Canada’s Thriving Tech Sector Makes it the Ideal Destination for Industry Events

Canada’s technology sector continues to cement itself as a global force to be reckoned with, writes Wendy Helfenbaum. International companies and associations are taking note, and the country’s innovation ecosystems, leading experts and pioneering research hubs are all playing their part in attracting events – as organisations look to leverage Canadian know-how to enhance their agendas.

In recent years, the Canadian technology sector has exploded more than ever before, and the country’s innovation, depth of talent and pioneering research hubs all contribute to its supreme value proposition for major meetings and conventions.

Canada’s reputation as an inclusive, diverse and driven industry leader, combined with its natural beauty and vibrant urban settings have positioned the country on planners’ short lists. In cities like Vancouver, Montréal, Toronto and in the Waterloo Region, thriving technology subsectors include AI in healthcare, gaming and esports, Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality (VR) and fintech, making them excellent locations to host tech-focused events.

Hailed as ‘the new tech hub’ by Bloomberg Businessweek due to its world-class talent, industry know-how and breathtaking scenery, Vancouver is a major global technology player. Attracting investment and events from across the world, organisations are drawn to the city’s trailblazing expertise in fields like digital media, VR and AR.

British Columbia, the province in which Vancouver is situated, is no stranger to tech excellence. It is home to more than 10,000 tech-centric companies, employing more than 100,000 people, and generating more than $23 billion in revenue. As the largest city in the province, many of these companies are found in Vancouver. Major players include Intel, Amazon, Slack, EA and Nintendo. Amazon’s recent Vancouver expansion generated 3,000 high-tech positions and, in 2020, Mastercard opened its new Intelligence and Cyber Centre here.

Home to Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster — an industry network bringing together businesses, academia, community and government agencies to solve challenges facing the sector — Vancouver is also the second-largest VR/AR ecosystem in the world, with hundreds of companies working in this space.

Some of Canada’s best post-secondary schools for AI and software development are in Vancouver, such as the University of British Columbia — ranked one of the top technology schools in the country. Developer boot camps like Lighthouse Labs, BrainStation and CodeCore offer specialised technical and design training to some of the world’s brightest minds.

In Vancouver’s close-knit tech community, companies are encouraged to work collaboratively alongside thought leaders and investors, fostering important relationships with supportive partners like Innovate BC, Launch Academy, Creative Destruction Lab West and many more. This entrepreneurial spirit leads to exciting success stories, such as the world’s first heart valve-replacement surgery that used the Microsoft HoloLens in a real-time, extended reality platform developed by Medtronic Canada, which has an office in Vancouver.

The cutting-edge VR/AR Global Summit has hosted global thought leaders in Vancouver for several years because the city is a perfect fit, says the event’s executive producer Anne-Marie Enns, founder of Pulledin Productions. “We also work with Creative BC, Global Affairs Canada and the Vancouver Economic Commission to bring great programming to the event,” she says.

Because the summit attracts a large number of attendees from Silicon Valley and Asia, the location is perfect, adds Enns.

“Vancouver is a magical city for people to visit; with the mountains, the ocean, Stanley Park, great restaurants and funky neighbourhoods, it has a lot to offer event attendees,” she says. “There’s always something great to do outdoors: paddle boarding, kayaking, mountain biking, hiking, day trips to Squamish and Whistler for skiing. People who have never been here fall in love with Vancouver the minute that they arrive.”

Ranked in 2021 as the No. 1 small tech-talent marketing in North America by CBRE, the Waterloo Region is perfectly placed to capitalise on the booming gaming and esports sector, thanks to its proximity to Toronto and status as a hub for innovation. Many of Canada’s fastest-growing tech companies are located in Waterloo, and the city is home to Google’s largest R&D office in the country, making the region ideal for planners seeking to build memorable programmes within tech conferences.

Home to Canada’s ‘Most Innovative University’ and its largest engineering school, the region also boasts the world’s largest concentration of maths and computer science talent; more than 21,500 technology professionals work here. Waterloo tech companies including IBM, Oracle, Square, BlackBerry and Auvik Networks, a cloud-based network management software provider, who raised close to $1.4 billion of new investment in just 45 days.

Leveraging the explosive growth in the live-gaming sector Explore Waterloo Region recently partnered with esports marketing company Subnation. The destination marketing organisation will aim to further support esports tournaments and attract more video game publishers, developers and gamers to its roster of companies that include game designers like Fluxscopic Ltd. and 56 Game Studios. The University of Waterloo’s Games Institute studies gamification and industry trends, so planners can tap experts in this revenue-generating sector to round out speaker programmes.

“With so much innovation and creativity happening in the Waterloo Region,” says Jennifer Eddings, director of sales for Explore Waterloo Region, “Our team can tap into a wide range of guest speakers and arrange for special interest tours to enhance meetings and events, so groups can experience big city amenities while enjoying Waterloo’s friendly small-town vibe.”

