It’s official. Collision Conference is leaving New Orleans behind after three years and heading to Toronto on May 20-23, 2019.
The Collision team recently asked the global community to vote on where they should head next. The options included Toronto, San Francisco, Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, or New Orleans.
Paddy Cosgrave, founder of Collision Conference, noted the size of Toronto’s tech sector, in addition to its diversity and inclusion, as key factors for the move.
“New Orleans, Collision’s home for three years, is a very special town, but as Collision grows we needed to find a bigger base with more global connectivity,” said Cosgrave. “I believe that Canada and Toronto have lived to some extent in the technology shadow of America. But that’s changing and changing fast.”
“A new wave of Canadian founders are building companies not just out of Canada but all over the world. At the very moment when some countries around the world seem to be shutting their borders, when intolerance is on the rise, Toronto stands for diversity and inclusion.”
Cosgrave also mentioned that some international tech entrepreneurs have been denied visas to attend Collision in New Orleans. “At the same time, Canada now fast-tracks international work visas.”
Over the next three years in Toronto, organizers expect to bring more than 90,000 attendees to the city, with an economic impact totaling an estimated $147 million.