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Comment by obstacle1 | Hacker News Reader

Tech cities: Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo (poised for decline), Ottawa (poised to bounce back).

School-wise, the best talent in the country tends to come from UToronto, Waterloo, UBC or McGill. That said, there are tons of great programs all across the country.

We have some accelerator-like programs and initiatives aimed at fostering an entrepreneurial spirit generally[1][2][3]. Nothing comparable to YC as far as guidance and connections go, though. But I don't think anything has been particularly successful.

[1] - http://www.extremestartups.com

[2] - http://www.thenext36.ca

[3] - http://marscommons.marsdd.com/

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Out of curiosity, why is Ottawa poised to bounce back, and KW poised to decline ?

KW has been/is largely fuelled by RIM/BlackBerry and the University of Waterloo. If the situation gets any worse for BlackBerry, you'll see an enormous brain drain and capital leave the area.

Ottawa is the country's capital and some tech companies there are doing quite well (Shopify in particular).

I agree with Shopify, but what else ? I thought Toronto and KW were the only cities with a good startup ecosystem.

As far as I am concern, Washington DC isnt the startup capital of the US, so why would Ottawa be? In my opinion government shouldn't be a driver of capital in startups, nor is it ... ?

For what it's worth, when I mentioned Ottawa it wasn't because it's a startup hub, though there is an increasing startup scene there of which Shopify is a part. OP asked about tech cities, not startup cities, and Ottawa definitely makes the cut in that respect.

Much of tech in Ottawa is mid- to large-size IT/gov't contracting and telecoms. As for smaller firms, not many are setting out to build the Next Big Turnkey Ruby App. But there are tons of companies aiming to fill niche enterprise/government needs, e.g. [1], [2], many many more.

[1] - http://www.trademerit.com/

[2] - http://www.truenorthavionics.com/

Ottawa's tech scene isn't mainly because of the government. Nortel was based there, and its diaspora and suppliers seeded a decent tech ecosystem.

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