Montreal Tech Week focused on artificial intelligence, social impact and the funding crisis in Quebec.
Montreal's first grassroots tech week, hosted by AI godfather Yoshua Bengio and Builders Day at the Shopify offices, drew more than 6,000 participants to 100 events focused on the social impact of technology and the challenges of building a startup in Quebec.
“There is a vibrant ecosystem, but we don’t see these people all the time.”
The week-long Montreal Open House event was organized by the non-profit organization ElanTech as an extension of its previous initiative: Open Day for Startups. The decentralized format modeled after tech weeks in New York and Toronto, where organizers organized flagship events and community members held their own related gatherings.
Startup Open House debuted in 2013 as an initiative to help the startup community open its doors to the public, and was acquired by Elevate in 2019. Following the pandemic, the event returned to Montreal in May 2024 after ElanTech (formerly MTL NewTech) acquired local rights. Elevate brought Back to the Toronto event this October along with community promoters TechTO and ElanTech.
Other events included a builders' hackathon, a social breakfast at the former Notman House technology hub, and presentations on construction in niche markets such as gaming technology and travel, hosted by TechTO.
In an interview with BetaKit, ElanTech co-founder Ilias Benjelloun and chief executive Simran Kanda said the week was an attempt to revitalize the Montreal ecosystem and attract new participants, especially those who don't fit the traditional profile of a founder.
“They weren't the same people,” Kanda said, adding that she spoke with parents trying to understand technology in their children's world, as well as artists in the animation community.
Benjelloun said he wants to host a conference where programs can “combine technological innovation and positive social impact.”
During Bengio's Oct. 18 talk with Benjelloun, the researcher discussed the alarming “disconnect” between technologists and the rest of society, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI).
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“When I got my computer science degree, I received virtually no courses on how society works, how politics works, how scientific advances can be both positive and negative,” Bengio said. “We must be very careful and attentive to how scientific and technological progress is managed and applied.”
Benjelloun said there is a need to bridge the gap between technology and society as Canada tries to increase its economic productivity. “We need an urgent response,” Benjeloun said. “I want to ensure Canadian values of inclusion, social impact, environmental impact and diversity continue.”
As the theme ran through many of the week's events, including a breakfast at the former Notman House centre, other events gave the founders the opportunity to create artificial intelligence products as the technology becomes more popular. a core element of every startup's business plan.
On Friday, the startups opened their offices in the afternoon to allow participants to hear from executives and explore job opportunities. Participating offices included advertising company Optable and travel content scaling company Stay22.
Maria Julia Guimarães, CEO and founder of inclusive wearable technology startup Totum Tech, opened her office to visitors to the Ax. Innovation Center with Brazilian desserts. Guimarães told BetaKit she was “amazed” to see how much was happening in the city from a tech perspective.
“There’s a vibrant ecosystem here, but we don’t see these people all the time,” she said. Giamares added that she would take part in previous episodes if she could go “back in time.”
To cap off the week, startups were invited to AI Build Day at Shopify's Montreal offices on Sunday to develop AI-powered products and showcase their work in a special edition of Shopify's Open Office Builder Sundays.
Behdad Karimi Dermeni, CEO and founder of AI accounting platform ReinvestWealth, told BetaKit that it's “inspiring” to work in a packed room of fellow startup founders at the office of Canada's most valuable startup. “Being around this type of energy is pretty unique,” he said.
Mass energy, problems with financing
Quebec's tech ecosystem, like the rest of Canada, is facing a challenge decline in early stage fundraising in recent years, partly due to difficulties in raising funds caused by a stalled exit market and low liquidity.
This was a recurring theme throughout the week, with an event hosted by TechTO and Boast discussing how to effectively raise funds at all stages—and when to avoid venture capital entirely.
“Bootstrapping keeps you in control in a way that fundraising doesn’t,” Emil Chukha, founder of cryptocurrency mining hardware startup Helium Deploy, said at the event, referring to the increasingly common practice of building a fast-growing startup without venture capital.
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Timothée Boullier, chief operating officer and co-founder of Kalk, a startup created by Centech that automates price quotes for construction projects, told BetaKit: “In Quebec, we have a lot of people who will tell you how to build a business from scratch. The hardest part is securing financing.”
The Montreal Open House itself operated without government funding because ElanTech was unable to secure grants from the city, Kanda said. Operating costs for the week were approximately $18,000, not including labor costs. Kanda said local restaurants are generously partnering with free food and coffee.
One of her goals was to make the event accessible and accessible to the founders and participants. However, Kanda said the event would be difficult to hold next year without additional funding.
Disclosure: BetaKit's majority owner Good Future is the family office of two former Shopify leaders, Arati Sharma and Satish Kanwar.
Artistic image courtesy of Madison McLachlan for BetaKit.
