The TON Tuesday session this past week was a huge success with more than 50 attendees at the Kanata Lakes Golf & Country Club to hear the panel of solar and geo-thermal experts speak on Clean Technology Start-ups. In the audience a mix of funders and start-ups and hopefuls, each with their story to tell of transitions, downsizing and innovation – all with a keen interest in green energy possibilities. Here now, a brief summary of remarks by each of the panelists.

Rob Miller, VP of Development, AxioPower - www.axiopower.com
Rob Miller began his talk by pointing to the immense opportunities within the green energy industry for investment in growth. “Capacity,” says Mr. Miller, “Is the issue.” At $4M per megawatt, and 25 megawatts on the grid available…that’s a whole lot of green of a monetary kind! “Step One, Get capacity and get connected. Step Two: Get Financing.” Risks include regulations that come suddenly into play and curb the ability of the company to get into the market quickly, or change the value of the product and your bottom line. “This tends to make investors nervous.” Right now, Axio Power is searching for funding, helped by Marathon, and is finding a lot of interest from foreign (China) investors. European banks too understand the compelling and marketable need for green energy producers relates Mr. Miller. Major power companies are getting involved too – for example Enbridge – because it makes such sense. “Sun is free!” explains Mr. Miller. In Ottawa, the opportunity for wind producers is definitely there – find a clear space where wind races at 7 meters per second that isn’t zoned agricultural.

Dan Orr, Vice President of Green Soldiers - www.greensoldiers.ca/solar-farms/
To get financing for green energy, the banks want to see your project approved with a solid contract. Mr. Orr recommends taking it one project at a time, build your business model and prove it out to gain solid investment banking. Canadian banks are getting interested but are still cautious. “You will spend a lot of time and effort on financing,” says Mr. Orr, “but the money is out there.” For solar panels, the time is ripe now for investing with the cost of panels low, and the financing available.” Just make sure, he cautions, to have a panel supplier with a name behind them.  Ottawa is a great area for solar energy with 5-10% better sun than other parts of Eastern Ontario. Mr. Orr does point out that you may have to prepare yourself to chop down a lot of trees and, if the property has waterways, they will prove a major issue as well. Mr. Orr points out that with wind energy being the more mature of the two options, it has more efficiencies – this explains the higher tariff on solar energy at this time.

Adam Patterson, Independent Green Energy
The beauty of Geothermal energy according to Adam Patterson, is it’s 400% efficiency and the fact that it provides you with cheap energy when it is at it’s most expensive.  The homeowner may find it an expensive investment at $30K for their home, but is more content to reap the payback over a longer time than institutional customers who are looking for a fast yield. Ottawa is an ideal location for applying the benefits of geothermal energy with a large variance between outdoor and indoor temperatures both summer and winter. “With the world population continuing to grow and with limited fossil fuels…we’ll be able to help there and look great (to consumers).” Says Mr. Patterson.

Trevor Strauss, NextEnergy Inc., www.nextenergy.ca
Trevor Struass points out the huge growth potential for geothermal energy by stating, “1/2 of 1% of the energy pie in North America is owned by Geothermal. In Denmark, it’s more like 90%.” One of the key risks in this business is the installer channel, where industry regulations are needed to help protect quality. “Build your dealer network, have enough of the right kind of contractors and installers.” Advises Mr. Strauss.

TON Tuesday event summary provided by: Patricia Heard, patricia@pollackgroup.com, www.pollackgroup.com

TON Tuesday - Focus On: Cleantech Project
Financing Opportunities in Ottawa
February 23, 2010 4-6:30 pm
sponsored by

Bringing local clusters and initiatives together to focus the expertise of experienced management and engineering talents on emerging cleantech opportunities.

We invite you to join the conversation!

Register for the event here.

We are pleased to introduce the panelists for the event:

Rob Miller, VP of Development, AxioPower

Rob joined Axio Power in 2008 from Canadian Hydro Developers, where he was the Project Engineer for CHD’s Ontario wind projects including Wolfe Island (a $475 million and 200 MW project) and Royal Road (18 MW). Rob also worked for Vector Wind Energy as a project manager in Eastern Ontario. Prior to working in the private sector, Rob managed municipal engineering for the municipalities of Whistler and the Greater Vancouver Regional District. Rob has over 15 years of experience with senior-level operations, construction management, and environmental engineering. He is a Professional Engineer with a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Western Ontario and a MS in Environmental Engineering from the University of British Columbia.

