Tech Talent Tuesdays - 2026 Series

Welcome to 2026 Tech Talent Tuesdays: Calgary Workforce Advantage Edition
This is a free, bi-weekly gathering for professionals and companies in Calgary’s tech and innovation ecosystem.
This series supports Calgary’s tech workforce advantage by connecting employer priorities with community learning, creating a cycle where events generate insights that inform future programming.
As part of this programming, there are bi-weekly events to showcase learnings in tech, roundtables among tech companies to identify key learning areas,  and a report to share key findings. This event is a collaboration among Calgary Economic Development, Careers in Technology and Innovation, Platform Calgary and the Government of Alberta's Labour Market Development Agreement (The Province of Alberta is working in partnership with the Government of Canada to provide employment support programs and services). As well as a collection of companies from Calgary’s Tech & Innovation Ecosystem.
September 29 The ROI Conversation: Measuring Impact of AI
Most organizations are investing in AI. The harder question is whether those investments are creating measurable business value.
AI can save time, reduce costs, improve decision making, and enable entirely new ways of working. But measuring that impact is rarely straightforward. Leaders need to account for implementation, employee time, human oversight, maintenance, and the challenge of connecting individual productivity gains to organizational results.
At the next Tech Talent Tuesdays, we are bringing together two Calgary technology leaders to examine AI return on investment from two different perspectives.
Dave Owen Cord will explore the executive decisions behind AI investment, including how leaders prioritize opportunities, evaluate results, and decide when to increase, reduce, or stop investing.
Christian Roatis will provide a project-level perspective, sharing what it takes to build, evaluate, and responsibly implement AI solutions in practice.
What we’ll explore:
🔹 How organizations can measure the business impact of AI🔹 Where AI is creating meaningful capacity and whether that capacity is translating into value🔹 The true cost of AI, including implementation, employee time, maintenance, human review, and technology🔹 How executives decide which AI initiatives deserve further investment🔹 How project teams evaluate quality, reliability, and performance🔹 What separates a promising experiment from a scalable, sustainable solution
You’ll hear from:
🔹 Dave Owen Cord, CEO, Avanti Software
Dave will bring an executive perspective to the ROI conversation, exploring the most important decisions leaders face when investing in AI. He will discuss how organizations can identify high-value opportunities, evaluate results, manage risk, and determine where AI investment can create a lasting competitive advantage.
🔹 Christian Roatis, Software Developer III
Christian is a senior software developer focused on building custom technology solutions and improving software processes through emerging technologies. His involvement in AI began at the University of Calgary, where his research on machine learning algorithms was published in the International Journal of Humanized Computing and Communication.
More recently, Christian has focused on automated software development lifecycle solutions, including specialized agents across the development process, autonomous software factories, and the evaluation and quality assurance tools required to build responsibly in an era of rapidly accelerating AI generation.
Whether you are an executive deciding where to invest, a manager responsible for implementation, or a professional building AI-enabled solutions, you’ll leave with a clearer understanding of how to assess the true value of AI.
📍 Location: Platform Calgary🕓 Time: Tuesday, September 29, 4:30 to 7:00 p.m.
Register today:https://www.showpass.com/tech-talent-tuesdays-2026-series/
Tech Talent Tuesdays is presented in partnership with Platform Calgary, Calgary Economic Development, and Careers in Technology and Innovation (CITI). This series is generously supported through Alberta’s Labour Market Partnership program.