Wild Wild West

I love reunions. They offer a chance to condense years’ worth of missed conversations into bite size chunks. That might sound weird, but if you were at INNOVATEwest in Vancouver last week, you’ll understand where I’m going with this.

As I said at the top of each AI Summit breakout session I introduced last week, it’s been five years since Vancouver has hosted a tech conference of this scale. We’ve had events and meetups, coffees and cocktails, but to have everyone together in one big room hit different. I appreciate the ease of meeting online, but I’d trade a postage stamp avatar for a real-world person every single day.

INNOVATEwest came together quickly. In roughly eight months, David, Amanda, Jason, Erin and the team delivered one hundred and fifty speakers, more than a thousand participating companies and two days of connection. It worked. Seats were full at 9am on Tuesday for the keynote address from Guy Kawasaki. He shared the type of wisdom that you can put into action right away…plant many seeds. When it was over, people spilled out onto the expo floor and started talking. They didn’t stop. For 48 hours, I caught up with old friends, met some new ones and qr’d the (bleep) out of LinkedIn.

For Microsoft, it was an opportunity to support this moment of celebration and discovery. We wanted to check in with the leaders who had carved new paths, brought amazing products to market and propelled Vancouver’s tech sector forward. We’re a humble group, but so much has happened in the city over the last few years. It was also great timing. The INNOVATEwest opportunity appeared within weeks of our first AI news. I knew we’d have something exciting to talk about by April.

Microsoft’s customer success team, our partners from Avanade, and even a few of our developers welcomed everyone on the expo floor to get hands on with Copilot. It’s changing everything and that’s both thrilling and daunting. Next door at TED, Mustafa Suleyman was delivering his talk on AI, noting that… “the journeys of humanity and technology are now deeply intertwined.”

The presenters at INNOVATEwest shared a similar narrative. Canadian companies are among the global leaders in AI, robotics and quantum. But there’s much we need to do to stay competitive. I heard many speakers call for greater commercialization opportunities for home grown tech. There was a lot of good advice. Followed up by the in-person meetings that might spark something new. That’s the magic you can’t get in a webinar.

I saw similar messages in social posts – “If Canada’s productivity crisis can be tackled through Canadian-made innovations, this is a fantastic launch pad for showcasing them.” – Kim Bowie, Founder of Kimber Ink and… “these grassroots events are essential for building our community and defining who we are.” – Edoardo De Martin, CEO of IndustrioAI

Two days of sharing space, big picture thinking, tactical tips and chance meetings was exactly what I needed from INNOVATEwest. And I can’t wait to see ripples across the industry in the coming months.