Marnie [00:00:00] Every day, Canadian organizations make strategic contributions to our economy to secure a better future. 
 
Russell [00:00:07] These organizations and their leaders understand how contributing today reaps a long term benefit for Canada. 
 
Marnie [00:00:15] Hi, I'm running Marnie Niemi Hood 
 
Russell [00:00:17] And I'm Russell Evans. 
 
Marnie [00:00:19] Welcome to Contributors, a podcast that showcases the meaningful change taking place across our country, with a long term gain always in mind. 
 
Russell [00:00:28] We're sitting down with Canadian leaders to talk about the people and ideas that are leading change, innovating industries and investing in Canada's well-being. 
 
Marnie [00:00:37] And because of it, they're prospering by prioritizing more than just the bottom line. 
 
Russell [00:00:43] So what does the future hold for Canadians? What great wins can we celebrate? Find out on Contributors, a podcast of possibilities. 
 
Marnie [00:01:03] Canada is known for some of the world's most innovative inventions. 
 
Russell [00:01:07] From the telephone to insulin all the way to Shopify, Canada has led the world with ideas and achievements that have created a better future. 
 
Marnie [00:01:17] On today's episode, we're pleased to sit down with Yung Wu, CEO of the MaRS Discovery District. 
 
Russell [00:01:23] MaRS is a not for profit organization that supports Canada's most promising startups, helping them grow, create jobs and solve society's greatest challenges. 
 
Marnie [00:01:34] Yung will share insights about Canada's innovation landscape, where our biggest opportunities lie and how we're impacting Canada's contributions on the world stage. 
 
Russell [00:01:44] Yung welcome to Contributors. So obviously, as Torontonians, we know MaRS really well, but we want to kind of start off with that base level understanding. So the first question I would ask Yung is what is MaRS? 
 
Yung [00:01:59] Well, a little known fact these days, but not pretty obvious in 2000, when MaRS was founded, MaRS stands for Medical and Related Sciences. So in today's vernacular, think of us as a science and technology, deep tech kind of an ecosystem. We are built on the site where insulin was originally discovered and first administered, and we just passed the 100th birthday of that event. But it was founded maybe by about 14 civic leaders. Dr. John Evans was our original trial leader of the group, and at the time, in the 2000s, the MaRS site was actually the old Toronto General Hospital. It was scheduled to be torn down and to be converted into condominiums, and Dr. John Evans, who was previously the president of the University of Toronto as well, he decided that wasn't going to happen, no. So what ended up happening was that he and 13 of his colleagues, civic leaders essentially donated $14 million, got the city to donate the land, got more backing from the province and from the federal government and from the University of Toronto. And essentially, this results in what MaRS is today, which is the largest urban innovation hub in North America. It is one of the largest of its type in the world, and the way I think about MaRS is that this is a place that takes transformational intellectual property and is actually able to convert that into the complete stages of growth for commercialization. So at the end of the day, what we are is we are a launch pad for great companies that come from transformational intellectual property. We have Autodesk, which is one of the top design and automation and robotics firms in the world, and they have their research center, that is out of MaRS. We have Ontario Institute for Cancer Research here. We have the Ontario Brain Institute out of here, we have Ontario Genomics out of here. You get the idea. This is a place where discovery gets translated into commercialization. And our goal is to essentially build category leaders, which are based in Canada and which were born in Canada. So the idea is how do we connect all the dots from great research, great discoveries through to major hubs of economic growth and activity and ecosystem deposits to Toronto, Ontario, Canada right here. 
 
Marnie [00:04:29] How did you happen to land on MaRS, so to speak? 
 
