3...2...1...CanBrand lift off: did we just become THE place?

Forget digital shift. Has Canada had a paradigm shift? In 2017, did we become THE PLACE on the planet?

Because I work at the intersections of media, brand, and exponential technologies, this Fall I was invited to a dizzying set of events. Midway through, I sensed something big happening. Here. 

In the last few months, Canada has aligned with (perhaps most significantly, not against) global disruptions leading the Fourth Industrial Revolution. I count more than a half-dozen major announcements in the recent quake.

In particular, three deals make it feel like Canada’s global brand has transformed from nice (does not believe in guns; does believe in universal health care) to planetary leadership.

 They are: (1) Creative Canada; (2) Singularity University Canada; (3) Sidewalk Labs.

 #1: CREATIVE CANADA

Launched September 28, 2017, by Honourable Minister of Canadian Heritage, Melanie Joly, the Creative Canada media playbook stunned many, by pivoting from a more than a half-century of a protectionist policy framework. In 30 succinct pages, Creative Canada modernized our media ecosystem for the 21st century, by aligning it with the transformative forces in the global market and an implicit belief that open competition builds strength. Creative Canada features partnerships with Netflix (drama), Facebook (news), Google (news), Amazon Audible (books), and Spotify (music). 

Since it’s now acknowledged that media digitization was the learning curve for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, currently spreading through every sector, Creative Canada sends a message that Canada intends to play on the global stage.

Canada’s low innovation ranking may be our present (per Conference Board of Canada, (13th of 16 peer countries) – but it won’t be our future.

As a university teacher of graduate media students, my instinct is that having the government's wind at their back, with a stated mission to create content that wins the battle for global attention, will bring on a golden age for our content makers, for Canadian creativity, and for CanBrand the world over.

 #2: SINGULARITY UNIVERSITY CANADA

As an alumnus of Singularity University Executive Program in Mountain View, California, it was exciting enough that Toronto hosted a Singularity Summit on October 11-12, held at the Brickworks. The local event was every bit as over-stimulating as the Silicon Valley edition, with cutting-edge speakers and standing ovations. 

But the stunner was the finale announcement:

Canada will be Singularity University's first permanent presence outside Silicon Valley, and will kick off May 2018 with the first ever SU Executive Program outside Mountain View. This initiative guarantees Canada a front-row seat to the accelerating knowledge, innovations, and disruptions happening around the world.

The World Economic Forum Global Competitive Report on every country on the planet may have identified innovation as Canada's top business challenge -- but no more.

 #3: SIDEWALK LABS

Unlike media, the newest wave of disruptions (in arenas such as health, transportation, manufacturing) require on-the-ground infrastructure partnerships, which brings me to #3: Sidewalk Labs.

On October 18, 2017 Alphabet subsidiary, Sidewalk Labs, announced Toronto has been chosen to be the site of a pilot project to design a city of the future.

Phase 1 of the 50 million dollar deal with Waterfront Toronto will develop a parcel of land deploying such technologies as self-driving vehicles, high-tech construction, with a people-centred streetscape dominated by bike paths and walkways.

THERE’S MORE

There was Google’s Go North conference, which built on Toronto’s reputation as the global centre of AI, underscored by last Spring’s announcement of the University of Toronto’s Vector Institute, led by head of Google Brain, Canadian Geoffrey Hinton.

Another Canadian Silicon Valley icon, Salim Ismail, Founding Executive Director of Singularity University, XPrize Board member, and lead speaker at October’s SU Summit Canada, announced his second ever ExO Summit will be next month in Toronto (January 2018) and the initiative is partnering with Ryerson University grad students in Ted Rogers MBA and FCAD for the exponential rankings of the TSX60.

There’s Facebook’s partnership with Ryerson School of Journalism and the DMZ to address the global crisis in news and information. There’s Toronto Region Board of Trade’s initiative to upgrade the Kitchener-Waterloo innovation corridor. And not to mention, Vitalik Buterin, the teenage Torontonian who invented ethereum in 2013, a blockchain innovation being touted as the breakthrough digital cryptocurrency, with potential to disrupt global finance.

Plus plus. What a season it’s been. What a year. Cheers.