Combining entrepreneurism and hospitality, the Waterloo Region offers groups in the tech sector an ideal learning and networking experience for meetings and events. 

Toronto’s burgeoning tech sector, diverse culture and rich ecosystem of thought leaders and educational institutions make it a great destination to connect with digital entertainment, cybersecurity and fintech professionals during meetings and events.

Canadian start-ups and the world’s leading tech companies make Toronto the home of their Canadian headquarters. This includes giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Twitter.

Some of the world’s largest technology events are also flocking to Toronto. This includes Collision, described by Bloomberg as “one of the world’s biggest tech conferences”, which, in 2022, saw over 35,000 attendees descend upon the city. Speakers included local industry experts like Jeff Shiner, CEO of 1Password, as well as other Canadian sector experts like Steve Munford, CEO of Trulioo, and Lise Birkundavyi, managing partner at BKR Capital.

Collision chose Toronto as its host city through 2022. Web Summit CEO Paddy Cosgrave cited Toronto’s explosive growth, talent pool, five world-leading universities and welcoming vibe as the main reasons for moving the event here from the US.“Collision is riding the wave of Toronto,” says Cosgrave. “Toronto had already arrived before we came here. I just don’t think a lot of people elsewhere in the world had seen it with their own eyes.”

“Collision is about looking forward and working with the best and the brightest to get there — and that's what it means to live and work in Toronto,” says Toronto Mayor John Tory. 

With tech-sector expertise ranging from AI/ML to fintech, and from cybersecurity to communications technology, it’s no wonder that Toronto has made its mark on the minds of industry event organisers. More than 17,000 companies including Umber Advanced Technologies Group, Intel, Pinterest and WeWork Labs expanded their presence in Toronto, employing nearly 300,000 people. In June 2021, IBM opened a new office in the city, hiring 500 employees following its recent collaboration with Mila on an open-source AI and machine learning project. Toronto also enables tech start-ups like InteraXon, which develops brainwave-controlled computing, to thrive and innovate along with a wide range of business incubators and accelerators. 

Montréal is another industry leading Canadian tech hub, with Greater Montréal employing nearly 180,000 professionals in the sector, many in AI and medtech. The city is also home to Scale AI, Canada’s AI health cluster, and has one of the world’s largest deep-learning university communities, which helps drive its global reaching AI sector. Named as the best place in North American for AI investment in 2019, Montréal attracts big dollars. For example, since 2016, more than $2 billion in AI investments have been announced in Greater Montréal.

As an innovation centre and one of North America’s most influential life sciences centres, Montréal consistently tops planners’ lists. Some of the world’s most prominent researchers in the life science field work here, conducting research and trials for new treatments, and advancing patient care in neuroscience, cardiology, oncology and AI for health. 

All of this makes the city an ideal destination for business events in these areas.

“Montréal has an outstanding ecosystem of medical imaging companies and research labs,” says Tess Berthier, research lead for Imagia Cybernetics, who brought a group together for the Medical Imaging in Deep Learning conference in 2020. “We leveraged expertise from academia and industry in the city through talks or by complementing the structure of the event with their knowledge.”

There’s so much going on in this space that Bonjour Startup Montréal recently launched a map that visually represents the organisations making up the city’s AI ecosystem, including My Intelligent Machines, Deeplite and Heyday AI.

Montréal has seen many success stories in this sector. The Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal School of Artificial Intelligence in Health is a world first, focusing on the development of human capacities and the implementation of AI in a real environment. It will apply AI to health, measuring impact on patients, teams and the health system.

In another innovation, Montréal-based Imagia’s scientists use big data to achieve medical breakthroughs, and a process called radiomics to find biomarkers in patient imagery data so they can then analyse these images and predict the progression of a disease as well as the patient’s response to treatment. 

Another disruptor calling Montréal home, Hexoskin, develops biometric clothing that monitors patients while collecting medical data. The garments are used in cardiology, pneumology, neurology, psychiatry and paediatrics.

In Montréal, you can also find Mila, the world’s largest academic research lab specialising in deep learning and reinforcement learning, which employs more than 600 researchers. In April of 2021, the Mila AI research centre teamed up with Intel to apply AI practices to medical research, speeding up the search for life-saving drugs that could lead to curing disease.

With its state-of-the-art Palais de Congrès convention centre, a walkable downtown core and a city known for its unique joie de vivre, there’s plenty to attract attendees to Montréal.

Meet in Canada

In Canada, tech leaders will find support from federal, provincial and municipal governments, as well as academia and innovation investors.

Further simplifying the business process is the pool of destination and sector experts provided by Destination Canada Business Events. The team’s specific knowledge of this vast land makes Destination Canada Business Events team an organiser’s first stop for tailoring the right package for their event, whatever the size. To learn about assets, opportunities and for valuable connections that will enhance your next tech event in Canada go to businesseventscanada.ca.

Canada is an ideal destination for business events in numerous innovative sectors. Click here to learn about Canada’s leadership in sectors including technology, agribusiness, natural resources and more.