Tech in Vancouver: History and Timeline
Recently, we asked ourselves the question: is Vancouver really a global tech hub or is that just the local spin?
In researching this, we came across an amazing wealth of information on the Vancouver tech scene and decided to turn it into a three part infographic series that covers the past, present, and future of tech in Vancouver.
To kick things off, we dug deep into Vancouver’s past to see how the industry emerged. It turns out that the birth of tech in The Rainy City stems from two main companies: MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates and MPR Teltech. This Cantech Letter article does a great job documenting how they came on the scene and what the people behind these companies accomplished.
Over the last 40 years, Vancouver has had great homegrown stories in green energy (Ballard Power), video games (Distinctive Software), enterprise services (Crystal Decisions), space tech (MDA), social media collaboration (Hootsuite), quantum computing (D-Wave), and many other cutting edge areas. Because of that success, Vancouver was able to eventually attract the big boys to set up shop.
Now that we’ve established a timeline of Vancouver’s tech history, it is time to look at the present picture. That will be Part Two of the series, coming soon.
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Note: All job titles and names used in this graphic are for illustrative purposes and are not meant to correspond to actual people. We wanted to give an idea of what jobs during each era might be like, but without invading anyone’s privacy. Therefore, we used fictional names/titles.
Special thanks to the people who helped us build this infographic: The Visual Capitalist team and also Connie Chen who volunteered time to help us put together facts.
