In May this year Nicolás Amarelle, our CEO, had the opportunity to attend Collision in Toronto. Collision is one of the largest events in the tech scene on a worldwide scale, so we definitely couldn’t miss out on the chance to be there! Here’s Nicolas’ take on the event and the city.

I’d heard a lot about Collision before, and considering it was my (and CodigoDelSur’s) first experience attending, I can definitely say the experience certainly lived up to my expectations! With an estimated 25,000 attendees over the course of 4 days, top speakers and basically every major player in the industry present, it was guaranteed to be a fantastic event, so my overall evaluation on it couldn’t be any less than positive.

Toronto

Being my first time in Toronto, I must admit I was left in awe: there is such a wide variety of cultures and people are in general so kind and open to visitors! From Uber drivers to hotel staff, business people and government authorities, everyone went above and beyond to make one feel comfortable. I did not know that actually half of Toronto’s population wasn’t born in Canada, which is probably why it was so surprising for me to see that wonderful mix of people.

Our experience

As part of a delegation of companies from Uruguay, we had the chance to visit the offices of several companies, incubators and government agencies, such as Shopify, Waterloo University, Accelerator Centre or Communitech, to name a few. It was surprising to see Toronto has such a vibrant tech scene, something we were definitely not expecting! The city seems to be on its way to becoming the next North American tech hub, following San Francisco’s footsteps.

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Shopify's amazing office!

As for the main Collision event, we have no words to express how amazing the speakers were! Not to mention the topics they covered were absolutely relevant, according to the nature of the event. As for the startups that were exhibiting there, we observed that a lot of them were in the cannabis & wellness space, as well as several others that aimed to tackle issues related to the environment. Those were definitely three of the main ‘trending topics’ around there!It’s also worth mentioning that one of the biggest surprises of this whole trip was the fact that we met several of our clients & partners at Collision! Considering the fact that we’re a relatively small company working almost exclusively for the North American market, seeing familiar faces so far away from home was definitely a surprise, but still a wonderful experience nonetheless.

The whole team from Uruguay!