I led a workshop in Toronto last week exploring the need for strategic innovation and some approaches to help any business innovate better:
– What is innovation?
– What do you need to do about it?
– What’s next?
It was super to meet about 50 CEOs of Canadian businesses at the event as well as International delegates from an International Trade Council trade mission to Canada.
Toronto is currently enjoying an innovation explosion: in the MaRS Discovery District alone there are over 150 organisations supporting over 1200 startups across Canada – it’s North America’s largest innovation hub.
Dr. Ilse Treurnicht, CEO, MaRS Discovery District has previously been quoted as saying: “A culture of collaboration is really at the heart of what’s next in innovation. What’s exciting in Toronto is that we have local and international businesses partnering with the startup ecosystem and increasingly with the academic community to position themselves for success in the future.”
This idea of collaboration is reflected by the Cisco Toronto Innovation Center who understand that businesses must “experiment, test and co-create solutions to solve real-world business challenges”.
At Ignite Exponential, this collaborative approach is key to customers’ success. We create collaborative innovation programs with customers – we work to create your solutions but if you don’t own the innovation process then it probably won’t get internal buy in and never get off the ground.
There’s certainly a lot happening in Toronto at the moment – we can’t wait to get back there!