Innodirect Event: Collision Conference 2019

The Collision Conference has been referred to as the “Coachella for geeks”, the “Davos for dorks” and the “spring break for nerds”. Call it what you may, we were there – and, yes, it lived up to its hype.

Held at the Enercare Center near downtown Toronto from the 20-23 May, the colossal conference hosted almost 26,000 attendees, companies, experts and celebrity speakers from across the globe.  

If you think an event of this magnitude would be fragmented, you’d be wrong. In fact, there was a definite common thread running throughout the four days of talks and exhibitions. Focus was clearly on unity. More specifically, the need to develop technology’s unifying potential – a sentiment first sown by Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, on opening night.

 

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Technology as a unifying force 

In his on-stage discussion with Shahrzad Rafati (founder and CEO of Broadband TV), Trudeau stressed the benefits of inclusion, collaboration, and diversity in the tech industry, saying, “you get better, robust and resilient solutions when you embrace diversity within the team.”

Trudeau went on to implore tech companies, as they were leading the way forward with their innovations, to be conscious of both the polarising and unifying forces of technology on society. He emphasised the need to focus on the latter force, concluding that, “if we don’t succeed in bringing people together, we will fail separately.” 

This line of thinking continued to weave its way through the talks over the next few days. Actor and entrepreneur, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, for example, spoke openly on the struggle to remain creative in an increasingly individualized, digital world – something he aims to overcome with his collaborative online community, HITRECORD.

Collaboration, diversity and inclusion: the future of work

Collaboration was also the focal point in the talk, Design your Brand to Disrupt. Speakers, Pamela Pavliscak (Change Sciences), Dan Gardner (Code and Theory), Sairah Ashman (Wolff Olins) and Leah Hunter (Fast Company), discussed the need to combat the isolating potential of tech by shifting our attention toward its potential for connection, communication and collaboration. They agreed that disruptive, diverse, inspirational brands are born from having fewer collaborative barriers, and encouraged businesses to open themselves up to innovation by reaching across their silos and biases. “What we need is more thinking big together”, said Pavliscak.

 

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This sentiment was echoed by the speakers in The Future of Work talk; “people don’t want to be siloed” said speaker Sarah Nahm, CEO of Lever. Instead, tomorrow’s workforce (dominated primarily by millennials) will call for increased diversity in the workplace. And diversity, according Nahm, is an issue companies urgently need to address. “Unconscious bias by recruiters is still an issue”, she said.

It’s true that tech companies still have a long way to go in the creation of a more diverse workforce, but there were some positive signs of a shift in this direction at Collision. 45.7% of the conference’s attendees this year were female, and a concerted effort was made to encourage women to attend and participate. There was a dedicated Women in Tech section that spotlighted female leaders, not to mention an impressive collection of high-profile female speakers.

Innodirect: in step with tech

Out on the event floor, the theme of diversity, collaboration and inclusion continued. There were numerous tech companies, from startups to big names, focussing on collaboration. Our favourite had to be Toronto-based startup, Cinchy – a genius enterprise data collaboration platform that enables businesses to manage all their moving parts in a stunningly visual way.

 

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During the event, we met countless motivated individuals whose enthusiasm for the idea of Innodirect gave us a real boost in our sense of purpose in the tech industry. Our day spent chatting to curious attendees at our allocated stand was overwhelmingly positive. 

We came away from the conference with the sense that those who are moving technology forward today are concentrating strongly on inclusivity, diversity and collaboration – aspects that are totally in-step with our objectives here at Innodirect.

 

By Kirsten Sokolovski