Meet the BetaKit Town Hall: Vancouver speakers

Taking place on October 22, BetaKit Town Hall: Vancouver will feature a fireside chat and Q&A between BetaKit editor-in-chief Douglas Soltys and Jack Newton, CEO of Vancouver-based Clio, which recently raised the largest funding round in Canadian history.

One week before the event, BetaKit is happy to announce the five additional BC leaders who will provide a candid pulse check on the opportunities and challenges facing the West Coast tech sector.

Learn more about each speaker below and make sure to secure your ticket while they’re still available.

Josh Nilson, founder, Stealth Company

Josh Nilson describes BC as the “forgotten stepchild” of Canadian tech, but believes there is no better place to build a company.

“It’s the best talent pool anywhere in the world,” said Nilson, who stepped away as CEO of East Side Games in 2023, 14 years after co-founding the publicly listed company (he’s currently working on a new ‘stealth’ venture).

BC Tech’s 2022 Person of the Year, Nilson chairs the organization’s Indigenous Tech Leaders C-Council, is an Indigenous Tech Circle board member, and mentors and supports Indigenous entrepreneurs through Maskwa Investments.

He believes the BC sector is uniquely positioned to build great companies focused on specific challenges, inspired by the province’s geography and diverse communities.

“We’re very progressive and very colonial. We have weird political parties that no one else has,” Nilson said. “But we have some government programs that get it right. We have a focus on the right challenges, the right problems. People do a lot with less here.”

Anne Stevens, VP of Biz Development, AbCellera

A Vancouver-based biotech company that spun out of the University of British Columbia, AbCellera received much of its early support from south of the border. With early backing from DARPA and the US Department of Defence, AbCellera was working on pandemic preparedness before the Covid-19 pandemic.

But while its breakthrough tech first broke through in the States, the company opted to anchor in Canada and find its growth story here, said Stevens, thanks in part to a “very patriotic CEO.”

AbCellera now employs more than 600 people and will open a $701-million biotech campus with funding from the provincial and federal governments, as part of the province’s continued success in biotech and life science innovations, which Stevens sees as the province’s strength.

“Our sector is really killing it right now,” she said.

Alison Taylor, co-founder, Jane App

When Alison Taylor ran a ​​multi-disciplinary health clinic in North Vancouver, she remembers her profit margins being about two percent.

Ten years after co-founding Jane App, an all-in-one health and wellness practice management platform, Taylor said she is still humbled by the challenges she faced as a small business owner.

“You think tech is hard? I didn’t get any support as a small business owner,” she laughs.

Today, Jane is one of the city’s most impressive success stories, having focused on profitability over what Taylor describes as the “growth at all costs mindset.” As a result, Jane App boasts not only strong revenue but loyal clients, a strong referral base, and a fast-growing team of dedicated employees focused on “the delight of the customer.”

“I think it’s a great incubator,” Taylor said of Vancouver. “People don’t know how good they have it.”

Amin Palizban, founder, Topicflow

When he started his second venture in Vancouver, Amin Palizban found it easier to secure both investment and customers in the US. But would he move his company out of the city?

 “No. I went to SF for my last startup and I didn’t like it,” he said. “The lifestyle value of Canada is too good, there is nowhere like it.”

Instead of changing countries, Palizban said he followed the lead of other BC-based entrepreneurs and changed his mindset instead.

An AI performance management platform, Topicflow was funded entirely from the US. His company charges in US dollars and the CEO travels south of the border frequently to focus on sales.

“Australian entrepreneurs are doing the same thing, they’re just getting on a longer plane ride,” he said.

Palizban considers Vancouver a tech city, but said he wants to see a higher concentration of anchor companies that can hold talent in the province.

“We need our own PayPal Mafia,” he said.

Scott Langille, founder, Atelier

Growing up in Northern BC, Langille had little exposure to technology companies or entrepreneurs. But he’s made up for lost time. 

After founding and exiting a company, a stint at Tesla in Palo Alto, and travelling to Singapore as one of Canada’s Cansbridge Fellows, the young entrepreneur is now focused on making sure Vancouver is a place where young people want to work on big ideas.

“I think we need a reallocation of resources,” said Langille. “I want us to redirect government capital from pitch competition and events and put it towards really changing the culture.”

Languille founded Atelier as a place for young people in Vancouver to get together and create. He’s focused on what Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke identified as a national reluctance to “go for gold,” when he headlined BetaKit’s first Town Hall in Toronto in May.

“The ambition problem is my driving force,” said Langille, who will launch an incubator in January. “I want to enable other people to do their best work.”