The digitization of everything is well underway, with an increasing percentage of everyone’s lives—both personal and work—being online.
Today, “online” can mean a lot more than it used to. There was a time when we might have a computer at work, and maybe one at home, and even then, we were not always online.
Now our work and home device is often the same, and we typically have several such devices for a range of specialist use cases. And whether the device is a phone, laptop, tablet, gaming console, or virtual reality headset, it is probably online near-constantly.
Digital is now the default.
There are many aspects to this layered digital realm, which is why Techcouver has sat down with many different local experts over the past year to better understand some of the more critical areas impacting Canadians today.
Below, we highlight some of our favourite conversations relating to the digital-first world we are all moving into together.
New Frontier of Funding
The concept of a layman retailer investor privately investing in a Canadian startup applying a modest sum of money—and doing so entirely from their phone while at home or Tim Hortons—is exclusive to the digital-era.
We talked in April with Peter-Paul Van Hoeken, the CEO of FrontFundr, a Canadian crowdfunding platform. After moving to Canada in 2010, Peter-Paul leveraged technology to bring accessibility to the market for both everyday Canadians and hardworking companies.
“In my eyes, Canada is a country full of freedom and opportunity,” he told Techcouver. “When we launched in 2015, we were entering a new space that didn’t previously exist in Canada.”
Local companies such as VoltSafe have successfully raised investment capital through the platform—and, in the case of VoltSafe, went on to win CES 2023 Innovation Awards.
Technicalities of Talent
When Marco Pimentel tells us that it’s “a tough market for retaining tech talent,” we believe him. More work than ever is online, and more online work than ever is remote. These are new and complex issues for teams to tackle.
The chief marketing officer of Redbrick spoke with Techcouver about the state of tech talent in Canada, including how to deal with the paradigm shift to remote and hybrid work.
“In a remote work environment, it’s more important than ever to ensure your talent feels connected to the work they are performing and bonded to your team,” he said in May. “Engaged employees are the lifeblood of successful organizations.”
The task is simple to define—”Empowering your employees with a meaningful mission and purpose will retain and attract talent”— but may be challenging to execute or sustain in an all-digital environment.
Electrifying E-Sports
The global e-sports market size is expected to reach $12 billion by 2030. Multiple factors are fuelling the next decade of growth, including increased mobile usage in emerging countries, rising awareness regarding e-sports, and the general increasing popularity of video games. In addition, streaming platforms such as Twitch have elevated the quality and reach of e-sport events.
To learn more about the evolving global esports landscape, Techcouver sat down with the chief executive officer of X1 Esports, Mark Elfenbein.
“Esports as a category is growing extremely quickly,” he informed us in June. “During Covid, fans flocked to the streaming video game channels of content creators to gain more insights on their favourite games which lead to massive global audience growth through platforms like Twitch and TikTok.”
Additionally, Elfenbein cited virtual reality as a rapidly emerging trend in esports, which brings us to our final expert…
Looking Through the Meta Glass
Vancouver’s Looking Glass Labs is a Web3 platform specializing in non-fungible token architecture, immersive metaverse environments, play-to-earn tokenization, and virtual asset royalty streams.
We spoke with Ryan Lassi, who was appointed this year to head of marketing for LGL’s flagship studio, House of Kibaa. Techcouver sat down with Lassi to learn more about the evolving web3 world of metaverses and NFTs.
“The fundamental purpose of NFTs and blockchain technology is often misunderstood,” he lamented.
However, if crypto can “move away from buzzwords” and shift innovation to real-world applications, then Lassi believes “Web3 opens up a world of limitless possibilities for creators and audiences.”
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