2025 speaker

Dr. Eric Flaim is the Executive Director of the Alberta CREATE initiative at the University of Alberta. The Collaborative Resources Empowering Advanced Technology Experiences (CREATE) initiative empowers innovators to build big, small and intelligent hardware, utilizing an open access model for semiconductor fabrication, materials characterization, digital machining and AI/ML cloud infrastructure. Dr. Flaim has increased revenue generation from $150,000 per year in 2008 to $3M in 2024, supporting self-sustaining semiconductor fabrication and characterization resources focused on academic research and industrial prototyping and production. Since 2008, Dr. Flaim has been responsible for leading, applying for, and overseeing over $60M in awarded operating and infrastructure funding supporting the development and growth of these technical offerings. Leading a team of 31 PhD/MSc/technical staff, CREATE caters to over 60 industry partners, directly employing over 300 industry staff, while supporting 110 academic research groups, and maintaining $120M in equipment and infrastructure. Previous to the establishment of CREATE, Dr. Flaim led three successively larger entrepreneurial seed funding programs over 10 years that provided $6.5M to 20 startups and 30 academic research groups, who collectively raised an additional $55M+, and employed greater than 250 staff.