Calgary’s creative industry gets a fresh boost

Welcome to this week's Sunday Briefing. In this issue, find out about a collaboration between Calgary brewers and Beakerhead Festival. Plus, read eight other stories you might’ve missed.

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🗳️ Question of the Week

Calgary’s creative industry gets a fresh boost

Calgary’s creatives started the weekend on a high note after the announcement of over $3 million in investment from PrairiesCan, the Government of Alberta, the City of Calgary, and the Edmonton Screen Industries Office.

The funding will go to five programs set to launch this fall:

• Alberta Producer Accelerator program: Supports producers with training, mentorship, and industry connections.

• Equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging protocols and anti-racism training: Provides training and equity protocols for workers in film and TV environments.

• Indigenous in-community training program: Provides film and TV industry training in-community to Indigenous applications

• Screen Access Alberta career website: Opens access to career and training opportunities for creative workers in Alberta.

• The Calgary Games Studio foundry: Supports creative entrepreneurs in developing, marketing, and commercializing their product.

Calgary’s creative industries include film and television, digital media, interactive technologies, gaming, e-sports, animation, and VFX.

🤝 Funding, Deals, and Partnerships

• Calgary's Co-LAB secures prestigious three-year contract with Telus Spark Science Centre and Beakerhead Festival. Calgary co-LAB brings together three of the city's most innovative and beloved craft beverage producers. Tool Shed Brewing Company

• Alberta puts $2.8 million towards development of industrial-scale waste-to-energy facility. The location would be the first to use carbon capture to turn municipal waste into clean electricity, a release said. Journal of Commerce

📰 Need To Know

• Alberta announces $8.6B plan to build new schools amid surging population growth. Province wants to create 200,000 spaces in the next seven years. CBC News

• Focused on A.I., Google selects Edmonton’s PulseMedica for startup accelerator. This summer, Google celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Canadian edition of the Google for Startups Accelerator program. Calgary.Tech

• Solutions Lab is back, announcing its 2024 challenge topic. The Lab, first held in 2021, is designed to champion social innovation. University of Calgary

• Helcim unveils gross deposits feature to simplify finances for merchants. The Calgary-born payments company this week introduced a new gross-deposit funding system. Calgary.Tech

• “Now Innovating” podcast open for submissions, showcasing U of C researchers’ innovation journeys. The project aims to share the research journeys of various labs and groups, from the initial idea to practical application in the community. The Gauntlet

• Cleantech startups Fibernx recognized in B.C. and Alberta for carbon fibre innovation. Bitumen from Alberta’s oil sands, typically restricted for use as fuel or asphalt, can now be transformed into more useful and valuable carbon nanofibres, say local experts working on the technology. Techcouver

💡Ideas & Insights

• Unlocking Sustainable Solutions: A Journey with Nuha Siddiqui. The Founder Mindsight is back for season two, beginning with an interview with Nuha Siddiqui, co-founder and CEO of Erthos: a climate technology company redefining the building blocks of plastics. Thin Air Labs