Aerospace and defence innovation take flight in southeast Alberta
Tracy Stroud, manager of APEX Alberta, the Regional Innovation Network of Southeast Alberta. - Photo by Jennifer Friesen, Digital Journal
Drones in hand, 170 aerospace engineering students from across Canada were headed to Medicine Hat, Alberta this spring for the Aerial Evolution Association of Canada’s Student UAS Competition.
It was a win-win.
They built, tested, and flew their machines while meeting with industry leaders looking for talent.
“The businesses found talent to grow their business,” says Tracy Stroud, manager of APEX Alberta, the Regional Innovation Network (RIN) of Southeast Alberta. “And these upcoming, amazing, intelligent students were able to network with these employers.”
The student competition is one sign of a bigger shift underway in southeast Alberta’s aerospace and defence scene.
Stroud points to a growing cluster of businesses in the region, drawn in by unique testing facilities and the chance to connect directly with emerging talent. While the spotlight usually lands on big cities in conversations about innovation, places like Medicine Hat and Foremost are quietly proving they’ve got assets worth paying attention to.
[Watch the interview in full in the video below]
The unique assets powering Alberta’s aerospace push
Stroud’s region includes Canada’s only Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) Innovation Centre west of Ontario, located in the community of Foremost. I
t’s one of just two such centres in the country where drones can legally operate outside the pilot’s direct view, unlocking commercial applications in agriculture, defence, and logistics. That makes it a rare testbed, and a strategic asset.
“Because as a RIN, we don’t have large marketing dollars, it’s hard for us to get that awareness out,” says Stroud. “So we would love for people to help tell the story of some of those unique assets.”
Tracy Stroud spoke to Digital Journal at Inventures 2025 in Calgary. – Photo by Jennifer Friesen, Digital Journal
In addition to the Foremost facility, Stroud points to the Defence Research and Development Canada centre in Suffield as another under-recognized advantage.
“We are the only one in Western Canada who has that centre,” she says. “And there’s defence training that goes on there that can’t go on in any other part of the country.”
This access to advanced testing and training facilities is already translating into traction for local businesses.
A provincial drone strategy, funded by Alberta Innovates in 2021, led to a province-wide conference and a coordinated effort to build the sector across regions. That momentum carried into hosting the above student competition, giving local companies a front-row seat to next-generation talent and technology.
Rural regions with specialized capabilities
Stroud notes RINs do help build companies, but their real role is to connect dots across sectors, institutions, and geographies. That includes drawing in investment, which can be particularly difficult in rural areas.
“In the rural areas, we don’t have investor networks,” she says. “But we do have plenty of money from people that want to invest in the network, but don’t really know how. Like oil and gas money or agriculture money, but they’re new to the tech space.”
To help bridge that gap, Alberta’s RINs partnered to deliver an investor education series through ClassRebel, focused on introducing rural investors to the tech sector. Stroud sees this kind of collaboration as core to the RIN model.
“We are such a collaborative team,” she says. “We look to fill gaps.”
Tracy Stroud spoke to Digital Journal at Inventures 2025 in Calgary. – Photo by Jennifer Friesen, Digital Journal
That gap-filling ethos is increasingly central to how Alberta and Canada think about innovation infrastructure. Rather than viewing urban tech clusters as the only growth engines, leaders like Stroud are highlighting the strategic role of rural regions with specialized capabilities.
For a country as geographically dispersed as Canada, that shift may prove critical.
[Watch the interview in full in the video below]
Anchoring national innovation in regional strengths
Stroud is clear about what comes next.
Expanding Canada’s innovation capacity will depend on recognizing and leveraging the full range of assets already operating across regions like southeastern Alberta. Facilities that enable beyond visual line of sight testing, specialized defence training, and national student competitions are part of a broader national advantage in sectors where Canada is competing globally.
“These really unique assets,” she says. “We’d love for people to help us share that story.”
By linking local capabilities to national goals, networks like APEX are showing that you don’t need to be in a major city to shape the future of technologies like autonomous systems, aerospace, and defence.
As Canada looks to stay competitive in emerging tech sectors, it may be the overlooked regions that hold the key to building a more resilient, distributed innovation economy.
Watch the interview:
This series is produced in partnership with the Alberta Regional Innovation Networks.
Written By: Jennifer Friesen - Digital Journal's associate editor and content manager based in Calgary.