Yung [00:04:33] Land on MaRS, that's a good one. Well, I spent most of my career as a serial entrepreneur, probably more of a compulsive entrepreneur is, what my friends call me, maybe even my enemies as well. So I was retired, and some friends of mine said, Look, I mean, you know, there's this opportunity to actually go and lead MaRS. And I had to think about it for a couple of months because I was very comfortable in my anonymous retirement at that point in time. But look, I'm an immigrant to Canada. My family came here when they were escaping the military autocracy of Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan at the time. So I just know how lucky we are, we were we are to have landed in a place like Canada and for me, if there's anything that was going to pull me out of retirement, it was a give back project like MaRS. So that's me. I'm an entrepreneur, I'm an investor, a business builder, and I started my first company. I still remember this back in the 1990s on my Amex Card, Visa Card, my MasterCard. So there's about $30000 at the time, I was able to get off my credit cards, and that eventually turned into an acquisition by Oracle in New York City for about a billion dollars. But that was my first company out of many, but I think I tell that story because the actual story of that company was not the book ends of credit cards and Oracle as an exit. It was actually a far too lengthy journey where I had to fly to India to find my software engineers. I then had to fly to the West Coast of the U.S. to find my first investors, and then I had to fly to Europe to find my first customers. So when you add all that up, that is a tremendous amount of inertia, that is a tremendous amount of transaction cost. 
 
Marnie [00:06:24] It sounds like this innovation hub that's been created really has had a tremendous opportunity to strengthen the Canadian economy for entrepreneurs by, as you say, eliminating all of that external inertia. 
 
Yung [00:06:41] Yeah, totally. I think that's one of the things that has started to become very, very clear in 2021. But what we're seeing today is that big problems can't be solved by individual companies, no matter how big or how small or how nimble or how sort of scaled. They actually get solved by an ecosystem. Even if you are the biggest company in the world, you still have to basically be able to innovate around regulatory partners, policy partners, ecosystem partners. And so a place like MaRS is really a place where all that comes together in a bit of a flywheel. And that's flywheel starts to generate once you get it going, it starts to be generative, it starts the cycle, it starts to spin off intellectual property that attracts global sources of talent that then creates great companies that then attract fantastic investors, that then creates category leadership that then creates more intellectual property more. You know what I mean? It just like one of these things that starts to spin. So I think that, to me, is the biggest value of a place like MaRS. And I do think it is right at the core of how Canada wins. Maybe I'll call it unfair advantage globally. 
 
Russell [00:07:56] What does an entrepreneur need to be successful and how are they getting it from MaRS, where perhaps you didn't get that support when you were starting your business? 
 
Yung [00:08:06] Well, first of all, it's going to be different depending on the stage of growth. What I do know from my own experience as an entrepreneur and my near-death experiences of being an entrepreneur is that what makes you successful as a startup will absolutely kill you at a growth stage. And what absolutely makes you successful at a growth stage will absolutely kill you at a scale stage. And the same thing goes on until you achieve sort of global leadership in a specific category. What MaRS does is, first of all, it it helps you through all those stages of growth with differentiated supports along your journey. 
 
Marnie [00:08:46] Yeah, it's hard to imagine where we would be in responding to the pandemic as we have without having had the benefit of MaRS being in place since 2000. 
 
Yung [00:08:59] Well, that's a really, really interesting topic, and I think you've really hit on something there Marnie, which is, you know, when you think about not MaRS specifically, but deep tech and science and technology. Who would have thought that you could actually get an MRNA vaccine essentially through preclinical proof of concept through to phase three patient trials on a global basis that then gets manufactured in the billions of doses within a 16 to 17 month stretch like that is that is like maybe a major miracle, not just a minor miracle, quite honestly. And I think that's the power of science and technology, science and technology bring solutions, but in and of themselves, they don't scale. So unless you have injected the commercialization journey, the scale journey, the partner journey and the capital journey to create major markets from transformational IP, quite often great discoveries. Just never get past Darwin's laws of natural selection, which is kind of what happens to entrepreneurs. You know when I think about other major challenges yet to come, science and technology and innovation, broadly speaking, provide many of the answers to human problems, social problems, problems that our families and our communities have to navigate, not just our businesses. But in doing so, we might A) create significant benefit impact, basically. And I'll call that a social return on investment while at the same time creating enormous internal rates of return for founders and for investors. 
 
