Northwest Territories Beaufort Sea Great Bear Lake Mackenzie River Great Slave Lake Inuvik Tuktoyaktuk Norman Wells Délı̨nę Fort Simpson Fort Smith Ulukhaktok Sachs Harbour Hay River Fort Resolution Łutselk'e Behchokǫ̀ Dettah North Arm Yellowknife

Rated‑N exists to help the North lead with AI.

On its own terms.

Everyone up North is spread thin.

Big land.
Small crews.

Six in ten NWT employer businesses have fewer than ten people.

Running an operation in the North often means being a jack of all trades.

We all end up the bookkeeper, admin, marketer, IT desk and everything in between.

Half of everyone's workday goes to the work around the work.

The inbox, the scheduling, the chasing.
Leaving little time for the job you actually signed up for.

So your big idea waits…

Rated‑N was created to flip this ratio.

Handmade AI solutions for small businesses, non‑profits, educators, community governments and creatives.

About Rated‑N

Twenty‑five years running businesses and non‑profits in the North taught Jay what every Northerner knows: staffing is hard, technical skill is often far away, and the cost of living is higher. Northerners are extremely capable. They just need more room to breathe.

Rated‑N automates the repetitive, so your time goes to innovating.

  1. 01 · Built for youCustom built to your exact needs. The system is yours.
  2. 02 · ConnectedBuilt on your own data, connecting all your systems into one.
  3. 03 · Dedicated trainingHands-on, until you and your team run it yourselves.
A taste of what it can do
Talk, inbox & calendar

and keeps your week in line.

  • A chatbot trained on your operation, answering anyone, any hour.
  • Every email sorted and answered in draft, waiting for your yes.
  • Meetings booked and moved, the week ahead already planned.
See it working →
Bookkeeping & finances

  • Every receipt read and filed.
  • The books match the bank every morning.
  • QuickBooks built in, every number traced to its source.
See it working →
Client intelligence

  • Every call, email and conversation, remembered and searchable.
  • Who to follow up with, and when.
  • Walk into every meeting briefed and five steps ahead.
See it working →
Data & archives

  • Every file you've ever made, named, filed and found in seconds.
  • Built to outlast any software, any AI model, any decade.
  • Decades of photos, film and voices, revived and shaped into stories.
  • Your history stays home, never leaving your community.
See it working →
Creative & marketing

Right here, in the North.

  • Hybrid productions that reach new cinematic heights.
  • Bring archives and oral stories to life.
  • Create your own cinematic marketing.
  • Build something the world has never seen.
See the creative work →
Security & privacy

The system, protected from all sides.

  • It guards itself: nothing deleted, every move logged, three copies checked every hour.
  • Every file sorted into four levels of data sovereignty before it’s touched.
  • Nothing goes out in your name without a person’s yes.
  • Need it fully local? Built on your own server, inside your community.

The whole system

All of it, connected.

Your big, beautiful mess

  • 47 unread
  • tax stuff
  • draft_v7_real.docx
  • who has the key?
  • client list OLD
  • where is the logo
  • ?? ask Dan
  • voicemail 0:42
  • board minutes 2019
  • photo of whiteboard
  • old website login

Connected

  • Inbox at zero
  • Books current, every night
  • Any file found in seconds
  • Time tracked to the minute
  • Archives revived

Automated

  • Emails drafted for you
  • Proposals & grants drafted
  • Daily brief, weekly review
  • Client follow-ups
  • SOPs written for you

Innovated

  • A new app or website
  • Language & culture revived
  • Video campaigns
  • New products & services
  • + whatever you ask for next

Connect. Automate. Innovate.

Who is Jay Bulckaert?

Once upon a time…

Swipe to travel through Jay’s story

/ 2001 · The arrival

A man came North and fell in love with everything he saw.

/ 2001 · The arrival

Camera in hand, he set out to put Northern stories on the world’s stage.

/ 2009 · Collective9

He founded Collective9 to kick-start Northern film.

/ 2012 · Dead North

Dead North gave that talent a forge: 225+ films, screened worldwide.

/ 2013 · Artless Collective

Artless Collective hired Northerners and raised the bar: 300+ productions.

/ NTMPA

Then he helped found the NWT Media Producers Association, so Northern creators got a seat at the table.

/ Rated‑N

25 years in, Jay has witnessed what the North can achieve with community and technology.

/ Rated‑N

Rated‑N brings all of this into one focus:
Helping the North innovate.

Jay Bulckaert · Founder

Jay Bulckaert

FOUNDER & CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIST

Twenty-five years of running small businesses and non-profits, directing, producing, writing, shooting and editing above the 60th parallel, where necessity turns one person into a full crew, from the trapline and the sea ice to the world's major festival screens. Along the way: the graphic novel King Warrior, films like Red Snow, and a Breakout West nomination for the territory's first AI-enhanced music video. Jay has been blessed to build a lot of amazing things over the years.

All of it built with others: as co-founder and president of Artless Collective for thirteen years, as creator of Dead North (225+ circumpolar genre films), as a founding hand behind the NWT Media Producers Association, and through more than a decade working with Indigenous governments (the Tłı̨chǫ Government, Łutsël K'é Dene First Nation, Kitikmeot Inuit Association and Délı̨nę), recording language, tradition and daily life across the NWT and Nunavut's Kitikmeot region.

Rated‑N is the culmination of twenty-five years behind the scenes, learning how the North really works: its struggles, and its far greater strengths. AI is here, as remarkable as it is dangerous, and the North can either inherit someone else’s version of it or shape its own. Rated‑N exists to give the North that head start: sovereign over how AI is used here, and first in line to turn it to the North’s advantage.