Matt Cinnamon, Green Soldiers

Mr. Cinnamon currently shares profitable partnerships in several corporations in the Ottawa area. He has a solid 15 years of experience in the construction, heating, plumbing, and electrical industries, housing developments and maintenance contracts for multi-national firms and government entities. His executive experience brings a bird’s eye view to the entire operation.

Adam Patterson, Independent Green Energy

Mr Patterson is CEO and co-founder of Indpendent Green Energy, a partner firm of Sutton Renewables and co-founder of the Geothermal initiatives at both groups.  Adam brings 13 years experience in international trade finance, investment banking and analytics.  As a former investment analyst and presently focused on driving capital into long term resource and energy projects within North America he brings experience in analyzing and working on large scale projects.  Mr Patterson became more heavily involved in the alternative energy space when he began to look for solutions for the financial and logistical bottlnecks associated with the industry. Upon reviewing several methods for making alternative energy a more relevant choice for residential consumers he founded Indpendent Green Energy.  Within Independent Green Energy, we are able to draw upon the experience gained from the management of Sutton renewables Kinersis wind projects both in North America and Europe.  Adam has a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Guelph, is accredited with the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association and holds numerous trading and financial designations.

Trevor Strauss, NextEnergy Inc.

Register for the event here.

Gowlings Monthly TON “Starting your Startup Series”, Continues The 2 Part Seminar Series on Business Plans

Part 2 – Preparing A Business Plan To Raise Capital
Tuesday February 9th, 2010 - 5:30pm - 7:30pm
160 Elgin St., 26th Floor

In Part 1 of our seminar series on business plans, “The Business Plan You DON’T Take To The Bank”, we discussed how a business plan can be used to help your Company stay focused on primary business objectives and to operate more efficiently.  Part Two of the series will focus on the role of the Business Plan when your start-up is raising Capital.

Our panel for the Feb 9th event will consist of experts on various sources of capital, including: Senior and Subordinate Debt (working capital loans, asset financing etc), Government (OCE, IRAP etc) and Equity (Convertible Debt, Preferred Shares etc).  The panel will be moderated by Anil Dilawri of Hill and Knowlton.

Gowlings is very pleased to host Starting Your Start-Up, The Ottawa Network monthly event stream that combines quality networking with practical advice and insights from industry leaders and subject matter experts.  Starting Your Start-Up focuses on the business basics that are the foundation for launching and building a successful start-up in these promising and challenging times including financing, team formation, business & product development, sales, and marketing.

This event is provided at no cost for members of The Ottawa Network. Click here for registration details.

Moderator: Anil Dilawri, the Director of Investor Relations Consulting at Hill & Knowlton Canada. - Anil provides strategic counsel to organizations on how to effectively communicate to the investment community. Anil also leads the executive presentation training service at Hill & Knowlton Ottawa. Anil has a vast amount of experience in communicating with members of the North American and European investment communities. This community includes sell-side analysts, buy-side shareholders, prospective institutional shareholders, venture capitalists, retail shareholders, and financial media.  Anil’s experience includes working with companies in many industries such as metals and mining, technology, automotive manufacturing, packaged food, oil and gas, and financial services.  Before joining Hill & Knowlton Anil was the Director of Investor Relations (IRO) for March Networks Corporation where he was the strategic leader and day-to-day contact for a number of key stakeholders. Prior to March Networks Anil was at Cognos Inc. (now IBM), where he held several senior positions in investor relations, product marketing, and research and development.

Panelist: Kevin J Carroll BA, MBA, Director of Commercialization, OCE Centre for Commercialization of Research - As Director of Commercialization for OCE’s Centre of Commercialization of Research,  Kevin helps high-potential early stage companies build the capacity to become sustainable global competitors by providing management expertise, advice and investment.

