There`s an event taking place in the Moncton area on Wednesday afternoon that highlights one of pressing needs for Atlantic Canadian startups – the need to for established corporations in the region to work with tech entrepreneurs.

At this month’s Moncton CyberSocial, there will be a series of presentations on the McCain Food group’s partnership with two New Brunswick startups, Resson Aerospace of Fredericton and Fiddlehead Technology of Moncton. 

Nestor Gomez, McCain Foods’ Manager of Enterprise Analytics Development, will speak just after 1 pm at the event at Centre des arts et de la culture de Dieppe. He will be followed by Peter Goggin, the CEO of Resson Aerospace, and David Baxter, President of Fiddlehead.

This session will be followed by a pitching session for young companies, and a networking time.

“McCain Foods has interest in partnering with local tech companies and the two companies that have done so are a proof of the McCain’s commitment to the local tech community,” said William Langley, an organizer of the CyberSocial. “The event will profile the experiences of a larger corporation in working with the start-up. It provides a model for other larger companies to replicate these success. Larger companies can better understand how and why this works well.”

Langley noted that the relationship with McCain Foods helped to drive funding into the startups because investors could see the young companies were working with a major company to solve problems.

Resson and Fiddlehead are very different companies but have interesting similarities. Resson collects and analyzes data from farms and uses the information to improve farm yields; whereas Fiddlehead helps food companies examine data to forecast demand and ensure the produce exactly the right amount of food to meet demand.

Other than both being involved with food, the greatest similarity is both founded on partnerships between business and technical co-founders. Goggin and Baxter are the business guys, and their co-founders are respected technical people – Rishin Behl at Resson and Shawn Carver at Fiddlehead.

The reason that this is an interesting case study is that there are so few examples of large Atlantic Canadian businesses partnering with startups to develop innovative products. The region has a weaker concertation of large corporations than most other regions, so partnerships like these are important examples of how it can be done.