Aligning IP with your business growth

Peter Cowan

President + CEO, Innovate BC

Peter Cowan serves as President and CEO of Innovate BC. 

With over 25 years of experience in leadership roles across Canada’s innovation ecosystem, Peter brings a wealth of expertise to his role leading the provincial Crown Agency dedicated to fostering innovation across B.C.’s economy. His extensive background spans a diverse range of roles, from leading startups, multinationals, and venture capital corporations to non-profits and innovation-based government agencies. He is a recognized leader in intellectual property (IP) strategy, with wide-ranging background in IP business operations and over 70 patents filed in the clean energy sector. He has advised on IP policy, operations, and strategy in numerous areas, including start-ups, scale-ups, technology transfer offices, accelerators and incubators, venture capital groups, and governments (provincial, federal, international). 

Prior to joining Innovate BC, Peter held the interim CEO role as Intellectual Property Ontario’s first CEO where he led the launch of a new IP agency for the Province of Ontario, which developed and launched innovative IP programs that helped researchers and companies maximize the value of their IP, and strengthen their capacity to scale and compete in a global market. He is also the founder of Northworks IP and co-founder and past Board Member of the Innovation Asset Collective, Canada’s first Patent Collective. 

Peter also serves as a Governance Committee Member for the College of Patent Agents & Trademark Agents (CPATA – CABAMC) and as a Committee Member on the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). 

In addition to his business background, Peter holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) and an MBA (Entrepreneurship; research focus in IP strategies for SMEs) from University of Victoria, and an LLM (Intellectual Property; research focus in IP & Board Governance) degree from Osgoode Hall Law School. He is also an active mentor with local Accelerator programs, working to help early-stage technology CEOs and founders improve the success of their companies by focusing on patent strategies for the ventures. 

Rajkumar Padmawar

President + CEO, ASAsoft™

Mike McLean is the CEO at Innovation Asset Collective (IAC), a not-for-profit organization helping Canadian data-driven clean tech companies maximize the value of their intangible assets. Mike is a leading voice on IP in Canada and plays a key role in empowering and expanding the Canadian IP ecosystem. He is passionate about promoting the need for robust IP strategies for Canadian industries and investments in patent collective models that increase the freedom to operate for Canadian SMEs.

Roya Aghighi

CEO, Lite-1

Roya Aghighi is a disruptive innovator who seamlessly merges her multidisciplinary background in design and scientific expertise to tackle complex challenges from a unique standpoint. Her experience in biofabricating innovative and sustainable materials combined with years of experience working inside the industry, gives her the advantage to accelerate the achievement of global sustainability goals. By integrating her design expertise with scientific knowledge, she effortlessly identifies connections and patterns that others may overlook. This unique perspective enables her to lead internationally recognized research projects uncovering breakthrough solutions to address complex problems of the era.