If you’ve worked in land and energy for more than five minutes, you know one thing: just when you think you have it figured out, something changes. Regulations shift, markets move, stakeholders ask new questions, and projects rarely unfold exactly as planned.

Land and energy have never been industries of certainty, but the pace and complexity of change have accelerated. In this engaging, humorous, and thought-provoking keynote, Robynn explores “The Half-Life of Certainty: Finding Your Footing in a World That Won’t Stand Still” and why the ability to adapt has become one of today’s greatest advantages.

Through stories, humour, and practical insights, Robynn challenges the idea that success comes from always having the answers. Instead, she explores how professionals can make sound decisions with incomplete information, stay grounded through uncertainty, and build the confidence to navigate constant change.

Blending leadership, psychology, organizational change, and real-world experience, this session provides practical tools for navigating evolving regulations, competing priorities, stakeholder expectations, and an increasingly complex world.

Attendees will leave energized and equipped to:

• Recognize when yesterday’s assumptions no longer fit today’s reality.
• Respond to uncertainty with greater confidence, clarity, and adaptability.
• Navigate change without losing their footing.

The goal isn’t to eliminate uncertainty, but to become more capable when certainty disappears.

As Alberta looks to diversify its economy and modernize its infrastructure, few projects carry the transformative potential of TransPod’s ultra-high-speed transportation corridor between Edmonton and Calgary. In this talk, Sébastien Gendron, Co-Founder and CEO of TransPod, will share how this next-generation transportation system—capable of moving passengers and cargo at speeds up to 1,200 km/h inside low-pressure tubes—is poised to reshape land use, energy demand, and regional development across Western Canada. Sébastien will walk attendees through the project’s phased approach, starting with a 7km demonstration line between Edmonton and Edmonton International Airport, and scaling toward a full 300km corridor connecting Edmonton to Calgary—a project projected to generate over 136,000 jobs and boost Alberta’s GDP by more than $19 billion CAD.

For land and energy professionals navigating regulatory change, Indigenous partnerships, and decarbonization pressures, this session will give you a firsthand look at planning, permitting, and building a first-of-its-kind infrastructure corridor from the ground up. Sébastien will discuss TransPod’s approach to land acquisition, property rights, and collaboration with Indigenous communities and local stakeholders, as well as the project’s environmental case—including its potential to mitigate over 858,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually while reducing traffic congestion and improving safety across the region. Attendees will leave with practical insights into how large-scale infrastructure projects can align technological innovation with responsible, community-centred land development—a theme directly relevant to this year’s conference focus on “Energy and You.”

Users of important land documents, such as the CAPL Operating Procedure and the CAPL Farmout & Royalty Procedure, will often find themselves needing to address issues for which the answer is not clear on the face of their agreement. This presentation introduces a pattern-based approach to issue analysis that will help users identify, assess, and address emerging agreement issues more easily and with greater confidence than is often the case. The “method” will then be demonstrated by examining the real-world example in which a party proposes to drill a well across two spacing units with differing working interests.

As AI takes on more repeatable and describable work, human value shifts toward what sits above the line: framing the right problems, applying judgment, leveraging experience, and building trust.

This session explores how energy professionals can use AI to eliminate operational noise and reclaim time for higher-value work. 

Stop chasing the automation line. Build your career above it.

This one-hour session for early-career professionals in the land and energy industry focuses on how reputation gets built, protected, and turned into career opportunity in a relationship-dense field. The session moves through four stages: establishing a foundation through precise, trustworthy work (since errors in legal descriptions, effective dates, or filings are never just cosmetic); becoming known for solving problems rather than simply completing tasks; investing deliberately in credentials, visibility, and industry relationships; and using that reputation to move up, drawing on real patterns of what separates professionals who advance from those who stall. Attendees leave with two practical tools, a one-page professional brand action plan and a fill-in-the-blanks AI career gap-analysis prompt, giving them concrete next steps rather than general advice alone.

This panel discussion brings together three leaders working from different vantage points on the same challenge: how Indigenous participation in major Canadian projects moves from box-checking consultation to genuine ownership and partnership. Jody speaks from the capital and ownership side, building Indigenous-owned positions across energy, housing, transportation, and broadband at a national scale through Clean Communities Corp. Mike, of KatalystNow, brings over 30 years of experience building Indigenous inclusion strategies and community engagement plans on major projects such as LNG terminals, pipelines, offshore developments, and oil sands expansions. Joining them is Zen Sequeira, Senior Director of Indigenous Consultation at Imperial Oil, who adds a producer-side perspective on how consultation and partnership take shape from within a major energy company.

Together, the panel will trace the full arc of the issue: what real partnership looks like once you move past consultation, the policy and funding barriers that quietly cap participation once a project or community crosses certain boundaries, how corporate strategy translates into lasting workforce development and equity ownership on the ground, and what it would take to scale Indigenous-led participation nationally rather than project by project. The session closes with a direct, practical ask from each panellist, followed by open audience Q&A.

Session description coming soon.

Over the past two decades, land agents have developed proven approaches to developing traditional oil and gas infrastructure in Alberta. However, the emergence of energy transition projects and other non-traditional developments, such as carbon capture systems, hydrogen, renewable natural gas, and data centres, is fundamentally changing the risk landscape.

However, while these projects differ in technology and footprint, they are encountering many of the same challenges historically associated with pipeline development, including increasing stakeholder opposition, regulatory complexity, and heightened scrutiny of local impacts. In many cases, these challenges are amplified by uncertainty, limited public understanding, and a growing expectation for early and meaningful engagement.

This presentation explores how the traditional “pipeline playbook” has evolved from its origins during the Keystone project and how it is now being applied to a broader range of infrastructure projects across Alberta. Drawing on recent project examples and regulatory trends, it highlights the key drivers of opposition, the role of place-based risk perception, and why early-stage decisions are increasingly determining project success or failure.

The session will focus on what these changes mean for land agents in practice: shifting expectations around consultation, the need for earlier involvement in project development, and the growing importance of managing uncertainty and building trust with landowners, Indigenous communities, regulators, and municipalities.

Explore the latest capabilities and datasets available in AbaData and how they can support the evolving work of land professionals. Through practical examples, Chris Eremenko will demonstrate new and enhanced ways to find information, visualize data, streamline reporting, and work more efficiently. The session will also explore how AI can help users investigate more complex questions and surface insights that have traditionally required multiple searches, reports, or manual analysis.