Product Demonstration
BC Northern Lights (BCNL) has been an industry leader in fully self-contained indoor grow boxes for the last 20 years. At this year’s Grow Up conference, BCNL will be featuring our new, feature-packed four plant RoomMate Pro grow box. Myles from BCNL will go over the features and functions of the new Roommate Pro as well as be available for any questions.
Presentation
Chemical surface disinfectants are a key element of the biosecurity programs in licensed producer facilities. While biocidal efficacy and spectrum of activity are arguably the main factors in chemical disinfectant selection, other factors are being increasingly taken into consideration. These factors include occupational safety profile, compatibility with surface materials, simplicity and ease of proper use, environmental profile and ease of disposal.
At the end of the seminar, participants will be able to: identify the desired traits of disinfectants, develop a greater understanding of disinfectant product labels, ensure that the method of application will meet the facilities needs and delve into practices for using disinfectants to minimize occupational health and safety concerns. This session will be of interest to anyone involved in the selection of products and implementation of cleaning and disinfection programs.
Panel Discussion
Selling legal cannabis remains a work in progress, with several marketing hurdles to overcome. Not least of these is that its main competition, the black market, also operates freely online at sales levels equal to its legal counterparts. So the question remains: with such a thriving illicit market, how do we, the legal ones, attract our customers back? Is thought-leadership content the way to go? Or is social media going to be our saving grace? This panel of marketing experts will look at the road ahead and seek answers to these questions and more.
Moderated By: Corey Herscu
Presentation
The Canadian Cannabis industry has a labour problem. A large detailed-orientated labour force is required to meet stringent cleanliness requirements, achieve yield goals, and meet demanding quality expectations.
Currently, large numbers of millennials are employed by the industry who have not shown a predilection towards these business requirements. This costs the cannabis firms untold millions in yield, quality, and lost harvests.
This how to get a millennial workforce to maximize yield, achieve quality goals while meeting stringent cleanliness requirements.
• How to engage their hourly workforce to help develop standards and procedures
• How to conduct regular After Action Reviews to review and plan operations
• How to gamify the workplace to challenge millennials
The results are outstanding.
• Yield/sqft increases
• Labour cost/kg drops
• Quality improves with each successive harvest
Presentation
Explanation and affect of emerging technologies on the cannabis industry (blockchain, cryptocurrency, data analytics, software) which will facilitate safer, more consistent, and cheaper products and services from Cannabis providers.
Presentation
Exploding facilities, database breaches, raging wildfires – these are just a few of the threats and hazards to impact dozens of cannabis companies this past year. The industry – any industry will suffer long term pain or fail to recover without proper awareness and preparedness. After a major emergency or disaster more than 40 percent of businesses never reopen, and another 25 percent that do, fail within the year.
Greg will provide you with real life experiences from working with industry leaders before, during and after major emergencies and supply chain interruptions. Find out how to truly incorporate Business Impact Analysis data through enterprise risk management so that your company will flourish after any business disruption.
Doing nothing is not a strategy…….
Presentation
With the advent of cannabis legalization and proliferation of cannabis growing facilities, there is uncertainty in jurisdictions across the country as to how these facilities should be valued and treated for municipal property taxation purposes. Are they farms, commercial or industrial operations? Inherent in this question is the tension between fair treatment for cannabis businesses and municipalities seeking to reap the benefits of having cannabis grow ops in their communities. This presentation will provide an overview of how cannabis facilities are currently treated for property tax purposes across the country, with commentary on prospects for the future. The goal is for participants to understand the impact of property taxes on a cannabis company’s bottom line.
Panel Discussion
As the projected $22 billion worldwide market becomes reality, proprietary concerns will affect cannabis entrepreneurs and researchers. It’s worth knowing that there’s pre-existing legislation called the Plant Breeders Rights Act that protects exclusivity for creators of new strains and varieties of commercial plants. If they meet the criteria, holders of PBRs can, “exclude others from selling, producing, exporting, importing, making repeated use of, conditioning, and stocking the propagating material of the protected plant variety for 20 or 25 years.” What does it mean to “own” a strain of cannabis? And what do you risk if you don’t protect your leafy intellectual property? This session looks at how you can protect yourself.
Moderated By: Alison Hayman
Panel Discussion
During prohibition, law enforcement hunting indoor grow-ops targeted properties that used copious electricity. That was an early hint of the power glut that now faces the industry. About a third of the average indoor grower’s overhead is lighting costs. A typical plant uses the equivalent of 70 gallons of oil from seed to harvest. And from 1-3% of the North American power grid may be taken up by cannabis farms. The commitment to go green is not just planet conscious. Eco commitments sway investors and improves the bottom line. This session will examine green options, include replacing high-pressure sodium lights with LED, using off-the-grid solar panels and cutting edge batteries to power-up, and – what a concept! – growing outdoors and using free sunlight.
Moderated By: Max Cherney
Competition
The Hackathon will foster creative ideas and innovation to bring new solutions to the fast-growing cannabis industry.
Competing coders, designers, and engineers will explore ideas for tracking, purchasing, reporting, strain identification, verification, integration with the entertainment industry, and much more.
After a 24 hour overnight hacking session at Brainsights in Toronto, the finalist teams will be brought to Niagara Falls via TourBuds — the first luxury cannabis tour bus, with activation by Hotbox — for the awards presentation and ceremony.
Facilitator: Travis Laurendine, Outlier
