Yuliia Marcinkowski
Yuliia Marcinkoski is a Strategic Growth Executive with over a decade of experience in international business and economic development. She has successfully led initiatives across sectors such as manufacturing, energy, life sciences, defence, aerospace, and agriculture, fostering foreign direct investment for Alberta and market entry strategies.
With a vast network across North America and Europe, Yuliia excels in relationship development, investment strategies, and sustainable business growth. Born and raised in Ukraine, Yuliia continues her passion for sustainable development, youth mentorship and civic engagement. She mentors tech-enabled innovative startups and is a board member of multiple non-profits.
The Issue
The rural mindset is often innovative. As we learned in our 2023-2024 Thought Exchange series, rural innovation was highlighted as a major theme across many of our discussions. Finding solutions to problems unique to the rural context has its challenges, but it can be a key strength of rural communities and becomes a crucial skill set to overcome challenges and seize new opportunities. In this session, we aimed to explore the various factors influencing rural innovation in comparison to urban innovation. Some of the questions that we have were...
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How does the landscape influence rural innovation?
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Do rural entrepreneurs and communities need different types of innovation?
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What are the biggest challenges and opportunities for rural innovation?
Our Discussion Leaders
Defining Rural Innovation
The rural mindset is often innovative. As we learned in our 2023-2024 Thought Exchange series, rural innovation was highlighted as a major theme across many of our discussions. Finding solutions to problems unique to the rural context has its challenges, but it can be a key strength of rural communities and becomes a crucial skill set to overcome challenges and seize new opportunities.
Jesse Cole
Jesse Cole was born on a farm near Clive, Alberta in 1983. Washing a manure spreader out one day in the winter of 2003, a piece of manure made its way into his mouth and changed his path. He filled out application forms for the U of A that night and ended up with a BSc. In Agricultural Business and an MSc. in Agricultural Economics. That led to a stint in the private sector in herbicide research and eventually to the public sector as the Production Crops Economist at Alberta Agriculture.
He started with AFSC (Agriculture Financial Services Corporation) designing crop insurance products in 2011 and has not looked back. He now leads a team of some of the brightest individuals in the industry who look at where AFSC insurance products and delivery should be in the next ten years as the Manager of Insurance Products and Product Innovation. The current role allows him to exercise creativity and a passion for changing organizational structures and to contribute to the sustainability of the age-old industry of Agriculture.
Building Rural Innovation Ecosystems
As part of our wrap up session for the innovation series, this Thought Exchange will draw from the previous seven sessions and the varied experiences of participants to discuss the best pathways for rural communities to develop and support innovation ecosystems in their communities.
April 16, 2025 - 10 am -12 pm MST
Resources
The following are resources that you may find useful on the issue of rural food systems
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Let the writing speak for itself. Keep a consistent tone and voice throughout the website to stay true to the brand image and give visitors a taste of the company’s values and personality.
Our first session had great discussions on how we define innovation in rural communities. The following is a selection of videos that give a flavour of what was talked about.
Videos
In this video, the group discusses how innovation is solving people problems and what that could mean in a rural setting.
Why is innovation relevant?
In this video, Yulia challenges the group in how we measure innovation and if our current measurements are truly the best way.
Measuring Innovation
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