles as part of the YVR Testbed. 

You can read more about the project here. 

Nathan Nankivell, VP, Integrated Markets, Innovate BC 

Nathan serves as Innovate BC’s lead on the Integrated Marketplace and spoke to the purpose of the program and the hurdles that local solution providers can face in scaling.  

“We were trying to understand how we can help scale up B.C. cleantech companies, and what is preventing them from exporting their products to the world and finding local markets. B.C.’s economy is constructed primarily of small businesses, so you have a small customer base as a starting point that makes it difficult to sell into. Also, it can often be very difficult for businesses to buy clean technologies because it’s an unclear return on investment, which is what the program works to address through providing a demand-driven framework for both buyers and solution providers.”  

Lynette DuJohn, VP, Innovation, Vancouver Airport Authority (YVR) 

For YVR, as Lynette explains, the Integrated Marketplace is an avenue to connect to local innovation that can help them reach their goals. 

“It’s a way for us to give back, to drive the economic profile of this region. We have an ambitious target of net zero by 2030 and this really fits in with that goal.”  

“Innovation is not just about the technology in itself; it’s about making sure that people can use it and they can use it at scale. It’s about people.”  

Gurmesh Sidhu, Co-Founder & CPO, Moment Energy 

Gurmesh is Co-Founder & CPO of Moment Energy, one of the solution providers participating in the Integrated Marketplace as part of the YVR testbed. He discussed the value in securing a notable partner and potential first customer to connect to a larger market.   

“Everyone knows YVR. It’s really big for Moment Energy to have a client this big and it’s helped us to get other large clients, both because of the learnings from this project and having the reputation of working with YVR.” 

“One of the challenges with being a cleantech startup is that our products are not cheap; they’re capital intensive. [With the Integrated Marketplace] making sure that there’s funding to deploy will allow us to develop our pipeline and scale in the local ecosystem, not just the traditional ecosystems.” 

Naina Sloan, VP, Programs and Partners, PacifiCan 

With support from PacifiCan, the Integrated Marketplace is able to offer a demand-driven framework that supports technology adoption for some of the province’s major industries. 

“This is demand-side innovation at its best. We focus a lot of energy on supply-side innovation (research, development, commercialization). But seeing the connection between the innovators and the larger companies that are able to adopt their innovations, and having that demand focus the efforts and the resources on our work in innovation is really important.” 

A huge thank you to everyone who attended our panel and visited the Innovate BC booth. To learn more about the Integrated Marketplace and to keep up to date on program announcements, visit innovatebc.ca.