Jay’s Select Professional Background
Rated‑N · 2026–
Founder · Creative Technologist
A creative AI studio in Yellowknife: tailor-made AI systems fused with 25 years of studio craft, built for the North. The company runs on the same system it sells; the site you’re reading is the proof.
Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity · 2026
Computational Writing
In residence, Jay built micrOmega: a world engine for his novel. One living world, built once, that can now become a book, a film, a web series, a graphic novel and an online game.
Artless Collective · 13 years
Co-founder · President
One of the NWT's premier studios: community documentary, broadcast series (Dene A Journey, Fur Harvesters NWT), aerial cinematography, 360 video.
Dead North Film Festival · 8 years
Creator · President
225+ circumpolar genre films willed into existence, making it the most prolific filmmaking engine in NWT history.
Gnarwhal: The War / Nothing More · Music video
Director · Writer · AI VFX
Breakout West 2025 Music Video Director nominee · featured on CBC with Ian Hanomansing · NWT's first AI-enhanced music video.
Red Snow · Feature film, 2019
NWT Producer
Marie Clements' war drama: the Northern shoot, produced in Dettah, NWT, plus drone and effects work.
Indigenous governments · A decade+
Producer · Editor · Cinematographer · Media trainer
Producing, shooting and editing for the Tłı̨chǫ Government, Łutsël K'é Dene First Nation, Kitikmeot Inuit Association and Délı̨nę, and training every generation to tell its own stories: language, tradition and culture on record, including what is likely the largest library of Tłı̨chǫ life in NWT history.
NTMPA · 2010 to 2017
Founding member · Vice-President
The NWT Media Producers Association: official sector representation for Northern media creators.
On screen & page · Selected
Producer · DP · Writer
King Warrior, graphic novel (2022) · The Wildest Game, in the Arctic-horror anthology Taaqtumi (Inhabit Media) · Conibear (BFI, Clermont-Ferrand) · Ages of Ice (PBS/ABC, 2025) · Cold Amazon (TVO) · The Sun at Midnight (AD).
/ The Multi-Skilled Operator

A Jay of All Trades

Behind this company is a working multimedia professional: 25 years directing, producing, writing, shooting and editing in the Arctic, and 300+ productions, from feature films to documentaries to community video.

That craft serves Rated‑N originals first, plus a few chosen outside productions.

Funding

Funding for AI adoption is here. Rated‑N helps you find it.

Federal and territorial money is funding Northern AI adoption right now, and some of it you never pay back. Rated‑N works with Paul Cressman, one of the North's best funding consultants, to carry your project from first scope to final report.

AI adoption money open now

Prosper NWT · Territorial $2.3MAI adoption Start here

CanNor-funded, for 350+ Northern businesses: fully funded AI training and assessment, then implementation funding.

Northern AI Adoption ↗ NRC IRAP · Federal $100MFederal AI stream Non-repayable

Canada's largest non-repayable R&D fund for small businesses, with an AI stream launched in 2026.

NRC IRAP ↗ GNWT SEED · Territorial $30KPer applicant, per year Contributions, some loans

Entrepreneur Support covers up to 70% of eligible costs, contracted services included. Some streams are repayable: call your regional Economic Development Officer first.

GNWT SEED ↗ BDC LIFT · Federal $500MNational AI adoption Repayable financing

Up to $2M at a preferential rate, paired with an AI advisor. A loan, not a grant.

BDC LIFT ↗
How it works

Four steps, two people, one funded build.

  1. jaZon, or JayA conversationFive minutes with jaZon on this page, or a call with Jay. Say what slows you down.
  2. JayThe scopeJay writes a Smart Scope with you: the work, the cost, the case a funder reads.
  3. PaulThe fundingPaul finds the right programs, writes the application with you and handles the reporting.
  4. JayThe buildApproval first, work after: most programs won't cover costs from before the yes.

Details change. Each funder sets amounts, eligibility and repayment, per stream and applicant.

Paul CressmanFunding & community development
Rated‑N's funding partner

Meet Paul Cressman.

Fifteen years inside Northern communities, turning what they need into funded programs.

15years
embedded with NWT communities
~$1Ma year
raised, on average, every year
$52M
his largest successful project proposal

He has worked extensively in the Tłı̨chǫ Region, successfully funding a broad range of projects. He knows how funders think, how to plan around a community’s priorities and capacity, and how to manage reporting and project administration to build trusting relationships with funders.

  • PlanA funding plan built on your priorities and capacity.
  • FundResearch and applications, program by program.
  • ReportOn time, so funders come back.
  • CoordinateBudgets, logistics, training, trusted providers.

Paul runs his own funding practice, partnered with Rated‑N. His work centres on Indigenous governments and community organizations, raising money for culture and language, food security, the environment, energy and training, and now AI adoption. He builds every funding plan around a community’s own priorities and capacity, and reports on time so funders come back. With Rated‑N he’s the go-to for funding AI adoption, community development and large-scale innovation projects: he turns the scope Jay builds with you into a funded project, then oversees it through to the final report.

Jay and Paul go back 20 years. The partnership spans creating the multimedia band Sinister Oculus, to a decade of language revitalization projects, to looking for moose out on the land.

Meet jaZon, Rated‑N's AI guide

What do you want to innovate?

Talk it through with jaZon for five minutes. You'll both get a written scope brief, so your first conversation with Jay starts five steps ahead.

  1. 01TalkFive minutes, in your own words: a problem, a project or a half-formed idea.
  2. 02Your scope briefjaZon writes it up: what's going on, what could be built, the next step.
  3. 03Jay, five steps aheadIt lands in your inbox and Jay's. He follows up within a day, already up to speed.

Or write to Jay: jay@rated-n.ca