 to 7 o'clock tonight. So let's get started. We've got a busy morning here. We've got a lot of Rockstar tech people here today and here the champion of technology in BC. I want to introduce the Minister of Technology, Innovation and Citizen Services, the Honorable Amrik Furq. Give him a big hand. Thank you very much. Thank you Mike. Well Mike thank you very much for the introduction and and all you friends of curiosity and critical thinking. Welcome Minister Baines. Welcome again to to British Columbia where Canada starts here we'd like to say. It's an honor to be on the traditional territories of Koshaelish and recognize the Musqueam, the Selytuth and the Squanish people folks. We're the tradition of government to recognize, look over our shoulder, recognize the past and we thank them. So welcome to the second day of the Tech Summit. The largest gathering not only in British Columbia, the largest gathering in Canada of a technology sector. It's absolutely incredible and and innovation is indeed fueling technology sector in every region of our province and and it's I take such pleasure in being a champion of this industry so that I believe in so wholeheartedly and when I look around the room in BC I see the face of Canada reflected right here. The fact that every language, every city, every country and perhaps every province in every other state is reflected in our in our face. We're a country in a province that respects diversity, respects language, respects whether you pray to the east or the west. That's BC and that's Canada and that's our industry as well. It's got a unique blend of scientific curiosity and it's got a unique blend of business acumen. It's got an equal mixture of brains and heart and it's collectively punching above its weight in the global world. That's BC's tech scene. It's having a profound and a positive impact on every industry in our society and it's transforming I like to think it's transforming not only our province, our country but it's transforming the world right from here in British Columbia. So this is second tech summit is a celebration inspired by you. Your passion, your hard work, your preservation, your perseverance and that's why we have a tech sector we're celebrating and and your your hard work goes recognizing the 2017 global startup ecosystem report. So we are four million people out of four and a half billion on the planet and you know we were just recognized yesterday as the 15th largest cluster in the world. That's worth celebrating. That's worth a clap I think right? And BC was recognized just yesterday as having the number one tech ecosystem in Canada as well. Pretty darn good and here's here's a couple of quotes here's a couple of quotes from you know this is not government saying this this is an independent third body that Vancouver's consistently named as the one of the top worldwide cities for livability quality of life and one of Canada's top it's not one of Canada's it is Canada's top startup city. The city's legacy industries are well established and we have the legacy industries the the older companies that started but it's a top three in the world in clean tech clusters as well and the clean tech report just came out a few days ago as well. It is 30% of Canada's clean tech industry is right here in our own backyard isn't that phenomenal one of the top in the world and the top in the country right here in our own backyard. It's got one of the top 20 global fintech centers financial centers here in British Columbia a global film and production center that's near the top in the world in visual effects and animation. Dude we have a lot to be proud of don't we and it's growing at an incredible unprecedented rate so here's the numbers right now for the first time we're over a hundred thousand families in British Columbia are putting their daily bread or their daily roti on the table because of the tech sector that's BC right now and here's the early indicators and my ministry also handles BC stats as well too. The latest numbers is that we have 106,000 families that are employed in the tech space in this province and the moment I said 106,000 I was wrong because the company pivoted and new one started in that garage or that basement and a new one was acquired and a couple came together and the number maybe 106,020 by this afternoon and maybe 106,030 that's the growth that I'm seeing. Tech and BC now employs more than oil gas mining and forestry combined and that's the size of your space in this province right now. A bunch of different verticals all the way from clean tech, life sciences, ICT, wireless, gamers, entertainment, AR, VR and the list goes on it's thriving and for the five consecutive years tech salaries have risen 75 percent higher than the average industrial wage in BC and this is more than a trend line it's getting a lot of traction it's having positive effects and industries all across the province as well and I don't think government did this we listened to you and you did this and we want to be the enabler the catalyst to help you grow and become stronger. So in 2016 our government consulted with the tech sector very extensively and I see some of the presidents and CEOs of a tech space I see the president of the premier tech council we consulted with the industry to determine what role could we play how could we become a catalyst to support you as the industry and it was through that process that the industry not government but industry identified its priorities initiatives that would help you become stronger and that became the backbone of our tech strategy and it was a key component of our jobs plan to build a competitive diversified expert or export oriented economy and not only right here within a kilometer not only in Vancouver but all across the province or we released our first tech tech strategy last year in January it's an evolving strategy it's not a mission accomplished it's a mission in progress and so it was the first of its kind in the country and it will be the first of many to come it's based on three pillars capital talent and markets not rocket science just exactly what the tech sector wanted and there's 50 strategies completed or underway and they'll always be underway because we were never done and yesterday let me recap how many were in the crowd when the premier announced a whole bunch of new initiatives were a lot of people in the crowd yesterday there what do you guys think