Brain Gain in Toronto?
Recent US political drama, a growing AI scene and openness to immigrants could be fertile ground for Toronto’s rise as a North American entrepreneurial hub and its ability to attract the best global talent.
By Kajal Sanghrajka, @kajalnyclon
Following the US election, Canada’s immigration website famously crashed. While there was no immediate exodus, few probably know that Canada has the 4th largest city in North America, Toronto, making up 20% of its GDP. And entrepreneurship is a rising contributor with a recent global startup ecosystem report showing Toronto climbing up to 16th place.
Techstars co-founder David Brown recently announced the decision to open up in Toronto and in an interview with Betakit stated;
“It’s an advantage that Canada has … a stronger entrepreneurial ecosystem that takes advantage of fantastic immigrant entrepreneurs, they may want to come to North America, but not to the United States”
Canada’s voice on inclusion has been louder since the US election but “welcoming immigrants is nothing new here” explained Vanessa Pierson. She works with start-ups from MaRs Discovery District, a leading innovation hub in Toronto. Also a place which served me tea from a TeaBot, created by two Canadian engineering graduates.
A survey conducted in 2014 noted that 52% of MaRs founders were from overseas. I was introduced to one of their newest companies, fast growing Sheba MicroSystems founded by Tunisian born professor Dr Ridha Ben-Mrad. I quizzed him on why he moved to Canada after studying in the US “I am from the Mediterranean where people speak French and Arabic, multi culturism is important to me”.
Justin Trudeau has gone to great lengths to embed the spirit of multi-culturism through inclusive growth policies. He is cutting down immigration barriers with a new visa scheme to attract engineers which by the way was announced on Quora.
“We want to help high-growth companies bring in talent by slashing processing time for a Canada visa application from six months to just 10 business days”
But is reducing barriers for talent enough? I’d heard that Toronto has one of the most qualified set of Uber drivers — Canadian employers are reluctant to hire people without Canadian work experience.
A catch-22 which often leads even highly skilled new arrivals to necessity entrepreneurship with mixed results. “Immigrants are starting and launching businesses at the fastest rates but scaling is more of a challenge” explained Devon Franklin of Hire Immigrants.
For immigrant entrepreneurship to be economically transformative, integration of immigrants not just openness is key. “Integration is a two way process” explained Dr Usha George a professor and Vice President of Research and Innovation at Ryerson University. Integration success relies on preparation of both the business community and immigrants.
TRIEC (Toronto Regional Immigration Council) offers a number of programs to aid integration and what they call intercultural competence. Startups are also playing their part “We hold workshops to debunk myths about Latin American business” explained Miryam Lazarte founder of LatAm Startups which supports Latin American founders and engineering talent come to Toronto.
Timely given that Toronto’s technology companies generate $52 billion in annual revenues with momentum in several tech clusters that need the best brains to grow. “Kitchener-Waterloo-Toronto is an emerging AI corridor” said Nicola Sahar a medical student taking part in the Next 36 accelerator. “Is this just buzz or AI for real?” I asked Nicola and many others who spoke of the AI Gods descending on Toronto.
Turns out University of Toronto graduate Geoff Hinton, is the God of neural networks. He is also now the Chief Science advisor behind Toronto’s new AI Vector Institute — an initiative with $180m+ in investment and part of a wider effort to produce and retain top talent. Perhaps also reverse US brain drain — a topic mentioned by over 90% of people I spoke to.
Canada is also one of the top 5 agricultural economies so not all eggs are in the AI basket. During an AgTech conference I attended with Emerald Technology Ventures, I learnt of the various tech advances in areas including satellite imagery and indoor growing making it easier to innovate for improvements in farmer efficiency.
Motorleaf, recently included in CB Insights AgTech Market Map, had one of the most compelling pitches I’ve seen in a while. But following an afternoon of AgTech, the uneasy thought of algorithms/SaaS metrics in my food had me dreaming up a counter movement of non-tech invaded village farms.
At the end of the week in Toronto, I spoke with Malaysian immigrant entrepreneur Amirpouyan “Both my wife and I feel strongly about Canada, we’ve been given a good chance and the country has been good to its newcomers”. Though integration challenges persist, they are not insurmountable. A welcoming tone goes a long way to attracting global talent and setting the foundations for a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank the following people for their time and insights:
Miryam at LatAm Startups, Vanessa at MaRs, Anna and Helen at TRIEC, Michael at TrueNorth Ventures, Dr Usha George and Dr Stephen Liss at Ryerson University, Cathy at the Irish Canadian Immigration center, Neil at Emerald Ventures, Devon and Fatma at Hire Immigrants, Nick at Futurpreneur Canada, Gerard at New Horizons Media CA, Ridha at Sheba MicroSystems, Anna at AV Communications, Nicola at The Next 36 ventures, Brad at ElectricBrain, Amirpouyan at Helmfried.
And a special thanks to the following for their support on Toronto research:
Ilya at VanHack, Cedric at Emerald Ventures, Allison at Mama Organics
About the Transatlantic Post
Written and edited by Kajal Sanghrajka, founder of Growth Hub and a 2017–18 Churchill Fellow, the Post provides an insider look at entrepreneurial ecosystems in cities across Europe/North America.
We interview pioneers at the frontlines of each city’s entrepreneurial ecosystem with an emphasis on how cities attract and integrate global immigrant entrepreneurs. We report from a different city each month in 2017. You receive findings via a special email letter at the end of each month.
The full version is published via email only, sign up here.
