Yung Wu, CEO of MaRS Discovery District discusses challenges in the Canadian tech sector and the risks associated with not bringing our own technologies to market.
Contributors: Yung, when we think about innovation, what's the biggest problem that exists in Canada today?
Yung: I don't think Canada has an innovation problem anymore. What I do believe is that we have an adoption problem which relates directly to scale. Canada is a second top innovator when it comes to clean tech in the world, next only to the US. Every year in San Francisco, they pick out the top 100 clean tech innovators. Canada typically has 15 to 16 percent of the companies on that list, ever since I've been here for the past three or four years. Now, we only have one half of one percent of the population in the world. You can clearly see we have an asymmetrical impact from an innovation point of view. Question is, can we adopt our own technologies? It turns out that most of our companies get their market traction from outside of Canada.
Contributors: I know you have four focus areas clean tech, health, fintech and enterprise software. Can you tell us a little bit about the risks associated with those four if we're not able to harness that energy of innovators? What does that look like around those four areas?
Yung: Maybe I can answer it generally, which is that when I think about the innovation economy, I think about it being built from both the startups, as well as the advanced industries that rely on intellectual property or that basically adopt solutions from innovators. I believe in Canada already, you'll look at that aggregate innovation economy as a sector. It's already 12 percent of GDP, and it's already 10 percent of total employment across Canada. The trick is it's growing at three times to six times the rate of any other sector. You can name your sector in Canada, oil and gas, forestry, mining, name your sector. We are growing at three times to six times the rate of any of those sectors, especially coming out of the pandemic. I would say, look what we're coming into, what we're emerging into will not resemble the business-as-usual environment from 17 months ago. There are transformations that have happened in the past 17 months that are going to be pervasive and that will continue to stay. Us not bringing transformative technology or transformative innovation to market is a loss for Canada. It's a loss for the world, it's a loss for our families and our communities.
Contributors: You really struck me with the rate of growth in the tech economy and the idea that that it's growing by three to six times the rate of other industries. What do you think the community needs to see real traction in other industries and in adoption of these kinds of technologies?
Yung: The answer to that, in my view, is back to the old phrase of we don't have an innovation problem, we have an adoption problem. There is a way for us to then adopt a bit more risk in the risk meter to drive a significant return. If we take the risk management engine of the procurement side or quite honestly, any corporate culture, if you take the risk management engine to its maximum, you essentially adopt zero innovation. But that could be the biggest risk of all. Because then you don't know what's coming at you, you've only got a rearview mirror perspectives of the world, you're not seeing what's happening in the front headlights.
Listen to the full episode and learn about Yung’s perspective.
Yung’s transcript has been slightly altered in this Q&A for written clarity and brevity.