it's a pretty good initiatives oh yeah oh president santa ono says it was real positive the president of ubc here folks um it had a goal in mind how do we take small and medium-sized tech companies and how do you make the small and to medium and medium and to large and the large and to international how do you grow them big and how do you keep them home how do you allow them to get access into world markets how do you get them access and to start up funding how do you have the benefit from research how do you help them on commercialization and grow and become larger so you heard yesterday so to deepen the talent uh the tech talent fuel uh pool we're gonna add a thousand new tech specific university positions every year that's a commitment the premier married yesterday commitment the premier also made yesterday was that we're gonna double the number of tech co-ops because you as the industry said we need students that understand the space to have some experience while they're going to college and university and our technical institutions you need experiential students so we doubled the number of tech co-ops you don't have to be a techie you could be an accountant working for a tech company in the behavioral sciences working for a tech company but we're gonna double the number of those tech co-ops annually my tax is an excellent program it's national where you're taking graduate level programs in partnering with the university and industry we're doubling that as well too we've created a number of bc search and technology research chairs that was a commitment made as well and we made a number of enhancements of tax credits to make sure it's it's an investment it's an investment to grow opportunities for the next generation for the students that are sitting here and last year we announced we announced a bc developers exchange as well it's it's a kind of an experiment uh how you take a tech startup and and get the idea off the ground so we've got 12 of our public sector organizations have gotten involved in that developers exchange we developed a an ideas fund within government to encourage new innovative tech products to be purchased by government here's a new program we're gonna announce today so i did some previous ones at the premiere announced in different parts of the world there are startup and residence programs where you take tech companies you embed them into government and that's what you as a tech space said so we're starting a startup and residence program right here in burst clumbia it's modeled after a very successful program in san francisco to co-develop test and launch solutions to public sector challenges so the request for proposals is going out or it might have even gone already where we take startup tech companies and we embed them in various ministries and they solve real life real world government value propositions and in six or ten or months or a year later you push them out of the nest and they go back to fourth to to go to the private space and prosper that's starting right away yesterday we also announced we're expanding our trade and investment offices in seattle and in silicon valley to increase investment in bc but the investment is not all about capital the investment is human capital as well that was announced yesterday as well and it's all about also enticing tech companies to come to bc to connect with bc and you know the certain the topic of immigration and what's happening south of the border is very much top of mind and i think in a very respectful way we're hearing not only anecdotally there's all sorts of companies that want to come to relocate here and we have caritas representatives in silicon valley and i see our consul general brandon can you stand up we have a consul general brandon lee here he's our consul general of canada in silicon valley so brandon's our secret he's our secret weapon in silicon valley for companies there that want to come here but seek out brandon afterwards he's also here for all of you that want to find better north south connections as well into those american markets well let's make him work for us now it's this strategy is all about facilitating matchmaking as well so we're we're matchmakers in the traditional sense so last year we had 228 b2b meetings how we take a small startup tech company sit them right in front of every government buyer and say what's your value prop i have a product i think you need to purchase they don't have to navigate the complexities of government we sit them right across the table it's like speed dating you get five minutes with and so we're doing several hundred of those this year once again there's i believe close almost a 200 companies small and large that are pitch into government right here at this moment it's happening concurrently as we speak here and i know some of you are interested in our new government province wide procurement changes that are coming as well here we want to work on that as well we're looking at a new kind of service how we connect the tech space and government yesterday we also talked about data and the premier announced yesterday that we're going to have a center for data innovation in the province a trusted secure platform to make new discoveries with government data to better support public policy decisions it's going to transform and personalize government services for albertus clumbians that's not all we're doing and there's a couple of new initiatives that i can also talk about here's uh my ministry has conduct of a number of accelerators across the province and we're at 14 from agri tech to wireless to a whole bunch of spaces and they're all over the province but we're announcing a new accelerator this morning as well you're the first to hear it the new accelerator and it's about geographical variety across the province is going to be based in syria our new accelerator is going to work with an existing health technology quarter right besides syria memorial hospital and the new innovation boulevard health tech accelerators are going to specialize exclusively in the commercialization of medical devices software and processes and he's here some good news more good news and i see a representative sir he's sitting right there helary there's a huge component ibm is partnering with us on that as well too it's going to partner with the health tech innovation foundation to provide all the accelerator participants whoever's involved in the