‘Decisions that impact rural communities too often made far from the front lines’: Saskatchewan tech hub executive director

Gordon More, executive director of the Southeast TechHub, says governments should ‘Come to rural communities, especially out west and meet the people where they are.’ / SUBMITTED PHOTO

In Estevan, Sask., innovation doesn’t look like venture capitalists in glass towers or engineers in Silicon Valley campuses. It looks like farmers fixing machinery in the middle of harvest, or local youth building a three-foot robot in a community tech hub. “Rural communities, by nature to survive and exist, are innovative,” says Gordon More, executive director of the Southeast TechHub. “And they’re resilient. They have to be.”

The Rural Innovation Conference, in its third year, took place Sept. 23–24, 2025. Organized through the SouthEast TechHub, the event brings together industry leaders, educators and community builders to spotlight the role rural Canada plays in shaping the nation’s future. This year’s theme — energy and education — is no coincidence.

“If you think about where every electron comes from in Canada or every molecule of energy we consume, it's almost all coming from rural communities,” More told The Rural Roundup in an interview.

Yet decisions that impact those communities, he notes, are too often made far from the front lines. “As a whole, as a country, we're negating the land-based knowledge, we're negating the Indigenous and non-Indigenous rural land-based knowledge of being on the front line,” he said. “You gain so much insight when you're running a coal plant, when you're pumping oil, when you're looking after the solar panels, when you're working with geothermal, like traditional and new. Yet on the opposite side, and this is the other thing we're talking about, is education. There is a serious digital divide in Canada where rural communities don't have access to the technical education that urban students have.”

Until recently, More said, “If you took the Trans Canada highway in Saskatchewan as your northern border, all the way down to the U.S. border from Alberta to Manitoba, there was no place anyone over the age of 18 could go to learn computer science. That's like saying we're not teaching you how to read and write. It's bizarre.”

The Rural Innovation Conference aims to change that narrative — both by building connections and by showcasing what rural ingenuity already makes possible. Past speakers have included former MIT chancellor Dr. Eric Grimson, who was born and grew up in Estevan, a reminder that world-class innovators often get their start far from major urban centres.

“When we step out into the world and say rural innovation, we're really dismissed by a lot of people,” More said. “So you just gotta find your champions. They elevate you.”

This year, as the conversation zeroes in on the future of energy and the digital divide in education, More said he hopes the conference will not only draw attention to rural challenges, but also make clear the opportunities. “Rural communities already have the culture of innovation and resilience,” he said. “If [the government] could think of rural equally, they would give us the opportunities that we need to help Canada be a better, stronger nation.”

The following Q&A was edited for length and clarity. 

RR: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

GM: My background is that I co-founded, with two other people, a multinational software company that does final mile reverse logistics in Vancouver. 

We also have an office in Australia and we do work in Australia, Canada and the United States. Then, my wife, she's from Iran and is an Iranian trained doctor … and we ended up on the other side of COVID in a small town called Estevan, Sask., where she's a doctor and I was looking for what next to do.

So Estevan is as far as I know the last coal town, like power generation, left in Canada. So at the time, they had federal/provincial money for coal transition. 

One of the things that they wanted to do was tech incubation. … Southeast Techhub asked me to do a pitch competition, judge the grade 8 kids here and the kids were amazing. The one that I love to cite the most is there were these young women, I think, 13 or 14, and they took the soil moisture sensor from their parents' farm and then put it into household plants and then had it such that when you walked in the house, Alexa would tell you which plant to water. 

So I was just thinking, why is this town that's created these kids in this existential threat?... So because of that, I jumped in and helped build it from scratch.

RR: That's really interesting, actually. So you have a good perspective from urban Canada and rural Canada, as well. What was the transition like going from Vancouver to Estevan? 

GM: I was born and raised in Vancouver, third generation. It's getting better now but I would say, as a community, it's failed. It's lost its soul. You don't know your neighbour, it's all about money. … So I was ready for the move, and I just, the slow pace here is just so much nicer. We love it.

RR: So can you tell me a little bit about the Rural Innovation Conference? 

GM: We just wanted to show people that there's something really special about this place that builds innovators. 

Think about it this other way too. Remember those youth that I was talking about with that plant. Obviously, they have something in them, and then remember what I said about Eric Frimson and then add-on there is a person by the name of Jeff Sandquist he was a former Microsoft (Corporate Vice President, Cloud + AI) and Twitter (Head of Developer Ecosystem). And he's now running the AI division of Walmart. He’s from here. We're punching way above our weight.

When it comes to rural, you have to innovate. We won't use that word, but we have to figure things out to get it done. And that's innovation.

If your combine right now during harvest breaks, you don't go, ‘Oh darn, I'll get it done next year. And the parts aren't available.’ You solve the problem. That's resilience? So there's this natural thing in the culture. 

So why, as a nation, is Canada deciding not to give rural communities the education in technology when the rural communities already have the culture of innovation and resilience? We’ve got to solve that. So that's what the conference is all about. 

RR: Why aren't we focusing more on rural innovation?

