For all it’s current acclaim, Silicon Valley has a problem.  While an abundance of capital, ideas, energy, and motivation is obvious, there’s also a growing shortage of engineering and design talent.  The Valley is becoming increasingly overfunded, but increasingly under-resourced – a condition which represents huge opportunity for Canadian cities.

This was why on Nov. 1st, we organized a CTO dinner in Vancouver.  Short flights to the Bay area, a high desire of Canadians and foreigners to live in Vancouver, leading technology institutes,  and an already existing and growing startup ecosystem all prime Vancouver to take it’s spot as a natural extension to Silicon Valley, and a consumer technology hub … and if that happens, it’ll be lead by designers and engineers … not MBA’s.

One challenges in achieving this vision is often not talked about:  Establishing a network of technology leaders / CTO’s  with experience building and scaling technology and teams.  CTO’s, unlike their CEO peers, don’t always have networking and socializing baked into their DNA’s.  This is obviously a hugely exaggerated stereotype, but they’re often builders, spending most of their current time, and certainly their past, hacking away building amazing product and technology.  Sharing war stories about scaling their technology and teams benefits the whole … experienced leaders, home brewed leaders, and new comers alike.  It’s something you see in the valley all the time … but not in Canada.  Hopefully we see more of this to come in Canada.