True North conference will tell the world about us
There’s a buzz in Waterloo Region these days as organizers of the first-ever True North conference prepare to welcome 2,500 members of the Canadian and global high-tech communities to town.
Coming from across the nation and 15 other countries, the visitors will spend May 29 to 31 exploring what commercial real estate giant CBRE has named Canada’s fastest growing tech talent market and the second fastest growing one in North America.
It’s a globally-recognized technological phenomenon, boasting famed giants like BlackBerry, Google, Sandvine, OpenText and Christie Digital, to name a few, as well as literally hundreds of smaller startups all aiming to make it big.
The brainchild of Communitech, a Waterloo Region-based organization that helps tech companies start, grow and succeed, True North will shine a spotlight on this tech sector and a community too often overshadowed by what’s happening in neighbouring Toronto.
But while it does all this, True North should achieve something else.
It should alert policy-makers in all levels of government, industry and our postsecondary institutions to the magnitude of what has been accomplished in Waterloo Region, how much greater it can become and what obstacles lie in the path of making it part of a real Silicon Valley North.
The future of this region is at stake. But what happens here will have major implications for the economic potential of both Ontario and Canada.
It’s no understatement to say high-tech has made Waterloo Region one of Canada’s brightest economic spots, and one of the few areas in Ontario outside the Greater Toronto Area and Ottawa to have experienced heady growth since the Great Recession of 2008-09.
The establishment of the University of Waterloo in 1957 helped lay the foundation for all this. Today, its schools for engineering, math and computer sciences are ranked with the world’s best. Its co-op programs produce work-savvy grads ready to contribute. And the freedom for faculty to monetize their intellectual discoveries helped fuel the local tech boom.
In the 1990s, the first wave of what would become a flood of new tech industries washed over the region, with the iconic Research In Motion — known today as BlackBerry — riding its crest.
In the coming years, the region’s economic tectonic plates shifted and solidified. Old manufacturers of rubber, tires, boots, auto parts, beer, shirts and processed meats gradually went bust or pulled out, taking tens of thousands of jobs with them.
But instead of becoming another ragged patch of North American rust belt, the region kept its shine, thanks largely to its tech sector which now employs 24,000 technology professionals in about 1,000 tech companies.
To appreciate how Canada’s old industrial economy can be revived and reborn by the high-tech economy, stand at the corner of King and Wellington streets in Kitchener.
Everywhere you look, you’ll see old factories reclaimed and repurposed as chic condominiums or stylish office space. Towering cranes punctuate the skyline like exclamation marks. And running through it all are the newly laid tracks that will soon carry sleek, light rail trains. This is the story that needs to be told. A few years ago, the biggest challenge to startups in Waterloo Region was securing investment. That’s no longer the case.
Now the biggest impediment is finding the skilled workers everyone needs. According to Chris Plunkett, Communitech’s vice-president of external relations, there are 2,000 to 3,000 unfilled tech jobs in Waterloo Region. Although the region added 8,400 tech jobs between 2011 and 2016, even that couldn’t satisfy demand.
One challenge comes from Silicon Valley’s magnetic draw for fresh grads with dreams of getting rich. But that’s not just an issue for the region.
“Silicon Valley attracts the best software designers in the world,” Plunkett says. It’s “not a Canadian brain-drain issue.”
To get the skilled workers this region needs, policy-makers must discover what they can do to attract the best and brightest to southern Ontario, not how to block their path to California. Persuading more universities to follow UW’s lead and offer co-op programs would be a start.
Turning the Toronto-Waterloo Region Corridor from an ambitious phrase into something tangible would add to the momentum.
In the 21st century, it’s increasingly regions — not nations, subnational states or provinces — that are the most dynamic economic engines.
The Toronto area has by far the biggest tech community in Canada. But it could only gain from better connections to Waterloo Region.
The single, best way to bind these communities together would be with better rail service — whether that means more GO trains, more Via trains or the highspeed trains touted by the Ontario government.
The problem right now is that no one is talking about better service starting up before the mid-2020s. Somehow, this must happen sooner.
Then there’s the thorny issue of branding. With a total of eight municipal governments — three cities, four townships and the region — Waterloo Region can seem confusing and fragmented to outsiders. While many think the action is confined to Waterloo, the tech sector is being promoted and is flourishing throughout the region.
“From a global perspective it’s hard to get people to know who we are,” says Communitech president and CEO Iain Klugman before offering a solution he knows would be controversial.
“I think uniting the cities is the only thing we can do … to make it work.”
For now, that may remain an aspirational goal, though you never know in a municipal election year.
As for the people at Communitech, they’re concentrating their energies on making True North unforgettable.
“The time is right now for us to be hosting a big, substantive conversation about the industry and our future,” Klugman says.
Quite so. And the more participants in this conversation, the better.