As Elevate evolved into something new this year, opening night speakers for the newly crowned Nrth Festival wrestled with how to take back control of a world that’s done the same.
Many of Kids Help Phone’s text interactions with kids now start with “are you even a real human?”
At the kickoff event inside Toronto’s Meridian Hall on Tuesday evening, the audience learned they were no longer at the ninth-annual Elevate Festival; instead, they were at the first-ever Nrth Festival. Elevate board member Arlene Dickinson said attendees, many of whom were crunching on complimentary popcorn, should look to their “North stars” to build something that can “stand what’s going on in the world, collectively.”
“What I see with Nrth is this real ground in who we are culturally, and what innovation can mean for our country, and what the future can be in terms of being bright and full of opportunity for all of the citizens that are living here,” Dickinson said.
As might be expected in 2026, innovation is often a pseudonym for AI, and this year’s stage conversations tackled “AI, a little more AI, a little more AI, then basketball,” event host Amber Mac quipped, referencing the event’s concluding speaker: Toronto Raptors legend Kyle Lowry.
While last year’s opening night conversations broadly centred on how AI will change the world and labour, tech leaders this year reckoned with the reality AI has actually created: a lack of human control.
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François Chadwick, CFO of Canada’s frontier AI developer, Cohere, shared his own uncertainty in a conversation with TD executive vice-president Rizwan Khalfan. While discussing responsible enterprise AI adoption and the two firms’ new partnership, Chadwick said he recently dropped his child off in New York for school and wondered, when will AI change all of this for him?
“It’s constant training and critical thinking,” Chadwick said. “We’ve got to keep that training going for all folks to make sure as AI continues to adopt and adapt that we bring everybody along.”
Khalfan agreed, adding that the principle guiding the tech should be “AI first, human always.”
“If there’s one thing we can leave you with, then that’s it,” Khalfan added.
The lack of control youth have over tech was underscored by Kids Help Phone executive vice-president Justin Scaini and his colleague Tamar Brannigan. Following up on Scaini’s appearance at last year’s event, which ran through how tech is creeping into Canada’s youth mental health crisis, the duo highlighted a 13-year-old who texted their organization for support because they felt that more of their life was being outsourced to tech solutions that “just didn’t work for them.” More broadly, they noted that many of their organization’s text interactions with kids start with “are you even a real human?”
Brannigan said Kids Help Phone is working with youth to identify the “modern anatomy” of an online safe space. So far, that anatomy includes the “head” guiding transparent data collection, the “heart” interrogating whether a business incentive is genuinely in the best interests of a younger person’s well-being or safety, and the “lungs” as an organization actually following through on what it says it will do. Brannigan said when all three principles are present, young people can be vulnerable, get support, and be kept safe.
“Technology can help open the door, but human connection must be what safely carries them through it,” Brannigan said.
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Of course, the best way for data to be kept safe is to not collect it in the first place, DuckDuckGo CPO Beah Burger-Lenehan noted in a conversation with Mac. The privacy-focused search engine and AI platform has carved its place in the market by not collecting use data, instead giving people control over how much AI they want in their search experience, if at all. But in a night that broadly celebrated Canadian approaches to technology, Burger-Lenehan warned that the looming Lawful Access Act, which would give law enforcement more power to monitor and collect personal communications and data, may take control out of Canadian hands.
“If this was passed as written, we might have to pull our VPN from Canada rather than betray our users, really, and break our privacy promise,” Burger-Lenehan said. “Which would be a shame, because policy should protect people and not put them into this difficult trade-off.”
The evening closed on a note of optimism dressed in Toronto Tempo purple, as Lowry—a six-time NBA All-Star who couldn’t stop the Nrth attendees from cheering if he tried—recounted the Raptors’ 2019 championship run and his love for the city of Toronto. Addressing the entrepreneurs in the room, Lowry urged the attendees to believe in themselves and the time they put into their craft, even if they don’t know when or where it will pay off.
“Don’t stop just because [you] got one no,” Lowry said. “It might be 400 no’s, but it’s that one yes, that one opportunity that takes it to the next level.”
The crowd sent The Great Raptor of All Time off with a standing ovation.
With files from Josh Scott.
BetaKit is an Nrth media partner. Feature image courtesy Nrth.