Kevin joined the Centre for Commercialization of Research in July 2008. Kevin has over 17 years of experience in the Telecom Industry, with extensive knowledge of Information Systems and a proven track record directing and managing multi-million dollar operations. Kevin is the former Leader for IT Procurement at Nortel, in this capacity, he managed cost saving programs in resource management and led the global outsourcing of Information Technology for Nortel which resulted in large corporate cost savings. Kevin has held several senior positions at Nortel including key roles in IT Business Operation and Portfolio Management for strategic partners such as AT&T, Sprint and Verizon. Additionally he serves on the Board of  a number of private, not for profit and charitable organisations. For the last 9 years Kevin has held the position of President for Kevin James Consulting Ltd a small consulting firm based in Ottawa.   Kevin holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, a Master of Business Administration and is ITIL certified. Kevin and his wife Sue have four wonderful children and reside in Ottawa, Ontario.

Panelist: Robert Shaw, Account Manager, Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) - In his capacity as Account Manager at BDC, Robert consults regularly with executives from a variety of fields and companies to help provide flexible long term growth financing and strategic consulting services.

Prior to joining BDC, Robert spent several years with an Asset Based Lender and over seven years in the high tech with Entrust and Corel. Robert holds a BA (Economics) from The University of Western Ontario and has completed the Canadian Securities Course as well as other courses in accounting and finance.

This event is provided at no cost for members of The Ottawa Network. Click here for registration details.

Win $5000 for your Startup

Sign up now for The Ottawa Network

Startup Boot Camp

April 23rd, 24th, and 25th, 2010

With the generous support of our event sponsors, The Ottawa Network is pleased to host our second Startup Boot Camp event.

More sponsors to come…

This exciting event is designed is to bring together entrepreneurial minded people from Ottawa’s technology sector to lay the groundwork for new venture creation. The most promising company proposal judged at the end of the weekend will receive a $5,000 cash reward for incorporating within 90 days.

Many successful ventures start with great teams, and this venue will broaden your exposure to like-minded and capable potential partners with complimentary skills. You will be in “startup mode” for the entire weekend –it may not be for everyone– and this will be a great test of how well it suits you. Naturally, the mix of attendees, innovative ideas brought forward, event guidance skills and everyone’s effort and interest will determine the outcomes.

More>>

TON Tuesday - Focus on Innovation
January 26, 2010 5:30-7:30 pm
hosted by bitHeads Inc.
1309 Carling Avenue
(entrance at east end of Westgate Shopping Centre)

Innovation is the engine driving Ottawa’s economy. Come hear and interact with our distinguished panel on various aspects of innovation. What is the role of innovation in the business context and economy? What management structures and behaviours are needed to establish and sustain it, and what characteristics constitute the individual innovator. Finally, thoughts on Ottawa’s prognosis for continuing to be a centre of innovation.

<Click here for registration details>

Claude Haw, President and CEO OCRI

Claude leads OCRI, Ottawa’s lead economic development agency. Prior to OCRI, Claude was Managing Partner and founder of Venture Coaches, a venture capital firm which invested in thirteen technology companies.

Claude has been actively involved with more than 30 tech companies over two decades from start-up to acquisition and IPO. With more than 30 years of experience in a variety of technical, management and venture investing roles in the technology sector Claude has been instrumental in the success of many Ottawa-based companies including Venture Coaches, DragonWave, Newbridge Networks and Mitel Corporation.

He is a director of the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce, a charter member of TiE Ottawa, and a past board member of the Canadian Venture Capital Association (CVCA). Claude is also a founder of The Ottawa Network and of Mindtrust, and served as a long-standing member of the annual Ottawa Venture and Technology Summit (OVTS) organizing committee.

As VP of Corporate Business Development at Newbridge, he managed strategic investment programs, from start-up to exit, in more than 20 companies. As VP and GM of the Newbridge ATMnet Business Unit, Claude grew the unit from inception to a $200-million-per-annum business. Also at Newbridge, Claude managed the Severn Bridge Investments fund, investing in 12 companies and returning more than triple the invested capital. He also held senior management positions at Mitel Corporation and Leigh Instruments.

Claude holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Lakehead University, has completed the Canadian Securities Course and is a member of Professional Engineers of Ontario. He has been a guest lecturer at universities on entrepreneurship, business planning and venture investing.

Tom Duxbury, Sprott School of Business

Tom is a new technology specialist who has been creating products, building teams and launching ventures for thirty years. He has held founding and senior executive roles in many entrepreneurial ventures, including DragonWave, Gridpoint, Newbridge/Alcatel, Mitel, and Pika Technologies. A widely patented inventor, Tom currently teaches innovation management at Carleton’s Sprott School of Business while completing his PhD there.

