Feb 4, 2020

Mike McDerment, CEO/Co-Founder, Freshbooks "Toronto is emerging as a technology hub and attracting increased investment, including ours, because of forward thinking government and amazing access to technology, an incredible talent pool and leading educational institutions, as well as industries and markets in healthcare and financial services.” Dr. Rick Huijbregts, Vice-President, Industry Transformation, Cisco Canada “The scale and quality of meet-ups and conferences and speaking events have gone up dramatically. You don’t need to leave Toronto to build a successful company.” Evgeny Tchebotarev, Co-Founder, 500px "If you come to our studio and take a look at the people sitting around the table discussing ideas, they’re from almost every part of the world. I think it has really helped Umbra create an international style.” Paul Rowan, Co-Founder and VP Inspiration, Umbra “In Toronto, Bombardier manufactures business and commercial aircraft and relies on the diversified, local regional supply chain. We work with more than 70 suppliers located in the Greater Toronto Area and we benefit from a variety of expertise going from complex machining to systems integration.” Graham Kelly, Vice-President, Global Operations & Toronto Site, Bombardier Aerospace "Startups in Toronto benefit from support at every stage. From the very early stage we have incubators, accelerators and seed stage investors. In the growth stage, we have funders willing to invest a lot of money to really help a company take-off. This gives tech companies in Toronto a huge advantage.” Allen Lau, CEO & Co-Founder, Wattpad "A culture of collaboration is really at the heart of what’s next in innovation. What’s exciting in Toronto is that we have local and international businesses partnering with the startup ecosystem and increasingly with the academic community to position themselves for success in the future. And it’s happening across the spectrum from digital media and information technology, to life sciences and healthcare, energy solutions and social innovation.” Dr. Ilse Treurnicht, CEO, MaRS Discovery District “Something that makes Toronto truly unique is that willingness to share and communicate with people very openly inside the industry looking at the global pie as something we can all co-create and achieve together.” Satish Kanwar, Director of Product, Shopify /