While everyone in Quebec and Ontario were doing the shake-rattle-and-roll, the Silicon Valley establishment was playing host to Russia’s President Medvedev.
Apparently having your economy rely solely on exporting oil and mafia dons isn’yt considered sound economic policy so Medvedev got his buddy Ivan Danko to show him around the at likes of Twitter and Cisco.
In case you’ve been living in Siberia and haven’t heard, Russia wants to build its own Silicon Valley from scratch in a town outside of Moscow. So we guess Medvedev was asking around for the “how to” manual.
This reminded us of a brief discussion we had over at the C100 website a few weeks back. You can check out the comments over there, but we’ve also reposted here to continue to spur a bit of debate…
Does Canada need its own Silicon Valley?
Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at 03:37AM
OK, I’m going to pull the pin and lob a rhetorical grenade to get a discussion going…
Have you head of Skolkovo, Russia? No? Apparently it is somewhere near Moscow and is the future home of Russia’s Silicon Valley. What? You don’t believe it? Well some US investors sure do, to the tune of $250 million. And this isn’t the only government backed innovation center that is being built from the ground up. There may be a Silicon Valley being built up in Russia but the Dubai has its sites firmly set to be the 21stSilicon Oasis. Century’s
Both these locations have or are attracting talented engineers. Both of these locations have or are attracting massive amounts of capital.
And they aren’t the only two countries that are trying to build their own flavor of Silicon Valley. There are probably a dozen similar projects in a dozen countries around the world. But one country that isn’t embarking on its own Silicon Valley master plan is Canada.
If a US PE can come up with 250 million reasons why Russia will successfully build the next hub of innovation, surely Canada, with its improving investment climate and its refreshing lack of mafia domination could convince investors to put some green in the Great White North.
Is Canada missing the boat? Does it need to create a chilly Silicon Valley somewhere near Alert in order to compete in the global high-tech market?
Discuss…..
Canada has Toronto, Waterloo, Montreal and Ottawa as all pretty big tech hubs. Being in Toronto I notice so many new companies and attributes that would come from a Silicon Valley type place brewing here, so I don't think we're missing the boat persay.
Canada has Toronto, Waterloo, Montreal and Ottawa as all pretty big tech hubs. Being in Toronto I notice so many new companies and attributes that would come from a Silicon Valley type place brewing here, so I don’t think we’re missing the boat persay.
I think when you consider the climate in the US, you could argue that the talent and tech is dispersing from the Valley, and I say that as a Stanford grad…but a Chicago native. Look to the upstarts in the Midwest, with Groupon leading the charge, and it didn't surprise me that the last time I was in the Valley most of the companies people were talking about were elsewhere. New York and Foursquare is an easy example.
I'm obviously biased, as a founder here, but I think Vancouver is equally qualified to set the stage for a Canadian stamp on tomorrow's tech innovation. You also have an IPO filing in Calgary for $730M. All in all, I think the high-tech innovation is happening and it needs all the support that Canadian enterprise and government can muster so that we remain competitive going forward.
I think when you consider the climate in the US, you could argue that the talent and tech is dispersing from the Valley, and I say that as a Stanford grad…but a Chicago native. Look to the upstarts in the Midwest, with Groupon leading the charge, and it didn’t surprise me that the last time I was in the Valley most of the companies people were talking about were elsewhere. New York and Foursquare is an easy example.
I’m obviously biased, as a founder here, but I think Vancouver is equally qualified to set the stage for a Canadian stamp on tomorrow’s tech innovation. You also have an IPO filing in Calgary for $730M. All in all, I think the high-tech innovation is happening and it needs all the support that Canadian enterprise and government can muster so that we remain competitive going forward.
Not only do I not believe that Canada is missing the boat (sorry about the double-negative), but I believe that the attempts to “replicate” Silicon Valley elsewhere are foolish and missing the point.
The best historical parallel to this are the numerous attempts at recreating Hollywood. Yes, everyone knows of Bollywood, but the vast majority of people don't know about the Mexican, British, and Russian attempts, among others. All of those ended up failing miserably; in fact, the Russian one (Stalin's “Soyuzkino”) stands out the most in my mind. It's not that there weren't great successes and monumental films made — there were. The problem was that applying Hollywood's processes, ideologies, and culture wasn't sustainable.
