Inside Canada’s Tech Week
Icons, ideas and parties at the second annual Elevate festival
In late September, the second annual edition of the Elevate tech and innovation festival welcomed more than 10,000 guests and 300 speakers, including former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, former Google CEO and Alphabet chair Eric Schmidt, musician Wyclef Jean and BNN Bloomberg’s Amanda Lang. Elevate hosted 13 unique tracks focused on the gamut of au-courant topics—including artificial intelligence, cannabis and digital transformation. In addition to the mainstage speakers and various satellite sessions, festival-goers enjoyed a raucous night of parties, meet-ups and musical performances at Elevate King West, which took over some of the strip’s best bars and restaurants—including Baro, home to Capital One House, and Patria, where Toronto Life hosted the Elevate Creators after-party. Festival organizers also announced next year’s theme: Moonshots will feature astronaut and award-winning author Chris Hadfield. The third edition of the festival will take place September 23 to 27, 2019.