Tech Community in Saskaboom, SK

I know that if I remained in Calgary, and pursued the same type of work, I would be in a better financial situation than I am now.

When we moved to Saskatoon in the late ‘90’s, we came for my husband’s job, to be closer to family, to slow things down and to start over in an economy where we could buy a house and start a family. Luckily things worked out for us, we got into the market at a good time, started new technical careers that we remain in today and have a the little one we always dreamed of. This isn’t to say things are financially great for us, but we get by.

After a few years here it seemed clear that if we moved to a larger city in Canada or even the U.S., we could probably get ahead. However, despite any half-hearted efforts to convince my husband, he has zero interest in leaving here and I have no interest in being apart from him, regardless what it might mean for my career or bank account.

Eventually, I convinced myself that living in a city in the middle of the prairies in Western Canada is like living anywhere, maybe better in terms of quality of life. Success shouldn’t be dependent on where you sleep and with connections, guts, luck and intelligence geography shouldn't make much difference - I thought.

There are a few success stories that come out of places like Saskatoon, but we aren’t home to the big players in the online business world that Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York, Vancouver or even Calgary is. We don’t have the same level of investment or wealth and that’s correlated to our size and our economy.

If I’m being honest, as a person in the web or media industry, this has a negative impact on my confidence. Sometimes if feels like being in Saskatoon indicates a second-rate citizenship – somehow our work just couldn’t be as good as that of a team in another place. (I know that this isn’t true.) Sometimes I feel very invisible, lonely and unconnected – I have fantasized about moving just to be in a place where it is easier to find people who support me and care about the same things I do. BUT, I haven’t left and I probably won’t because I think things in Saskatoon are about change.

Saskatchewan is experiencing continuing record population growth and there is wealth coming into the economy. While our population rises, so does the average cost of a house, jumping 51% since 2006. Along with a higher cost of living, we are experiencing a stronger economy. According to the Saskatchewan government, we have the second largest increase among provinces of average earnings of a payroll employee with 5.4 per cent and are well above the national average of 3.2 per cent.

The influx is being attributed to inter-provincial migration as a result of our “growing strength in the oil and gas sector, mining, manufacturing, agriculture, research and high-tech, construction and capital investment”.

This is good news for us, because as other parts of Canada and the U.S. are seeing economic downturn, things are finally starting to look up. I’ve been hearing much about sustainability and managing growth provincially. How do we sustain our industry and grow to reap the benefits in the tech sector and community?

I think it’s important to understand that Saskatoon has the potential to have a high functioning and supportive technical community. With a top Canadian university and some successful technical businesses – zu.com, Point2, SED Systems and many others, the opportunity exists for research and development to be funded and executed like it would in any of our larger cities.

We need to continue to believe in ourselves. To recognize each other in the community and be interested in what is going on outside our own doors. We need to attract young, intelligent, talented people to our city and province and we need to retain them. The mentality of students needs to switch. After graduating, they should be able to stay in this beautiful place, pay off student loans and buy a house because they can get an interesting and well paying job supported by networks that provide opportunities for personal and professional development.

We need to show potential customers and partners that we have the ideas and skills right here, and that going outside our province to pay more money for services or goods of equal or inferior value doesn’t make sense. Part of this is getting the word out and I think making connections locally is a start. But, as I’ve mentioned before, we are fairly disparate even within our own technical community. I’m hoping for change as we continue to grow and get to know each other and what we have to bring to the table.

The way I see it, for a long time, we’ve been starving - fighting over the same crumbs. This lead to our reluctance to share and work together in the most effective ways for the strength of our community. Now we have a unique opportunity, within our growing city and province, to get in the kitchen together and start cooking up a storm, so that everyone can eat.