accelerator is going to get free access to all of ibm's key software platforms and yes that's free for all those powerful techniques they're going to use ibm's blue mix hybrid cloud development platform and ibm watson while they're developing their product i think that's worth thank you very much ibm for that offer as well too so these technologies are going to leverage the whole area of fast development of bc's health tech companies it's going to be absolutely fabulous it's going to give that smart smart medtech company the accelerated path to solve not only bc but canada's health care challenges right here from bc um for example you know the terrible consequences of the the opiate crisis that we are all facing right now but when we put that together we can look at that use ibm watson use all those services and can we drive at different results so the new health tech accelerator is the only one of its kind in western canada so here's the broader picture of the provinces we're at nine thousand companies and the moment i say that as i said that's wrong as well because two more formed about two-thirds of them are in the lower male and diverse clumbia and that makes sense two-thirds of the population is also here as well but we have tech companies are located all throughout the province of bc and you know wherever they set up they make such a positive impact on the local economy by what they do and how they interact and while we certainly want to see more companies in the lower mainland of rich clumbia we also want to see more tech companies all across whether it's in the north or in the kootenies or in vancouver island so we also announced a rural economic strategy so we can benefit all corners of this province access to capital you know with with the 14 innovator accelerators that we have we got 15 now as of this morning and so this winter our crown agency rich clumbia innovation council the crown agencies that have put on this summit has done regional innovation opportunities tours all across the province and here's here's when i talk to one participant they saw jeez a tech space can get involved in a natural resources sector and people from the natural resources sector said jeez we didn't realize how much we can interact with this it's provided an excellent networking opportunity so technology impacts all our industries traditional and non-traditional and as we move forward we're going to see that symbiotic relationship is only going to increase now use example can for and minister made bains made an announcement funding to can for but can for relies and traditional forestry company relies on new technologies and innovation to remain not bc's not canada's but one of the world's largest producers of sustainable lumber pulp and paper and it's a leader in bioenergy production because you've have traditional industry embedded in a symbiotic relation with technology and likewise technology is transforming our agriculture sector and you're going to learn more about that later on this past uh december 44 innovators small agri-tech companies did it did an agri-tech innovation challenge and so there's a panel of experts that are going to decide from a number of four categories who won that there's going to be a twenty thousand dollar prize for each of those and that's going to be done room 109 downstairs at three o'clock today that's another way that we can help facilitate one of the tech spaces the real message i want to leave you with uh as i work toward my conclusion is that uh tech is becoming our new competitive edge and i was with a room of thought leaders last night and president ono was there with me and and as was bill tam the ceo of the bc tech association and the discussion was how do we rebrand bc is it beyond the beautiful is it the bold and the beautiful i think there's a soap opera that says that is it bold and beautiful and brainy but it's a competitive edge it's a new competitive edge we have and there's technology industries that that are taking place right here that are changing the world you know we still have the breathtaking scenery you only have to look over here the mountains and the the snow caps on the top the clean water the tall trees in the wide open spaces that's also our value proposition and that's not going to change we still have the best talent the best taxes you know we happen to have a time zone we're going to take credit for that too the time zone that meshes with the west coast of the us where our markets as well as are we have world-class health care don't let anybody tell you otherwise low taxes great schools and any category that come top one two three four in the world in outcomes and don't let anybody tell you otherwise that's our competitive advantage but we add to that technology it's it's fundamental you already get it you live it that's what you do every day so if any of you are interested in helping out on a larger scale here's another quick i'm hiring a new chief information officer um my chief information officer is retiring this year and i want this room to help me find the new chief information officer for government what should that role be what should they do and maybe that applicant is sitting right in here today think about that as well so i want to thank you for your spirit of innovation and and and putting bc on the map we are one part of one beautiful country but we can proudly say and let's be a little bit more prouder we're humble canadians or humble brisk lumbia's you know west coast we're a little bit more relaxed in the east coast maybe right but let's be a little prouder and louder in the fact that we can change the world we can have discoveries right here in this small province of four and a half million people that can change a life on the other side of the country or the other side of the planet and we're in a province as i started out that respects diversity whether you pray to the east or you pray to the west or respective where you came from and where your father was born in a province where when you go out on the street it's just as appropriate for you to see a hello or a knee how or a sasui call or a namaste or a sheshe or daja how or zai jian with that folks the best place in the country and the best place in the world to live go forth and prosper thank you very much thank you very much thank you thank you thank you uh minister uh virk i'll uh i'll i'll snapchat you later about that uh position