After months of preparing for all of the city-wide festivities, Elevate's first day is officially over! For the uninitiated, Elevate is a must-attend destination for tech leaders, investors, and creators. The multi-day event features some of the most inspiring keynotes in the industry along with topical content streams, experiential programming and to top it off, epic social events. This year Elevate speakers include the likes of Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe-Herd, Loblaws CEO Galen Weston, Al Gore and more.
That being said, let's dive into what happened on the Main Stage at Elevate during Day One. Here we go!
Elevate kicked off by discussing the inspiring topic of 'How Canada Wins' with notable Canadian founder and CEO Tobi Lütke of Shopify and Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, Navdeep Bains. The discussion spanned from detailing a new program from Shopify in conjunction with York University where you earn a Computer Science degree by actually working at companies to Navdeep Bains sharing how the federal government is working to bring high speed Internet to rural areas. Oh, and then they opened with TSX with Elevate co-founders and 100 NextGen youth effectively making it the biggest TSX opening in Canada - ever!
Our gov’t is reviewing the recommendations from the Tables to strengthen our plan for jobs and growth. Gov’t does not have all the solutions, but when we collaborate, we can build a more robust economy for all Canadians. — Navdeep Bains (@NavdeepSBains) September 25, 2018
Next up, Elevate co-founder Razor Suleman had a fireside-style chat with Bumble CEO and Founder Whitney Wolfe-Herd. The former cofounder of Tinder discussed the mistreatment she faced following her exit from the company and why she decided to swipe right on the female-empowered solution we now know as Bumble. Whitney further discussed how we can engineer technology to promote equality, respect, and accountability online and her ambition to take her mission offline to impact government legislation!
. shares her powerful story that lead to the female empowerment platform 🙌👊 — Nomi Cuneo (@nomicuneo) September 25, 2018
After that, up to bat was Square's CFO, Sarah Friar, one of the most influential leaders in fintech today joined by BNN Bloomberg anchor Amanda Lang. Sarah talked about the changing landscape of the financial system, the shift to omnichannel, whether it’s a side hustle or Walmart and why she's a passionate advocate for cashless future.
"To build a remarkable product you have to understand customer struggle." - , CFO of speaking with on the future of finance and banking at . — Canadian Women's Chamber of Commerce (@can_wcc) September 25, 2018
Galen Weston, fourth-generation family leader of George Weston Limited and Loblaws, gave a quick 15 minute keynote on the challenges and exciting opportunities for that modern retail provides to help Canadians live better lives everyday through digital advancements.
Interesting stat from : 80% of people do NOT know what they will eat for dinner today by 4:00pm 🤔 Galen G Weston talks — Genumark (@genumark) September 25, 2018
Next up was Ananya Chadha who spoke about her efforts to determine out how tech can be implanted into human brains, and what that means for humanity. Oh yeah, and she's only 16 years old!
is a 16 year old wunderkind working on everything from VR to brain computer interfaces, many areas where leads... can we get her an early acceptance? — Mike D (@mikedipaul) September 25, 2018
After that we went 'Back to School' with acclaimed artist and producer, Wyclef Jean. Wyclef caught us up on some of his latest projects, including disrupting music with a hiphop guitar, how music and technology can come together for a better future along with discovering new talent and a few of his new projects. All capped off with an incredible rap which you can hear for yourself linked below!
freestyles in five languages. Check out this clip! — Alecia Maragh (@AleciaMaragh1) September 25, 2018
Next the spotlight was on 'Bold Brands' featuring with Julie Rice, Chief Brand Officer of WeWork and Cofounder of SoulCycle and Lydia Dishman, Reporter of Fast Company. Julie delved into how “bold brands” build and foster communities of not only customers but people. She also touched on the importance of trusting yourself as a new entrepreneur.
Julie Rice, Partner , founder in conversation with : Titans like Apple are creating software to get us off our phones. “What is going to be the new town square, the new community centre?” We need to talk to each other. — North South Capital (@northsouthcap) September 25, 2018
Moving on, we learned about Building $1 Billion Companies with industry heavy-hitters Michelle Zatlyn, Cofounder & COO of Cloudflare and Ted Livingston, Founder & CEO, Kik. Ted was refreshingly candid about moving on from the consumer game and instead focusing on new territory - crypto. Plus, his love for Kitchener-Waterloo, which he suggests rebrands as 'Co-op Valley' as it's student base is such a hot commodity.
“We made a . Copied. We made a feature. Copied. We just go into and im sure we will be copied once again!” - , CEO of giving us the most candid responses at — YSpace Markham (@YSpaceYU) September 25, 2018
Time for ElevateR Pitch Finals! These pitches welcomed AI companies to compete for the attention of international media, investors and global tech leaders alike. 16 finalists from across Canada competed March-madness style to get down to the final 2: Aifred Health and Elucid Labs. In the end, Elucid Labs, a MedTech company that develops augmented intelligence imaging solution for early detection and diagnosis of skin cancer, won out to be dubbed Canada's most promising AI company. Plus, Daisy Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence to help you solve optimization questions to increase business revenue, won not only People's Choice but a whopping $5 million investment from Espresso Capital.
This is tech in Canada! A $1M pitch competition turns into a $5M prize once the judges / investors heard their pitch! Huge congrats to and . (Shout out to winning. Canada's Most Promising AI Company !) — Sam Dumcum (@SamDumcum) September 25, 2018
As we neared the end of the day, former Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt talked about the importance of being on the cusp of another industrial revolution, this time a digital one - especially in Canada.
“This is not a zero sum game. We can win. The start-ups can win. And in all cases, Canada can win.” - Eric Schmidt on Google’s involvement in at — Tariq Baig (@TariqABaig) September 25, 2018
The final speaker of the day was none other than former Vice President of the United States and renowned environmentalist, Al Gore. He spoke passionately about the sustainable revolution and how we can innovate to effectively make the world a better place. Unsurprisingly, his talk alongside Eric Schmidt was met with a standing ovation.
Al Gore and Eric Schmidt discussing how technology can drive positive global change. A sustainability revolution is possible and would have "the magnitude of industrial revolution and speed of digital revolution". Canada has to be part of this. — George Poulakidas (@George_P_) September 26, 2018
Now you're all caught up on Day One, stay tuned to find out all of the exciting and innovative tracks from Elevate Day 2!