Four Canadian tech and innovation events happening in October

October’s tech and innovation calendar gets into the stuff that happens after the big idea.

Who gets hired and promoted, how startups find customers, what it takes to buy Canadian technology, and what happens when an AI pilot has to work in the real world.

After a busy September, we’re keeping the conversation going next month, starting with a ‘for women in tech, by women in tech’ summit, and ending with an AI forum that looks at moving beyond experimentation, into practical deployment. 

All in all, October’s slate of events is less about coming up with the next big thing, and more about what it takes to make the big thing work IRL.

Toast Summit

Oct. 1
Platform Calgary
Calgary, Alta.

Digital Journal has covered Toast Summit in Calgary and Toronto since 2024. 

It’s an event where women across the many corners of tech gather to connect and share their big ideas and big wins. 

This year’s program gets into some familiar workplace problems, awkward parts and all. 

Toast will release new research on gender equity in tech, including differences in how women and men experience advancement, sponsorship, and workplace expectations. 

Also new this year will be a panel discussion on what’s broken about hiring women in tech. 

One of this year’s highlights is this year’s fireside chat with journalist, podcaster, filmmaker, and author Liz Plank. The event’s “Women Doing Cool $h!t” panel is not only returning, but is expanding to two discussions this year. 

Finally, Toast’s (in)famous “Men in Tech” panel is back with its Dad Edition, flipping the kinds of questions routinely put to working women onto male tech leaders. And trust, it’s a time.

Edmonton Startup Week

Oct. 5-9
Hosted by Edmonton Unlimited
Edmonton, Alta. 

The tagline for Edmonton Startup Week is “Step in. Step up. Step forward.” 

For Stephanie Gillis-Paulgaard, that starts with getting people in the same room.

“If someone walks in here and meets the person who helps them build their business, that’s success,” Gillis-Paulgaard, vice-president of brand and strategic partnerships at Edmonton Unlimited, told Digital Journal during last year’s Edmonton Startup Week.

This year’s slate of events, running Oct. 5-9, gives attendees plenty of ways to make those connections, from founder events to startup crawls to community programming across Edmonton.

Deep Tech Day on Oct. 7 is a full day of dedicated programming that looks at what it takes to turn breakthrough technology into a scalable business. 

Founders, researchers, and investors will dig into what it takes to finance and commercialize companies working in AI, quantum, life sciences, energy, robotics, semiconductors, and other research-heavy fields. 

Launch Party on Oct. 8 will spotlight 10 local companies chosen from 59 applicants to showcase “the depth and momentum of Edmonton’s growing tech and startup community,” according to Edmonton Unlimited. 

Here’s a look at Digital Journal’s coverage of last year’s Edmonton Startup Week.

Source Canada 

Oct. 22
Hilton Downtown Toronto
Toronto, Ont.

Source Canada returns to Toronto on Oct. 22, piggybacking off the question that drove its inaugural event last year.

How do Canadian technology companies find more Canadian customers?

“Our breakout companies have found more capital and bigger contracts in the U.S., so that’s where they’ve migrated,” wrote event founder Raymond Luk in a recent blog post. “If we want thousands of fast-growing companies and not a handful, they need to be able to find their first customers at home.”

The one-day event, a call-to-action for large organizations to buy Canadian innovation, brings founders together with corporate and government buyers, investors, and policymakers. 

Featured speakers include former tech entrepreneur and now independent senator in the Senate of Canada, Colin Deacon, former Ambassador of Canada to Ukraine Natalka Cmoc, and Vass Bednar, managing director of the Canadian Shield Institute.

This year adds dedicated tracks on defence and sovereign technology. Sessions will tackle long sales cycles, procurement requirements that can shut startups out early, access to capital, and what a Canadian technology stack could look like from compute through to AI models.

Pitch rooms and one-on-one meetings run throughout the day.

Digital Journal covered the inaugural Source Canada in 2025.

Agentic AI Forum

Oct. 30 
Arcadian Court
Toronto, Ont.

Tech leaders across the country have been managing a slew of AI pilots and projects, but 46% of Canadian organizations are experimenting with AI without achieving meaningful ROI.

The Agentic AI Forum is focused on fixing this.

The one-day event in Toronto on Oct. 30 brings together technology, data, operations, risk, and finance leaders working through enterprise AI deployment.

“The conversations we have had with enterprise leaders point to the same challenge: organizations want to move beyond AI experimentation, but they need clearer pathways to deploy responsibly, prove value and build internal confidence,” conference director Emaad Siddiqui said in a statement.

The forum will get into the practical problems that show up along the way. Those include connecting AI agents to existing systems and deciding which workflows are worth automating.

The discussion will also cover measuring ROI and setting governance that can stand up to legal, regulatory, and board scrutiny.

Speakers include Skaidra Puodziunas, senior director of policy and advocacy for the Council of Canadian Innovators, Alexandre Guilbault, VP of AI business enablement at Telus, and Dr. Damian Jankowicz, executive VP and chief information and AI officer of Unity Health.