Cohort 1 · Kicks off September 17
Ag Innovation
Startup Program
“Building innovation, trust, and growth across Eastern Saskatchewan.”
Nine companies. One cohort. Startups, producers, agri-value businesses, rural operators, and a whole bunch of new ideas, working together virtually from September 17. Then, in the week of November 2, we bring everyone to Yorkton.
Cohort 1
Applications are closed.
The cohort is set.
Nine companies. One cohort. Follow along to learn what these startups are building. Some of them may have something that could help your operation one day.
Haider Abbas
AgCircuit Technologies Inc.
Alen Chalak
Terra Mind
Krishna Bansal
FarmBot
Krzysztof Voss
DropQ (0Studio)
Chris Nykolaishen
Nytro Ag Corp
Shivam Soni
Nuturaa
Mehedi Hasan Abid
Agrovision AI
Sarim Uddin
AgriHealth Global
Christy Skelton
Emerald Acres
Why This Exists
Two problems.
One answer.
Eastern Saskatchewan has never been short of capable people or good ideas, but it has never had the support structure that turns an idea into a company. So innovators here either leave for somewhere that does, or never start at all.
At the same time, agricultural innovation is largely being built without the people it is built for. Most innovators, wherever they happen to come from, never get in front of an ordinary farm or an agri-value producer long enough to understand what actually matters in the field.
Those two problems are usually treated as separate. We think they solve each other.
A structured curriculum
Nine companies move together from problem to discovery to offer to sales, week by week, with the work chained deliberately rather than delivered as a set of one-off workshops.
A deliberate mix
Some companies are from here and some are from outside the province. Founders coming in gain access to working farms and producers. The region gains the networks, market connections, and outside perspective they bring with them.
A room worth being in
Nearly every session is built to end with you across from someone who changes how you think, whether that is a peer one step ahead of you, a producer with decades in the field, or a guest who has already made the mistake you are about to make.
A regional proof point
We are demonstrating something that matters to every rural community watching. A region like this one can lead work of this calibre and draw people toward it rather than only watching them leave.
What You Actually Get
The curriculum matters.
Proximity is the product.
What the program offers is proximity — to producers, to peers, to the people who actually run things in this part of the province. Everything else hangs off it.
Access to producers
A structured path into conversations with working farms and agri-value producers, ending with a week on the ground in Yorkton.
A peer ladder
Companies at different stages in the same cohort, so early founders learn from people one or two steps ahead of them rather than from paid consultants.
A validation pipeline
Sessions that chain deliberately from problem to discovery to offer to sales, ending in a real customer conversation rather than a certificate.
Marketing and visibility
Selection into the cohort, a presence during our in person week, and a platform most early companies cannot build for themselves.
A reason to stay
A visible path to building something serious without having to leave the region to do it.
What we are really doing is concentrating resources that already exist in this region but sit scattered across it: the mentors, producers, subject matter experts, and community organizations. Then we point all of them at nine companies inside a single window of time.
That concentration does not exist in rural Eastern Saskatchewan today.
What Counts as Ag Innovation
Seven focus areas.
Defined broadly, on purpose.
The interesting work rarely arrives neatly labelled. If it grows out of farming or rural life and you are building a business from it, it belongs here.
The Shape of It
Mostly virtual.
It ends in person, here.
The program kicks off virtually on September 17 and runs through to November 8. Most of it happens week by week over video, so founders keep building while they are in it. The final week happens on the ground in Yorkton, and it is the part that cannot happen over video.
We put as much thought into who is in the room as into what gets taught. You spend that week meeting people — farmers, agri-value producers, rural operators, mentors, and the community members who make this place work — and asking the questions you cannot ask over a call.
We want you here, and we mean that literally. If you finish the program thinking this might be somewhere worth building, say so, and we will help you work out what that would take.
Plainly, how it works
No cost, no equity
The program costs participants nothing and we do not take equity in their companies.
We expect the work
We are putting time, resources, and energy into each company, and we expect the same back. Show up to the sessions, do the work between them, and take the introductions seriously.
Participants cover their travel
Each company covers its own way to Yorkton for the final week as a business expense. Community members have offered to billet participants, which brings the cost down considerably.
What Comes Next
Put them in the same room.
See what happens.
This is about bringing innovation, producers, new ideas, and small towns together. New connections, conversations that probably would not happen otherwise, and hopefully a few things that grow into something real.
Follow along
We will be sharing what these startups are building as the program runs. If you farm or run an agri-value business, one of them may have something that could help your operation one day.
Missed this round? Tell us what you are building and we will stay in touch.
For Supporters and Partners
A conduit for new ideas
in rural Saskatchewan.
We are connecting early stage founders to the community leaders, industry experts, and innovation champions who can move them forward. Supporting it is as much a straightforward economic development decision as anything else.
Economic development
New ventures, new customers, and new investment moving into a regional economy that needs all three.
Talent retention
A visible reason for capable young people to build something here instead of somewhere else.
Rural capability
Proof that Eastern Saskatchewan can lead work of this calibre and pull talent, companies, and expertise toward the region.
Sector bridging
Lasting collaboration between rural communities, Indigenous groups, startups, producers, and business leaders.
Real ventures
Support that turns working ideas into companies that stay and employ people here.
What supporters get
Visibility to a growing network of emerging ventures, community leaders, and innovation organizations across the province and beyond, and recognition through our program materials, events, and media. More practically, you get early sight of the companies coming through and the people building them, before anyone else is looking.
How you can help — easiest to most involved
Have a conversation
The most useful first step is a conversation about where our work and yours overlap.
Let us list you
Adding your logo to our supporting organizations signals to founders and funders that this region backs the work.
Share it
Passing the program and these nine companies along to your network costs nothing and reaches people we cannot.
Open a door
An introduction to a farmer, an agri-value producer, or a potential mentor is the single most valuable thing anyone gives this program.
Help run a session
Leading a fireside chat, workshop, or panel puts your experience directly in front of nine companies at once.
Fund a piece of it
Financial or in kind support, whether that is a venue, tools, services, or a specific line in the budget, extends how far the program can go.
Why now
This is moving quickly, and that is a response rather than a strategy. Community members, producers, and organizations across Eastern Saskatchewan have been asking for something like this, and several have already committed their time and their networks without needing to be asked twice. We would rather build at the speed of that momentum than let it cool while waiting for a funding cycle to line up.
The program is running. What support changes is how far we can take it.
Who Is Behind This
Supporting
Organizations
Thank you to everyone who believed in this idea and helped us take that first big step. We would not be here without you. These are the organizations backing the work so far, and we would like your name on the list too.
Program Host
The Eastern Junction
Startup-in-Residence
Chariot Command Corp.
Supporting Organization
Saskatchewan Economic Development Alliance
Supporting Organization
Suncrest College
More names are being added
If your organization wants to stand behind this program — with a logo, an introduction, a session, or a piece of the budget — the first step is a short conversation. Write to us and we will find where our work and yours overlap.