

Will the real Silicon Valley North please stand up? - techvibes
http://www.techvibes.com/blog/will-the-real-silicon-valley-north-please-stand-up-2011-03-04

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rdrimmie
If you accept that Waterloo is part of the Golden Horseshoe (a possible point
of contention, but born and raised here I've always thought it was) then
Toronto and Waterloo are similar and connected in the way that San Francisco
and San Jose are, though on a small population and density scale.

I don't know much about the Valley, but the impression I have is that it is a
large area with regions that focus on different aspects of technology and I
think that is true for the Golden Horseshoe.

I am missing some, but there's a large number of great schools (York, Ryerson,
McMaster, Sheridan, Conestoga, Waterloo, Laurier, Guelph) that tend to act as
focal points for regional specialties, highlighted by the differences in focus
by tech organizations like MaRS and Communitech.

And if you extend a bit towards London and Stratford you get excellent culture
and schools like Western and Fanshawe, and in the other directions towards
Markham and Kingston you get highly educated knowledge workers.

Organizations like the Ontario Centres of Excellence (<http://www.oce-
ontario.org/>) - who I am not directly connected to but professionally benefit
from and generally admire - are viewing this part of the world as much bigger
than any one city, and I think that is necessary.

If there's anything we have that is similar to Silicon Valley (which benefits
as well by relative proximity to LA and San Diego) is that this is a high
density population area, at least as far as such things exist in Canada.

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thesnark
What about Montreal?

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guyzero
Montreal would probably be on par with Vancouver and Calgary, but I'd guess
it's still behind Waterloo and Toronto. I think the VC landscape is actually
quite good in Quebec since there's a lot of government money to stimulate
investment in the province. Or so I hear.

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bwertz
Agreed - Montreal should be on the list as well

