I was recently privy to an interesting perspective about not only Kitchener-Waterloo's Tech Community - but Tech Communities external to Silicon Valley at large.
Anthony Reinhart is the Director of Editorial Strategy at Communitech - his words have always been poetry but it's the content here that I really appreciate; TL;DR: Your Tech Community does not need to replicate Silicon Valley.
With Anthony's permission - I've opened the letter up. Hopefully this helps alleviate the need to incessantly compare your own community to what happens out West.
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"I think Michael Litt's observations are spot-on: We're not big fans of the 'Valley of the North' tag, because every tech ecosystem is different, and comparisons imply that other places could (or should want to) be the same as Silicon Valley, which is not realistic.We also feel that 'Valley of the North' references carry the risk of being construed as insecurity on our part; as a sign that we don't like ourselves the way we are and therefore want to be like someplace else, which isn't the case. While there's plenty of room for improvement here, the Valley is not perfect either (it's an expensive place to live; talent churn is high etc.).
Waterloo Region's tech ecosystem has grown organically out of local soil that has been rich with entrepreneurial spirit and technical innovation throughout its 200-year history, due to many uniquely local factors. Those same factors gave rise to the founding of the University of Waterloo in 1957 - there was local need for engineers to feed industry - and so UW was born out of pragmatic need.
That same pragmatism is behind the co-op programs Michael mentioned, which turn out self-sufficient, scrappy graduates equipped with wide-ranging and worldly experience.
Of course, more capital would enable us to grow more world-beating companies of the scale seen in the Valley, but no one I know expects (or necessarily wants) us to duplicate the Valley.
I can attest, having been a journalist for many years, that media people love making simplistic comparisons and are obsessed with rankings, as though everything is a zero-sum game. We don't think it is. Waterloo Region is Waterloo Region and the Valley is the Valley (as New York is New York, Boston is Boston etc.), and while some things that happen there will also happen here and vice-versa, they will always be different places that evolved from their own sets of circumstances.
I hope this helps in some way; if you need anything else, just let us know.
Cheers,
Tony
Anthony Reinhart
Director, Editorial Strategy, Communitech
The Tannery, 151 Charles St. W. Suite 100
Kitchener Ontario Canada N2G 1H6
P: 519.888.9944 Ext. 2060
Toll Free (North America): 1-855-390-TECH (8324)
BB: 519.590.3944
F: 519.888.7007
E: anthony@communitech.ca
Twitter: @ajreinhart
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyreinhartjournalist"