Why is innovation important to Western Canada?
On a basic level, innovation is an evolutionary strategy. Either we diversify or we die. The Western provinces need to extract value from innovative ideas and use them to benefit and diversify our economy. We do this by developing ideas into actionable ways to do better business and build a more effective means of functioning in the world. What happens if we do not develop innovation? That is what is happening right now. For example, Alberta is half as wealthy as it could be because we have a culture of exceptionalism–the idea that we have one unique advantage in our natural resources. The result has been that we are organized as a boom and bust society because we are reliant on our natural resources to drive the economy and so we are subject to enormous threat. What is the Banff Consensus? The Banff Consensus is a document and a living initiative that is the outcome of the Banff Innovation Summit. Our objective was to bring together a significant group of individuals who have demonstr
