British Columbia-based tech hub Accelerate Okanagan will be hosting its OKGN Angel Summit on March 12, where it will hold its Summit Finale and feature Arlene Dickinson as keynote speaker.
The summit is an investor-led event aimed to raise awareness about angel investing, its benefits and opportunities, and to educate accredited investors and entrepreneurs. The first OKGN Angel Summit took place in January 2019.
Dickinson will discuss her entrepreneurial journey and her formula for starting and growing a business.
The OKGN Angel Summit Finale marks the conclusion of a 10-week program aimed at training new angel investors in the Okanagan region and increasing access to capital for startups. The 35 investors have evaluated and shortened a list of 24 companies, which will all be competing for a $150,000 investment. The top 24 companies were announced last week.
While the investors deliberate after the pitches, Dickinson, the managing partner of District Ventures and a judge on the CBC’s Dragons’ Den, will speak about her entrepreneurial journey and reveal her formula for starting and growing a business.
Founded in 2010, Accelerate Okanagan focuses on entrepreneurial development through business acceleration, technology commercialization, and access to capital. The hub also focuses on community building through networking, events, activities, talent attraction, and community engagement.
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In October, Accelerate Okanagan received $213,000 from the National Research Council of Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP), to support the OKGN Angel Summit for two years. The inaugural summit raised $130,000 for the winning company, Trellis, and helped to raise $4 million of committed investment into multiple local companies.
The accelerator was one of the organizations that received a cumulative $5.6 million injection from the federal government in September. In 2018, Accelerate Okanagan received $473,000 from the Government of Canada and has also received funding from Innovate BC and the Province of British Columbia.
Image source OKGN Tech
