Web Summit Vancouver was a good time. The events on the edges—the offsite meetups, the impromptu hallway conversations, the reconnections with local founders—were the highlight for me. But inside the convention centre, things felt... familiar. Not in a comforting way, but in a could’ve-happened-anywhere way.

And that’s the problem.

Web Summit Vancouver is a microcosm of something deeper: a city—and a startup ecosystem—that hasn’t quite figured out how to showcase its own uniqueness. We keep hoping to be discovered instead of defining who we are. If that doesn't change, the summit may follow the same trajectory as so many promising Canadian ventures: gain traction, prove value, and eventually get swallowed up by something bigger just south of the border.

Think about it. Let’s imagine Web Summit becomes wildly successful here. It grows year over year, becomes a must-attend event in North America. That success, ironically, could be the very reason it doesn’t stay. The same way we lost the Vancouver Grizzlies, we could lose the summit—because we didn’t root it deeply enough in the place that made it possible.

It’s not that the summit didn’t deliver value. It brought thousands of people to our city and sparked important conversations. But for this to be more than a three-year experiment, it needs to feel like Vancouver—not just take place in Vancouver.

We’re not a cheaper Silicon Valley. We’re home to unique innovation enablers. One example is my field; our retrofit and building science ecosystem was forged by the leaky condo crisis—an overlooked origin story that now fuels globally relevant climate innovation. That’s the kind of story that doesn’t just deserve a panel. It deserves a spotlight.

Vancouver didn’t need another conference. We needed a global stage that reflects who we are.

Because Vancouver is more than a beautiful backdrop. It’s a blueprint for a more thoughtful, place-based approach to tech. And if Web Summit wants to stay here, it should start acting like it.