David Hudson, Director of Lead to Win

David V. Hudson is the Director of the Lead to Win program and is a student in the doctoral program at Carleton University¹s Eric Sprott School of Business. Until December 2008, Mr. Hudson was Nortel¹s Vice President for Advanced Research and Technology Labs. Since 1988, he held increasingly responsible management positions in Nortel both in engineering and product line management. Mr. Hudson worked in all of Nortel Networks¹ product lines, including enterprise, mobility and metro. He has held the Nortel seat on a number of university advisory boards. Mr. Hudson received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Ontario.

He graduated from the Systems Design program at the University of Waterloo and his graduate work focused on pattern recognition and signal processing applied to earth resources imagery.

Moderator: Walter Knitl, The Ottawa Network

<Click here for registration details>

Gowlings Monthly TON “Starting your Startup Series”, Announces a 2 Part Seminar Series on Business Plans.

Part 1 – The Business Plan You DON’T take to the Bank
Tuesday January 12th, 2010 - 5:30pm - 7:30pm

Many new start-ups write a business plan with the sole purpose of raising capital.  However, a good business plan can be very useful for other reasons. It can help your start-up to: bring together your ideas and research into a structured format; to clarify and communicate business purpose to staff; to predict and plan for future scenarios and to set overall business strategy such as marketing strategy; and targets and objectives, including sales and financial targets, so that you can monitor your start-up’s performance.

The first seminar in this 2 part series will focus on how a business plan can be used to help your Company to stay focused on primary business objectives and to operate more efficiently.  The 2nd part of the series (Tuesday, February 9, 2010) will focus on the role of the Business Plan when your start-up is raising Capital.

Gowlings is very pleased to host Starting Your Start-Up, The Ottawa Network monthly event stream that combines quality networking with practical advice and insights from industry leaders and subject matter experts.  Starting Your Start-Up focuses on the business basics that are the foundation for launching and building a successful start-up in these promising and challenging times including financing, team formation, business & product development, sales, and marketing.

This event is provided at no cost for members of The Ottawa Network. Click here for registration details.

Jason Flick - Co-Founder and President at YOUiLabs - Jason Flick is a successful serial entrepreneur, and the product visionary in the company. Jason brings 18 years of technical and business leadership to the role of President. His most recent success was Flick Software, a mobile solutions and products venture whose customers included Intel, Rogers Wireless, U.S. military, and Sybase. Prior to founding Flick Software in 2002, he was co-founder and CTO at N-able Technologies, where he architected one of the most scalable IT systems in the world, built and managed the engineering team. Prior to N-able Technologies, Jason was Director, Systems Integration with Eftia, a leading OSS vendor, where he owned a $23M P&L business unit. His other roles and adventures have included COO, Canadian Health Systems and Vice President Engineering, TouchNet.

Andrew Bailes - VP Finance and Planning at Cryptocard - Andrew has had a strong career in the telecommunications and IT industries - both inside and as a management consultant. He has extensive experience in business and commercial planning, budgeting, modelling and business strategy, holding a wide and varied set of positions. He negotiated the multi million-dollar purchase of a mobile phone operator in Ghana and carried out the business modelling for a £2.5bn PFI bid for road maintenance. He managed the quantitative business case that enabled WorldCom to bid more than £3bn for a 3G mobile license. Andrew holds a MA in Mathematics and Management Studies from Cambridge University and is currently completing his Masters in Business Administration at Queens and Cornell.

Glen Orsak - Glen Orsak is veteran business advisor and coach to business leaders, owners and entrepreneurs.  Glen recently left Deloitte after a 20-year consulting career, 10 as a partner and leader of the firm’s Strategy and Operations practice in Ottawa.   In this role, he sold and delivered projects ranging from small strategic interventions through to multi-year, multi-million dollar business planning and implementation engagements.  He is now working with small businesses in management support and advisory roles where he drives the development of strategies and plans to strengthen business fundamentals and to position companies for rapid growth.  In addition to his consulting heritage at Deloitte, Glen holds an MBA from the Ivey School of Business at UWO and a certificate in common sense from his days growing up on a farm in Manitoba.

This event is provided at no cost for members of The Ottawa Network.  Click here for registration details.