CanCon Podcast Ep. 120: Canadian tech's forgotten sector

The recent E3 – Electronic Entertainment Expo, for those not familiar – was chock-full of Canada. Over 18 triple-A and top-tier indie games shown at the expo were from Canadian development studios. Throw a rock at a popular video game being released this year or next, and you’ll probably hit the Canadian working on it.

It should be no surprise, then, that video games contributed $3.7 billion to the country’s GDP in 2017. But I can’t shake the feeling that for most in the Canadian tech sector, these numbers would be surprising, given the disconnect between the startup and corporate tech scene and our gaming brethren. What’s the reason for that gap?

Speaking of gaps, WWDC – Apple’s developer conference – recently passed, and Rob is steaming mad from the gap between his expectations for the company and what they happened to deliver at the show. Beyond the lack of newly-announced hardware, there also seemed to be a lack of innovation, with Apple’s focus predominantly on solving issues already resolved on other platforms. Is Rob right to be upset, or did Apple leave enough breadcrumbs to point to “one more thing” coming this fall?

Join us as the CanCon crew – Erin Bury, Managing Director of Eighty-Eight; Rob Kenedi, General Manager of TWG New York; Patrick O’Rourke, MobileSyrup Managing Editor; Josh McConnell, freelance tech reporter; and Douglas Soltys, BetaKit Editor-in-Chief – answer all these questions before deleting their Twitter burner accounts.