GM: Coming from Vancouver, thinking about the personal prejudices that I had, it's just something that doesn't cross your mind. … I also think in general, in the political realm, we like to invest into something that we can then show off within the election cycle. So taking an innovation centre, that's already in an urban setting, you're going to fund that first, because they're going to give you something that you can go back to the electorate with. 

On the Indigenous side, Milton Tootoosis, his group is helping us with this, has said the Indigenous community missed out on the Industrial Revolution, they missed out on the agricultural revolution, we're now going through a technology revolution. It's now time for the Indigenous rural communities to stand up and take part in that

RR: What other challenges are rural innovators facing right now?

GM: Beyond education, it's access to resources. If you're a rural innovator and you're now going to do a fundraising round, whether it's government money, private equity, venture capital — all that's centred in urban settings. … There's a saying in Saskatchewan, it's two hours to drive to Saskatoon, it's two days to drive out of Saskatoon, meaning, and I get this coming from Vancouver, it's so hard for us in the city to see the time as valid to go out into the community. So if I'm a new startup, it's really hard to get those people to come to me. So I’ve got to go to them. So what ends up happening is those startups move to the urban settings. And then the rural startups lose those opportunities.

Beyond money is just the mentorship. I think in startup incubation, technology, innovation, mentorship is worth more than money ever is, and I wish I could get that message out to more new people because they always think about the money. But getting good advice will help everything else fall into place and again, because of all those innovators that came from rural communities moving into the city, it's hard for them to tap into that mentorship space.

RR: What are some of the opportunities you're seeing with rural innovation right now? What are you excited about? 

GM: Well, energy, where all our energy comes from. This is a fantastic opportunity for rural communities to leapfrog and take part in what's happening with innovation and technology in the energy sector, for example, nuclear. In our community, we have a lot of manufacturers who build parts and supplies, things needed for the oil and gas supply chain. They're 95 per cent of the way there to make parts for a small modular reactor.  ... Sixty per cent of rural youth leave to get a job in technology. With things like nuclear, the kids now have the opportunity to get an education in a rural area. 

The other thing is food security. With climate change, with political upheaval, with everything going on in the world, we're feeling more and more how important it is for food security. So what kind of new technology is there? Again, working with the farmers who have that land-based knowledge, working with them on figuring out new ways to grow more food, different types of food for longer periods of time — that's another great opportunity. 

RR: Has the innovation and tech sector been impacted by the Canada-U.S. trade war at all?

GM: Oh, yeah, I would say in a good way, because, some of the projects that we've been working on in the critical minerals space, especially, up until Trump and tariffs, we were working closely with a lot of U.S. companies. We had to for capital, and we had to because it was more on their radar. … One of the things that we're working on is lithium extraction using oil and gas, because there's a lot of lithium in a liquid form that we're pumping up, and we're turning coal to graphite. We're building a battery cluster. 

But now, with Trump and tariffs, instead of working with Americans, we're now finding that the Canadian government, Canadian industry are really interested in that. So that's really helpful. And, I think the biggest change that's been helpful to us is AI. Everyone's really interested in AI. So where are most data centres going to be built? Rural communities. Where is all the power for the data centres going to come from? Rural communities. So that's also a great opportunity. 

RR: What can the government do to support or strengthen rural prosperity?

GM: Come to rural communities, especially out west and meet the people where they are. And talk to them and see them in the place. Last year, I had a U.S. House Republican come to my conference. Why can't I get a Canadian federal MP? They didn't show up

The other thing is funding. It is so true, but just stop and take a 10,000-foot view of where all your funding is going. How much of that funding is going to urban, and how much of it is going to rural, then compare that on a per capita basis. Think about all the tech incubators that the federal government is funding in cities. …. My tech incubator has the opportunity to make the biggest change. I can even validate that further — the Bank of Canada last fall came out and said we're in a productivity crisis and one of the things they talked about was skills. So if you're looking for an easy win, give rural communities the skills in an AI technology-driven world. That will be your biggest change. 

The other one is when rural communities come to the federal government and say ‘We have this project,’ we don't have PhD people here. We've had to work with others. We've done our best. … Sure, the other guy, from Toronto, Quebec, Vancouver, Calgary, they're so well-funded, they can come up with these wonderful projects. But we'll never be able to catch up unless the federal government that's in power says, ‘Okay, I'm going to meet you where you are. This is what you've got. Let's work with you to make it happen.’”

RR: The Rural Prosperity Group is advocating for a rural lens on federal public policies to ensure that rural Canada is thought of first and not as an afterthought. Do you agree? Would a rural lens help your sector?

GM: Well, I wouldn't want to say rural first, because I think equally, we all have something to give to make our nation better and stronger. If they could think of rural equally, they would give us the opportunities that we need to help Canada be a better, stronger nation.

RR: How would you describe the rural way of life? 

GM: Beyond what I've already said, it's not fair to say it's laid back, it's not fair to say it's slower. It's just calmer. People are working really hard. Farmers, every year, they bet millions of dollars in the ground, hoping that the next year they can make it again. That is hard. And there's so much science and hard work there. But it's just calmer.