This trip comprises 4 intense days and networking in the heart of the Canadian tech boom.
Competition on Social is fierce, and it is critical that your company has the right understanding of approaches to and materials of innovation to rethink its workflows, distribution strategy, and ultimately its monetization model.
- Learn lessons of innovation drawn from both traditional publishers and companies who live and breath innovation
- Learn from niche news players that drip feed highlights from their best stories to get you hooked on high value subscriptions OR tell stories for targeted audiences that advertisers love
- Discover game-changing platforms that have built beautiful UX, media startups and incubators
Rather than just looking at replicating case studies hard to emulate from one market to another, the focus of the Study Tour is developing understandings of approaches to and materials of innovation to rethink the publishers monetization model.
New products, new trends
Burgeoning tech companies are on the rise in Canada, attracting funding and IPO buzz in hubs across the country.
According to the World Bank, Canada is the second best place in the world for starting a business. Canada is home to three of the top 20 startup ecosystems in the world. According to CrunchBase and Compass in their report Global Startup Ecosystems annual ranking, half of the world’s leading startup ecosystems are in the U.S. and Canada.
In 2015, venture capital funds invested in Canada over $2.3 billion in 536 transactions.16 Using venture capital investments as an indicator of startup activity, the two provinces with the most activity are Ontario (41.6%) and Quebec (30.7%). Together with British Columbia, the three provinces account for 92.2% of total venture capital investments in Canada.
Networking
Our immersive study tours is a fascinating opportunity to engage among the group’s participants. We make sure that our programme leaves enough room for internal discussions and debates that add the right perspective to our in person discussions and on site visits.
Face to face meetings
Sometimes the best discussions are in person. Whether it’s sitting with world class leaders and forward thinking media entrepreneurs, whether it is the CFO from Thomson Reuters Group worldwide, the top executives from The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, La Presse, Transcontinental, or outside in the sunshine at a café table in Montreal with one of the top early-stage venture capital firms highlighting the who’s who of the Canadian startup and hearing about innovation trends in the country.
As part of our programme we will have face to face and individual meetings with key industry executives and a series of peer-to-peer conversations. You will benefit from individual assistance by dedicated expert staff who arrange the visits, make the connections and accompany the group.
THE TORONTO-WATERLOO INNOVATION CORRIDOR
According to the 2015 Deloitte Fast 50, nearly 50% of Canada’s fastest growing tech companies are from Ontario. The Toronto-Waterloo corridor is home to 30 percent of Canada’s university students and 21 percent of the country’s population as well as the majority of its corporate headquarters, Canadian industry-led R&D spending and venture capital.
The Toronto-Waterloo Region Corridor is one of the largest technology clusters in the world and offers a rich mix of emerging and mature technology talent and a robust pipeline of development graduates from local universities. Proximity to large and strategic customers also enables rapid, customer-driven innovation, particularly in Toronto’s fast growing fintech community. With its strong research universities and technical colleges, major international airport, population density (more than six million), vibrant immigration and nascent entrepreneurship culture, the Toronto-Waterloo corridor already has many of the ingredients essential to building a Silicon Valley-like innovation super ecosystem in Canada.
MONTREAL’S INNOVATION HUB
Montreal is not Silicon Valley or Route 128 but it has the right mix of culture, talent, and knowledge to foster high-
impact innovation. It is no secret that Montreal has a vibrant and growing startup community.
As most Montrealers know, the metropolis consistently ranks among the most livable cities in the world – a crucial factor in drawing the best and brightest to the area. Montreal also draws strength from its incredible diversity: nearly one-third of the city’s population was born outside of Canada. Add to these the fact that Montreal is Canada’s largest university city. With 170,000 students in the metropolitan area, Montreal now outranks even Boston – and 27,000 of these are studying in technology fields.