5 ms·

Seconded! Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver are all large and distinct tech hubs.

by monkeybutton 5y ago

munk-a 5y ago
I like that list except Waterloo - I think if you're going to make a serious argument about Waterloo than Berkeley/Oakland would be a separate hub from Silicon Valley - and ditto for Worchester, Boston and Cambridge MA. Waterloo definitely has its own thing going on but it's pretty darn close to being an offshoot of Toronto at this point.
- monkeybutton 5y ago
  Well I don't personally have a horse in that race. I'd definitely be interested in seeing the results for a regional Canadian poll though.
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  There are definitely people who commute all over the GTA, but I still feel like Waterloo Region is culturally distinct from Toronto proper— Google and Facebook are in Waterloo; there's the devices heritage from Blackberry and then later companies like Thalmic and Pebble; there's the robotics presence in Waterloo with Clearpath, Voyis, Avidbots, and Aeryon/FLIR; and finally there's networking companies like Blue Coat, Sandvine, and Arctic Wolf. I guess I don't know as much about the Toronto scene, but based on the recruitment emails, it seems to be a lot more fintech, game/mobile dev, and big data analytics stuff.
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > there's the devices heritage from Blackberry and then later companies like Thalmic and Pebble Wouldn't brag about these to be honnest.
    - mikepurvis 5y ago
      No, it's not a brag— but they were all pretty influential and continue to cast a long shadow over the tech culture of the region. Particularly Blackberry, since it made a lot of staff very wealthy, who then went on to found, advise, invest-in, and work-for other companies using those skills. It's not hard to look around Communitech and clearly see a bunch of startups still running essentially on BlackBerry money.

5 ms·

Seconded! Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver are all large and distinct tech hubs.

by monkeybutton 5y ago

Seconded! Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver are all large and distinct tech hubs.

munk-a 5y ago
I like that list except Waterloo - I think if you're going to make a serious argument about Waterloo than Berkeley/Oakland would be a separate hub from Silicon Valley - and ditto for Worchester, Boston and Cambridge MA. Waterloo definitely has its own thing going on but it's pretty darn close to being an offshoot of Toronto at this point.
- monkeybutton 5y ago
  Well I don't personally have a horse in that race. I'd definitely be interested in seeing the results for a regional Canadian poll though.
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  There are definitely people who commute all over the GTA, but I still feel like Waterloo Region is culturally distinct from Toronto proper— Google and Facebook are in Waterloo; there's the devices heritage from Blackberry and then later companies like Thalmic and Pebble; there's the robotics presence in Waterloo with Clearpath, Voyis, Avidbots, and Aeryon/FLIR; and finally there's networking companies like Blue Coat, Sandvine, and Arctic Wolf. I guess I don't know as much about the Toronto scene, but based on the recruitment emails, it seems to be a lot more fintech, game/mobile dev, and big data analytics stuff.
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > there's the devices heritage from Blackberry and then later companies like Thalmic and Pebble Wouldn't brag about these to be honnest.
    - mikepurvis 5y ago
      No, it's not a brag— but they were all pretty influential and continue to cast a long shadow over the tech culture of the region. Particularly Blackberry, since it made a lot of staff very wealthy, who then went on to found, advise, invest-in, and work-for other companies using those skills. It's not hard to look around Communitech and clearly see a bunch of startups still running essentially on BlackBerry money.