Marnie [00:10:51] Yung makes a compelling case for problem solving through the MaRS incubator. He said while individual companies can solve issues, there's an absolute need for ecosystems like MaRS to exist and push solutions forward. Even if you're the biggest company in the world, you still have to innovate alongside regulatory partners, policy partners and ecosystem partners. 
 
Russell [00:11:15] Yes, as he said, an organization like MaRS can speed up innovation by shaving years off the process, which makes a crucial difference. From there, the growth can continue exponentially as innovation attracts new talents and investors on a global scale. 
 
Marnie [00:11:31] I think an area of focus that really surprised me was the depth and breadth to which Mars is providing such a massive platform and springboard for innovation in so many different sectors across the country.  
 
Russell [00:11:46] Great point Marnie. Yung did a good job of setting the stage for innovation. Now let's hear about the challenges that Canada is facing on a global scale. Yung, when we think about innovation, what's the biggest problem that exists in Canada today? 
 
Yung [00:12:00] 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. So 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. So 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. 
 
Russell [00:12:46] I love what you were saying earlier, Yung about kind of the risk for Canada in failing to harness the energy of our innovators and entrepreneurs. So I know, 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, entrepreneurs? What does that look like around those four areas? 
 
Yung [00:13:15] Maybe I can answer it generally, which is that when I think about the innovation economy, let me pivot off of entrepreneurs and talk about the innovation economy. I think about the innovation economy is being built from both the startups, as well as the advanced industries that rely on intellectual property or that basically adopt solutions from innovators. And 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, but 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. So, you know, 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, quite honestly, because we're not talking, like I said, just about digital shopping, which I have a ton of regard for Shopify and what they've been able to do. It's not just for software as a service companies, it's not just for mobile game companies and I can say that because, you know, one of my previous companies was in the mobile analytics side of things. We we powered Pokemon Go when it got launched and a billion customers within the first three months. It was just crazy. But the point is, there are other companies, too. There's science and technology based companies that offer real solutions that we, as a society, we as families and we as a country need. Why not, is my question? Why not? 
 
Marnie [00:15:20] Why not, indeed. Could I take you back just a moment, I mean, you really struck me there with with the rate of the pace of growth in the tech economy and the idea that that it's growing by, you know, three to six times the rate of other industries. What do you think the community needs to see real traction in other industries, adoption of these kinds of of technologies? 
 
Yung [00:15:51] You know, the old answer to that question would have been capital, but capital is very much more freely available. I would actually argue we have a bit of a valuation bubble going on right now because it is very, very frothy out there. So I don't see capital as being the major obstacle. But I think the next stage of, how do you you know, when you raise a big round and it's that inflated value or even at a high value, let's just call it a high value. How do you drive the business to grow to earn that particular market value so that you can then reach your next milestone or raising your next round or hitting your liquidity event? And hopefully you were able to do that before some kind of a correction or turn in a market currency. So I think there's that. 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 any 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 sort of, you know, rearview mirror perspectives of the world, you're not seeing what's happening in the front headlights. 
 
Russell [00:17:27] From our conversation with Yung, he articulated a few times actually that Canada's challenge with innovation isn't really an innovation challenge anymore, but it's actually an adoption challenge. 
 
Marnie [00:17:40] Right. Let's talk about his rearview mirror perspective. He cautions against taking too little risk, which could be the biggest risk of all. 
 
Russell [00:17:49] Well said. I think in many ways the risk that he's talking about is the risk in which we fail to capitalize on these moments. What Yung made me realize is that we can't afford that. We really need forward thinking to invest in the innovation economy, not just for the welfare of Canada, but for Canadian businesses, employers and employees. 
 
Marnie [00:18:10] Mm-Hmm. Hmm. So what does the future hold for Canada's innovation economy? Let's hear Yung's perspective. 
 
Russell [00:18:19] A lot of our listeners are thinking about healthcare, obviously, as we kind of move into the fingers crossed, post-COVID environment. Can you tell us a little bit about the work some of your MaRS innovators are doing around health? 
 
