CompetitionIn personFree

Panel Discussion with Pulse Law, RBCx, BDO and BrightIron

SEP16
14:00

About this event

Every startup faces defining moments. The difference between those that scale and those that stall often comes down to a handful of critical decisions.
Join us for an honest, founder-focused conversation with leaders who have collectively advised hundreds of startups through fundraising, hiring, scaling, legal challenges, and financial growth. Rather than telling you what should happen, we'll share the real patterns we see every day—the costly mistakes founders make, how to spot them early, and what you can do differently.
You'll hear from:
Robert Bowness – RBCx
Radhika Vaidyanathan – Pulse Law
Alex Hardy – BDO
Moderated by Shawn Chance, Partner and head of Go-To-Market services, BrightIron and former VC.
We'll tackle questions like:
What are the biggest mistakes founders consistently make—and why do they keep happening?
Which problems start small but become incredibly expensive if ignored?
When is the right time to engage legal, finance, banking, or HR partners?
What separates the startups that scale successfully from those that struggle?
If each panelist could give every founder one piece of advice, what would it be?
Whether you're raising capital, hiring your first team, or preparing for your next stage of growth, you'll leave with practical insights you can apply immediately—and a chance to ask your own toughest questions during an interactive discussion.
We are official event hosts with Waterloo Tech Week 2026, a celebration of what’s been built here, and what’s still to come. We’re building something great together. September 12-17, 2026. waterlootechweek.ca

More upcoming events in Kitchener

OCT
19

KWIPS: October 2026

Kwartzlab, Kitchener, Canada
In person

Doors open at 1845h. Kitchener-Waterloo Infosec and Privacy Salon (KWIPS) is an event where folks interested in information security and privacy can come together, learn about a niche topic, and network with like-minded folks. In this meeting, an invited guest speaker will be in town to present their take on the paper "Grid Shock: Coordinated Load-Changing Attacks on Power Grids" (https://ics.uci.edu/~dabrowsa/dabrowski-acsac17-gridshock-preprint.pdf). This presentation will be followed by a brief Q+A session. Afterward, there will be an hour+ for you to get to know the other attendees. Please know that masks are required at this event. If you do not have a mask there will be some at the door. Note: Location is still being finalized! More information on KWIPS and a list of our past presenters and papers of interest can be viewed at kwips.ca.

19:00 · Free · EventDetails →
OCT
22

AI Agents × Company OS

Kitchener, ON, Kitchener, Canada
In person

Come and don't miss out on how to run your company with AI agents. Company OS is how to make agents run your company, optimize processes, and build stuff. Live demos from people whose agents already do real work inside their companies. The 7th meetup in the series. 30+ builders have demoed live so far. What you will see Agents automating workflows end to end Internal tools built by agents Agents managing communications Ideas turned into working prototypes Real screens, no slides, no pitches You will leave with Workflows you can copy the next day The tools people actually use, and where they break Who you will meet CEOs, founders, operators and consultants running agents in their work Speakers and demos Lineup to be announced 10-minute demos, 2 minutes for questions Want to demo? Show how your agents run part of your company. Your screen, your workflow. 10 minutes. No pitches. Say yes when you register, then submit the presenter form Food Pizza and drinks provided Sponsors Community-minded companies can sponsor food and drinks. Reach out to Artem. Space is limited. Register to hold your spot.

17:30 · Free · Pitch EventDetails →
OCT
29

AI x Money | AI Builders Waterloo

Builders Club, Kitchener, Canada
In person

Most people barely track their finances ... The ones who do are usually stuck in spreadsheets, Mint, QuickBooks, or some combination of the three. It works, sort of. But it rarely feels good. What if there’s a better way? ChatGPT just released a tool for analyzing finances, and a growing number of people are quietly building agents and workflows that actually understand their accounts, expenses, and goals without turning money management into another full-time job. AI Builders is back, and this time we're going deep on AI x Money. We want the work, not slide decks. Show us the system that reconciles without the usual pain. The agent that surfaces what actually matters. The workflow that replaces the spreadsheet you’ve been maintaining for years. This one’s for you if you’ve built something that makes personal or operational finance feel lighter, or if you’re still living in spreadsheets and curious whether these new tools are finally useful. 📅 Event Schedule 🚪 6:00 PM Doors Open 🎤 6:30 PM Talks kick off (first half) 🚪 7:00 PM Doors close (last call for latecomers!) 🍕 7:30 PM Break: pizza, drinks & networking 🎤 After the break - Talks resume (second half) 🎉 9:00 PM Talks wrap, networking before we close out Want to present? We're saving spots for short demos and lightning talks - automations, agents in the loop, internal tools, decision engines, all of it. Drop us a note when you RSVP - lineup fills up quick. Spots are limited. Sponsored by Builders Club

18:00 · Free · MeetupDetails →
NOV
09

Moving Beyond Prompts to Reusable Agentic Workflows

151 Charles St W, Kitchener, Canada
In person

Every tech team can use AI to speed up single tasks. Few can build an agentic system that actually runs complex, multi-step work without constant hand-holding, repeated mistakes, and lost context. Scaling AI beyond basic prompting isn't about using larger models—it's about structure, control and turning human expertise into reusable ways of working. The most effective systems preserve human judgment while giving agents the autonomy to drive long-horizon tasks to completion. In this hands-on one-hour session, we’ll dive into five core practices that tech teams need to master to build dependable AI workflows: Identify where simple planning breaks: Uncover the exact failure modes where heavy preprocessing and elaborate prompting reach their limits. Codify expertise into reusable skills: Capture operational procedures, domain judgment and validation rules that agents can execute across unfamiliar tasks. Keep long-horizon tasks coherent: Apply proven patterns for managing shared context, explicit decisions and inspectable state during complex handoffs. Balance agent autonomy with control: Layer automated checks, independent reviews and human-in-the-loop checkpoints to guarantee acceptable outcomes. Make every task improve the next: Turn real-world failures and feedback into vetted updates that continually sharpen your team's agentic workflows. This session is tailor-made for technical leaders who are ready to stop babysitting AI outputs and start scaling reliable systems. You’ll leave with practical tactics you can immediately apply to your own tech stack. Agenda: 9-9:10 a.m. - Registration & networking 9:10-10 a.m. - AI Session with Atif Khan 10-11 a.m. - Optional Q&A Speaker: As CTO at DataBraid, Atif Khan leads the development and application of agentic AI frameworks across software development, product lifecycle management and operations. Having delivered technical sessions for enterprise engineering teams and led the winning entry in a world-renowned data science an

09:00 · Free · CompetitionDetails →
Share this event