Elevate transforms into Nrth Festival in opening-night rebrand

Attendees who walked into opening night of the ninth-annual Elevate Festival on Tuesday evening had no idea they would exit an entirely different event.

Nrth CEO and co-founder Lisa Zarzeczny unveiled Elevate’s new name and branding at the festival’s kickoff in downtown Toronto on Tuesday evening. She told BetaKit that the event would be fully re-branded to Nrth by Wednesday morning, the festival’s first full day of programming.

“If innovation is going to affect Canada’s economy, the conversation has to get much bigger than the tech community.”
Lisa Zarzeczny,
Nrth

The refreshed identity is meant to reflect how much the world has changed since the inaugural Elevate Festival in 2017, Zarzeczny told BetaKit in an interview ahead of the reveal. Elevate was created out of a belief that Canada’s tech ecosystem needed “a spotlight,” she said, but nine years later, a spotlight “is no longer enough.”

“Leaders are really looking for direction, and so we felt that there was more that we could be doing within the ecosystem,” Zarzeczny said. “We really chose [Nrth] because any time you’re looking to orient yourself, the first thing that you have to do is find North.”

Elevate has drawn upwards of 87,000 attendees over its lifetime, and featured notable speakers like Michelle Obama, Chris Hadfield, Vinod Khosla, and Venus Williams. This year’s event is expected to bring together more than 10,000 attendees, including Toronto Raptors legend Kyle Lowry, who took the stage shortly after Zarzeczny revealed the new name.

Zarzeczny said the event is meant to equip builders and leaders with the insights, connections, and the opportunities they need to move forward. The refreshed brand and mission reflect how important the topic of tech sovereignty has become to the festival’s programming, which Zarzeczny discussed on The BetaKit Podcast.

“When I’m looking through the agenda and having conversations with my programming team, it’s all related to sovereignty,” she told BetaKit editor-in-chief, Douglas Soltys. “Similar to AI, it’s layered across every single content track.”

Under its new brand, the festival is looking to evolve into more of a consistent presence. Zarzeczny said Nrth will find ways to show up more throughout the year, including more frequent events, new ways to connect Canadian companies with customers and investors, and more hands-on programs to help business leaders understand and adopt new and emerging technologies.

“We feel that tech has spent many years talking to tech, and if innovation is going to affect Canada’s economy, the conversation has to get much bigger than the tech community,” Zarzeczny said. “We believe that Nrth can play a really unique role in being that convener, bridging the tech ecosystem with more traditional small and medium-sized businesses to create new customers and adopters.”

Zarzeczny said more information about Nrth’s new programs will be revealed in the coming months. As the tech festival looks to play a “small role” in helping Canada win on the global stage, Zarzeczny said she doesn’t think it will take long for event-goers to get used to the new name.

“The first nine years of Elevate were absolutely incredible, and it really was all about lifting up Canadian innovations and giving our innovators the platform that they deserved,” Zarzeczny said. “The next nine years, 10 years, 20 years with Nrth is really about turning innovation into a competitive advantage.”

BetaKit is a Nrth Festival media partner. Image courtsy Alex Riehl for BetaKit.