Transcription
Rainforests: thriving ecosystems, wild, messy, and unplanned, rich with potential, full of surprises. There, the conditions are so perfect, anything might grow. But we don't live in a rainforest, do we?
This is Alberta: a vast expanse of hard terrain, boxed in by the frozen north, arid Badlands, windswept foothills, and in the West, mountains so rocky that's the only name anyone could think to give them. But still, people do thrive here. At the dawn of each phase of Alberta's growth, it was community leadership and invention that saw us through. And now we find ourselves at the advent of a new phase for Alberta, a new opportunity. How can we overcome our obstacles so today's Alberta can participate and thrive in this rapidly changing digital age? Let's do it the Alberta way: with community leadership and invention.
Unlike previous years, we won't be burdened by overcoming Alberta's physical terrain or climate. In the digital economy, we have the benefit of being able to create our own ecosystem: wild, messy, and unplanned, where anything has a chance to grow. Together, we can create a rainforest of innovation right here in Alberta.
In 2016, we invited a cross-section of 60 innovators, doers, strategists, and thought leaders to a summit in Banff to discuss how we can grow and shape our ecosystem to support innovation. They considered the essential parts of a nurturing rainforest culture: leadership, resources like talent, ideas, and capital, engaged activities, policy and infrastructure, and role models. We must maintain this balance and remember that a trusting culture is more important than any individual strategy.
The Banff summit attendees also measured how Alberta scores in comparison to the ideal. These numbers might surprise you, but they shouldn't worry you. We can strike the right balance and strengthen our ecosystem with help from the right people. And that's where you come in.
Rainforest Alberta is a conversation, but more than that, it's an inclusive, silo-busting, sector-agnostic, ego-free, entrepreneur-focused, barrier-smashing community. And you're invited to join that community. We need you to lead and invent and to commit to a trusting culture by signing the social contract.