Nancy Knowlton has built two major technology companies out of Calgary, first SMART Technologies, which put an interactive whiteboard into millions of classrooms and boardrooms around the world, and now Nureva Inc., which she leads as president and CEO. The Southern Alberta Business Hall of Fame inducted her in 2022, recognizing a career that has repeatedly turned Calgary engineering into global classroom technology. It is a rare thing for one entrepreneur to build a category defining company once, let alone twice from the same city.
Two Companies, One Partnership
Before founding Nureva in 2014 alongside her husband David Martin, Knowlton and Martin built SMART Technologies into a global brand. The company’s interactive whiteboard became a fixture in schools and offices worldwide, changing how a generation of students and professionals interacted with a lesson or a presentation, and cementing Calgary’s reputation as a source of exportable education technology rather than just energy expertise. That experience carried directly into Nureva, the company the pair founded next and where Knowlton now serves as president and CEO, applying lessons learned from a global product launch to a second venture built from the same city.
An Accountant’s Eye on Education
Knowlton holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in business administration and has worked as both a chartered accountant and a university lecturer, a combination that shows up in her long record of contributing to public and private commissions on education and business. That background has made her a recurring voice in conversations about how technology should serve classrooms rather than complicate them, a perspective that is easy to trace back to the accounting and teaching work that came before her entrepreneurial career.
Recognition for a Career of Firsts
Knowlton’s honours include the Canadian Woman Entrepreneur of the Year award and the C21 Shifting Minds National Award, given for her contributions to twenty first century learning and innovation. In February 2022, Knowlton and Martin were jointly awarded the Meritorious Service Decoration in the Civil Division, recognizing their exceptional contribution to improving education opportunities for children in Canada and abroad, an honour that speaks to reach well beyond the Calgary market where both of their companies were founded.
Why the Hall of Fame Took Notice
Junior Achievement Southern Alberta’s Hall of Fame tends to favour builders whose work reaches well past their own balance sheet, and Knowlton’s resume, two globally distributed education technology companies built from the same Calgary base, fits that standard directly. For the students who move through Junior Achievement’s programs, a local entrepreneur whose products end up in classrooms on other continents is a concrete answer to the question of what a Calgary business career can become. Her full laureate profile, including additional detail on her academic background and awards, is available through JA Southern Alberta at jasab.ca.
What does it take to build one company that changes classrooms worldwide, let alone two?
