What AI hasn't fixed: Canada’s tech conferences are stuck on repeat
An analysis of Toronto’s top tech events reveals a local symptom of a global issue: when main stages echo instead of challenge, then innovation slows.
Last week, Toronto Tech Week took place with fanfare, promoted as a grassroots "homecoming" for the city's technology community, bringing together builders, founders, researchers, and creatives who shape innovation in Toronto and beyond.
I've spent years in Toronto's tech scene, first as a journalist covering global launches and C-suite shakeups and then as a strategist helping those same companies shape their stories. I've long felt that Canada's major tech events have become echo chambers characterized by the same voices, topics, and applause lines. I've seen it from the green room and the media riser. But I wanted to confirm with data.
So I dug into the speaker rosters, agenda topics, and event themes over the last several years across Collision, Elevate, Web Summit, Startupfest, and now Toronto Tech Week. I looked at who spoke, where they spoke, how often, and about what topics.
The findings confirmed a pattern: the big stage in Toronto tech often recycles rather than reinvents. What starts as curation becomes calcification.
A small group of mostly male, well-connected insiders dominates the circuit. The tech-bro echo chamber isn't just surviving, it's shaping the narrative.
Before diving into the data, it's important to remember that innovation doesn't come from safe repetition. It thrives on unpredictability, contradiction, and insight from unusual angles.
When the same voices repeat the same narratives, fresh ideas stagnate. Instead of insight, we get iteration. Instead of discourse, we get affirmations. And instead of dynamism, we get a polished, PR-friendly version of innovation that's just familiar enough to feel comforting.
This is where we, as the audience, play a pivotal role. Your demand for fresh voices and diverse perspectives is what can truly drive innovation in the tech industry.
The numbers tell the story
At Toronto Tech Week's marquee Homecoming mainstage, 8 of 12 speakers (67%) had appeared on Collision, Elevate, or Startupfest within the prior 18 months, including headline slots. The lineup included CEOs and AI leaders who had appeared at earlier tech events.
Across some of the other tech events:
Collision: 10 to 15% of its ~570 speakers were year-over-year repeats.
Elevate: 10 to 12% of ~300 speakers returned annually.
Toronto Tech Week: roughly 10% of speakers overlapped across the other major tech events, with about 9% repeat voices.
These aren't side-stage guests, they're the marquee names, again and again.
And the repetition doesn't end there. Among 125 sessions analyzed across Toronto Tech Week and Collision 2024:
AI & Deep Tech commanded 32% of the programming.
Fintech & Startup Scaling held 21%.
Leadership / Founder Journeys made up 11%.
Cybersecurity/Data & Privacy comprised 8%.
Community & Inclusion topics barely reached 5%.
In total, roughly 75 to 80% of programming was interchangeable between the two events. There wasn't just overlap; it was nearly a mirror image with the same themes, same anecdotes, and often, the same people.
Toronto Tech Week deserves credit for spotlighting diversity in various ways, such as hosting a Women in Sports & Tech panel and facilitating grassroots hackathons, but these moments felt isolated, rather than integrated with the ethos. In the week's main programming, fewer than 30% of the 80+ major speakers were women (at Collision, that figure was 35% in 2024).
Across both, emerging and underrepresented voices often found themselves in side rooms and not on main stages, which is why it's essential to create an environment where everyone's voice is heard and valued, and where genuine innovation can thrive.
Look, I get it. Event organizers face real challenges. Booking big names attracts sponsors and generates headlines. But relying on familiar faces to deliver familiar soundbites isn't innovation. It's inertia. And it reinforces an unspoken message: that only certain perspectives matter. When the same types of people repeat the same stories, we feed the "tech bro" stereotype — not because it reflects the whole truth, but because it's what's always seen and heard.
Innovation and the next generation
If the real "homecoming" isn't happening on stage, then it's happening elsewhere: in indie founder meetups in warehouses, late-night product jams, bootstrapped hackathons, Slack chats, and off‑the‑record dinners. These are the places and spaces where genuine discovery happens and where the next generation of innovators is being formed.
That's what's really at stake here.
Innovation doesn't start with buzzwords or big stages, as much as we are told. Innovation begins with tension. With contrast. It begins with giving space to the people you wouldn't expect and the ideas that haven't yet been polished for applause.
Innovation comes from fresh voices, diverse perspectives, and places off the main grid. However, the more centralized and curated our public tech conversations become, the more those sparks risk being stifled.
What's happening in Toronto reflects a larger trend. From Austin to Amsterdam to Singapore, fast-growing tech hubs are experiencing similar pressures: elevate credibility, win attention, and secure funding. However, that pressure often drives organizers to opt for safe over surprising. Familiarity becomes credibility. And when that happens, tech events risk becoming the very giants they swore to disrupt.
If tech ecosystems, whether in Toronto or anywhere else, want to move beyond the echo, they need revitalization. Not just in who gets a mic on stage but in what gets discussed, who gets welcomed, and how we define community. The lack of diversity and innovation in tech events is not just a matter of representation, it's a threat to the industry's growth and credibility.
Real innovation doesn't come from reruns, like a comfortable show you watch on a rainy day. It comes from permission to explore and an audience willing to listen.
If you care about the future of tech—its growth, its diversity, its credibility—you can start by demanding more than a replay button. As part of the audience, you have the power to shape the tech industry by demanding more diverse and innovative content from tech events. The ROI on your attendee ticket will thank you, too.