Taking a look at Bollywood (as it's actually an inspiring example of exporting an innovation center to a new culture), one can argue that its two most important differentiators are: 1) that they manage to maintain their own culture and philosophies (particularly “rasa sutra”, or the blending of emotions as if spices in food) in an industrialized system modeled on Hollywood's, and 2) that they embrace markedly different output from Hollywood, filming for India, not for an export culture.
Bringing this cinematic parallel (yes, I was a Cinema Studies student) back to startups, this talk of “bringing the Silicon Valley to [insert location here]” worries me. The Valley has established itself as a hub for certain types of startups already — much like Hollywood has established itself as the #1 place to build a blockbuster. And, while there are definitely lessons to be learned regarding how to iterate towards a specific culture or expertise, I believe that any plan to “replicate” the Valley will ultimately fail unless it takes into account 1) the cultural foundation they're building on top of, and 2) what sort of companies their community, city, and country can build and sustain.
Not only do I not believe that Canada is missing the boat (sorry about the double-negative), but I believe that the attempts to “replicate” Silicon Valley elsewhere are foolish and missing the point.nnThe best historical parallel to this are the numerous attempts at recreating Hollywood. Yes, everyone knows of Bollywood, but the vast majority of people don’t know about the Mexican, British, and Russian attempts, among others. All of those ended up failing miserably; in fact, the Russian one (Stalin’s “Soyuzkino”) stands out the most in my mind. It’s not that there weren’t great successes and monumental films made — there were. The problem was that applying Hollywood’s processes, ideologies, and culture wasn’t sustainable.nnTaking a look at Bollywood (as it’s actually an inspiring example of exporting an innovation center to a new culture), one can argue that its two most important differentiators are: 1) that they manage to maintain their own culture and philosophies (particularly “rasa sutra”, or the blending of emotions as if spices in food) in an industrialized system modeled on Hollywood’s, and 2) that they embrace markedly different output from Hollywood, filming for India, not for an export culture.nnBringing this cinematic parallel (yes, I was a Cinema Studies student) back to startups, this talk of “bringing the Silicon Valley to [insert location here]” worries me. The Valley has established itself as a hub for certain types of startups already — much like Hollywood has established itself as the #1 place to build a blockbuster. And, while there are definitely lessons to be learned regarding how to iterate towards a specific culture or expertise, I believe that any plan to “replicate” the Valley will ultimately fail unless it takes into account 1) the cultural foundation they’re building on top of, and 2) what sort of companies their community, city, and country can build and sustain.
Not only do I not believe that Canada is missing the boat (sorry about the double-negative), but I believe that the attempts to “replicate” Silicon Valley elsewhere are foolish and missing the point.
The best historical parallel to this are the numerous attempts at recreating Hollywood. Yes, everyone knows of Bollywood, but the vast majority of people don’t know about the Mexican, British, and Russian attempts, among others. All of those ended up failing miserably; in fact, the Russian one (Stalin’s “Soyuzkino”) stands out the most in my mind. It’s not that there weren’t great successes and monumental films made — there were. The problem was that applying Hollywood’s processes, ideologies, and culture wasn’t sustainable.
Taking a look at Bollywood (as it’s actually an inspiring example of exporting an innovation center to a new culture), one can argue that its two most important differentiators are: 1) that they manage to maintain their own culture and philosophies (particularly “rasa sutra”, or the blending of emotions as if spices in food) in an industrialized system modeled on Hollywood’s, and 2) that they embrace markedly different output from Hollywood, filming for India, not for an export culture.
Bringing this cinematic parallel (yes, I was a Cinema Studies student) back to startups, this talk of “bringing the Silicon Valley to [insert location here]” worries me. The Valley has established itself as a hub for certain types of startups already — much like Hollywood has established itself as the #1 place to build a blockbuster. And, while there are definitely lessons to be learned regarding how to iterate towards a specific culture or expertise, I believe that any plan to “replicate” the Valley will ultimately fail unless it takes into account 1) the cultural foundation they’re building on top of, and 2) what sort of companies their community, city, and country can build and sustain.