Yung [00:18:33] Well, you know what, it's interesting, isn't it, we're all living longer aren't we? I think Sunlife produced the table and said we're we're actually increasing lifespan by three months for every year in the past, I don't know how many, how many years now. So, you know, the good news is that we're almost immortal. The bad news is that wellness has not kept up with longevity. And the cost of maintaining the healthcare system over time becomes way out of whack with our ability to support it. So when I think about life sciences, how do you again access some of these tools that are now coming about? We have one of the companies called Maple within Mars. It's a virtual healthcare company and you're nodding because you know it Marnie. You know in a COVID kind of a world, in a pandemic kind of a world, would you rather be out there, you know, sitting in the middle of this crowded doctor's office waiting to be seen after a two hour wait time? Or would you want to be able to call up a doctor and do a video call and get prescribed what you need? I think, you know, our benefits systems and our healthcare systems are taking advantage of things like this. 
 
Marnie [00:19:50] Yeah, absolutely. Certainly, you know, as as a pension plan, we're always looking at at longevity of our members and, you know, we want them to live long, healthy, productive lives in retirement and their survivors, obviously. So I just want to turn the question now for really forward thinking. So what do you think is next for Canada in terms of the innovation economy and how can we increase Canada's innovation presence on the world stage? 
 
Yung [00:20:27] I've always believed that you build on strength and I'll pose a couple of questions to your questions, Marnie. But you know, arguably we have the we're one of the top nations in the world as far as traditional oil and gas and energy goes. So we're probably one of the top energy producers in the world. The question is what happens when the world moves away from fossil fuels, as it will do in a significant fashion over the next twenty nine years? So when I go to build from strength, I go to the chemical engineers, the geophysicists and the material scientists that serve the current fossil fuel industry are exactly the talent base you need to create clean energy solutions going forward. If there's one thing I've noticed about the innovation economy, the fuel is actually talent. So the question is how can we actually refuel the future of energy? Why couldn't we be, you know, the global a globally dominant future of energy player? So the future for Canada, I think, is is built on can we become a can we continue to attract a multigenerational destination point for the talent that fuels innovation for the markets that surround that talent and the intellectual property and for the capital that then assembles around all those solutions. And we don't have to make every single bet underneath the sun. There are areas where we actually have a really, really significant advantage from intellectual property point of view already. You know, we've all known about the A.I. boom that Canada has benefited from: Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton, and that comes from one of our biggest imports, Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, who came from the U.K.. And I'm never giving him back, because, you know, from Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, came his colleagues from every significant university in the world with a top researchers and scientists and engineers. Why? Because the best talent always wants to congregate around the best talent. And it's a bit of a flywheel effect again. So how can we continue to make this place? Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the destination for the fuel that drives the innovation economy and to inspire those new members of our communities to build their families here, to reinvest here, to create new companies out of here to contribute to their communities over here. Silicon Valley took 90 years to get to where it got to. It wasn't a 10 year thing, it was a 90 year thing. And the way they did it was the children of generational talent became the next generation of talent, which is how you move from sort of aerospace I think in Bayfield fields to semiconductor technology through to main computers that went into mainframe computers that went into personal computers that went into mobile computing. 
 
Russell [00:23:41] I love that. I love that Yung and I want to say, I think this show is obviously called Contributors, and it's really about organizations that are contributing to the welfare of Canada. And we have observed that some of Canada's best contributors are immigrants to Canada, and it makes me wonder whether Canada's diversity and our openness to immigrants is a competitive advantage. What's your take on that? 
 
Yung [00:24:06] Well, it's going to be a bias take, but maybe you'll let me do that anyway. As an immigrant to Canada I came with nothing to lose and everything to gain. And I came with an instant understanding of the specialness of this country. We're not perfect. We're not. But our commitment to getting better all the time and to facing some of the challenges through colonialism that we have here, some of the systemic sources of bias, whether it's gender or or race, or... We're seeing those things right? We're looking at those, I think squarely and we're trying to solve for them. We're not trying to brush them aside. 
 
