Andrew Wahba reflects on growing up in Estevan and latest ventures

ESTEVAN - Andrew Wahba's interests took him around the world before bringing him back to Saskatchewan, and he remains grateful he is from Estevan.

Wahba returned to his hometown on Thursday night to deliver his speech, From Estevan to the World: Global Career Building with Local Roots, during an Innovation Conversation at the Southeast College's Estevan campus. Approximately 30 people were in attendance, including students from a computer science program at the college. The Innovation Conversation series is a partnership between the college and the Southeast TechHub.

Wahba, who is the CEO of Variable Hub Software and the executive director of Tech Career Bridge, said it was nice to come back to Estevan and see some familiar faces, and he is pleased to see the focus on innovation currently happening in the Energy City. He comes home regularly, as he is in Regina, he still has some family in the Estevan area and his wife is from North Portal.

He explained how he wound up working in the technology world, but the focus was on his two current ventures.

"Variable Hub is a software platform that's in the governance space, and it's used for multi-stakeholder compliance. And then on the other side is Tech Career Bridge. That was more of a focus because it's a project that we're doing down in Estevan, to try to help people in career transitions and to look at different opportunities that could be out there for them that align with their skills and competencies and interests, and then providing them with personalized pathways for upscaling."

He'll spend six months teaming with the Southeast Saskatchewan Economic Partnership on career transitions through Tech Career Bridge. He talked about the process, the technology in use, how they're incorporating artificial intelligence into that process and associated highs and lows.

"It started just as this idea of how could we connect newcomers to jobs in tech spaces in Regina, but only recently have we really been leaning into using AI to do that, and it's been catching speed quite quickly because it's a really effective tool to help people find jobs and understand their competencies and skills better," he said.

Tech Career Bridge is a non-profit organization that was launched about 18 months, and Variable Hub is a company about seven years old that Wahba joined just over two years ago.

Wahba said he has a lot of friends from Estevan in the tech sector that he has remained in contact with, including some who are now in Regina.

"There are so many Estevan ties, and it comes up a lot in the community and even from other people in Regina, they'll remark on how many people are from Estevan and the different things that they're doing," said Wahba.

Those people have been instrumental in changes he has made in his career. Wes Jickling is one of those people who, like Wahba, has lived and worked abroad; Jickling was at one time the CEO of Innovation Saskatchewan. Steve Dawson is somebody that Wahba has turned to for tech-related questions, and James Turner from Midale introduced Wahba to another opportunity from a business perspective.

Wahba said he has embraced new challenges and seen them as opportunities. He spent time travelling and working in international development and always wanted to try something new.

"Tech is a place where it's very challenging to be successful, and you have to be resilient and persistent, and maybe a bit crazy, but I really enjoy it," he said with a laugh.

Tania Hlohovsky Andrist, the executive director of innovation and applied research at the college, said Wahba has been well travelled and his experiences have translated into the technology sector.

"Andrew was very inspirational to our computer science students who were in attendance last night, and he framed it as a story of a personal journey that led him to where he is today," said Hlohovsky Andrist.