Marnie [00:24:50] I like what you said about the multi-generational impacts. And, you know, it certainly sounds like from what you said, we really are uniquely situated right now with the intellectual property plus capital plus the opportunity of transformation post-COVID. All of those things together equal this net brain gain. We're really well situated to see much farther standing on the shoulders of those who created the innovation before us. It's really a fantastic opportunity for Canada. 
 
Yung [00:25:30] I think I haven't dropped the ball, but I would say all the credit is due to our scientists, researchers, engineers, companies, you know, I mean, they're there to build for the future. And I think my hope for Canada going forward. You know,  I believe in the engines of capitalism. I do. You know, I think it's probably the most efficient engine that we have available to actually drive scale, but it's just a tool. What happens when we apply that engine to try and solve a major impact and invite the growth of our communities and our impact in our, you know, our our perhaps underrepresented populations along? That, to me, is a huge opportunity for Canada, too. I think we can do it. We can do it in a Canadian way. And it's a way that I think attracts more of the best because I do see this as a differentiated place to be. I'm sounding like a commercial for Canada. 
 
Russell [00:26:28] Nothing wrong with that. Canada needs a cheerleader. 
 
Marnie [00:26:31] Thank you for taking the time. I could pick your brain all day. 
 
Yung [00:26:37] Well, thank you very much for the opportunity to chat with you and please send my regards to Derek will do. 
 
Russell [00:26:43] Will do. 
 
Yung [00:26:43] You know, I think that those that innovate will win. And I think certainly in the pension space, CAAT is an absolute innovator. 
 
Russell [00:26:52] I think we we would say that the way that you're going to win the global war for talent includes us. 
 
Yung [00:27:00] Well, I would bet on it any day. 
 
Russell [00:27:01] I love it. 
 
Marnie [00:27:03] Terrific. 
 
Russell [00:27:08] It was great hearing Yung's perspective on what the future holds for Canada's innovation economy. 
 
Marnie [00:27:14] Yes, his comments around longevity really struck me, Russell. You know, as a pension fund, we actively managed longevity risk. We know that we're living longer, with half of us predicted to live well beyond age 90. And for us as a pension plan, we want to make sure that all Canadians can maintain their quality of life and not outlive their savings. 
 
Russell [00:27:38] Absolutely. The other thing that really resonated for me was when Yung was talking about the global war for talent and how talent is such a critical part of making innovation successful. I love that he gave us a shout out there because I think CAAT is an innovator too, and I think that the work that we're doing is transformative. I believe, and I know you believe as well, Marnie, in the power of defined benefit pension plans, and that the security and certainty that we provide can be such a valuable tool in both retention and recruitment. 
 
Marnie [00:28:12] Exactly. That's what it's going to take to attract top talent. It is a candidate's market out there right now, Russell. It's going to take a lot more to entice them, sometimes multiple offers. And in those industries where Yung's talking about growth, he said that's three to six times the rate of other industries. Talent in those sectors in particular can be very choosy about the employers they consider. 
 
Russell [00:28:39] Well said, I also really loved Yung's comments on Canadians needing to toot their own horns. I love it. In so many ways that's against our nature but I love the idea of us bragging, you know, just a little. 
 
Marnie [00:28:53] Yes, I love that. Overall, there was so much great insight from Yung on the innovation economy and so many opportunities for our country. 
 
Russell [00:29:03] Absolutely. As Yung said, Silicon Valley wasn't built in a day. In fact, it took 90 years for it to become the innovation ecosystem it is.
 
Marnie [00:29:14] And to keep Canada as the primary fuel source that drives the innovation economy, we need to build the platforms for new business incubation, foster greater investments and help them contribute to a better and brighter future for Canada. 
 
Russell [00:29:31] Thank you for tuning in to Contributors. We can't wait to see you again next time. 
 
Marnie [00:29:35] Don't forget to subscribe rate and review Contributors on Apple Podcasts and tune in to our next episode on November 3rd.