Vancouver’s Traction Conference unveils its 2019 agenda, with speakers from top Silicon Valley companies

Over the past 12 months, an unprecedented number of Silicon Valley companies have opened new offices in Vancouver. Choosing to expand northwards because of the city’s high quality of talent, access to top-flight universities, and quick direct flight back to the Californian tech hub, Bay Area darlings like Asana, Lyft, Mailchimp, and Postmates are excited to call a small slice of Vancouver home.

With the city featuring much more prominently on Silicon Valley’s radar, it comes as little surprise that Traction Conference has managed to secure some of the region’s most engaging speakers for its 2019 lineup.

The event has just announced the full agenda for its two-day meeting-of-minds on August 7 and 8. Featuring more than 40 sessions, the conference will spotlight as many speakers, giving a platform to senior leadership from companies such as Red Hat, Shopify, Atlassian, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Zendesk, SurveyMonkey, Zapier, Duolinguo, and Kabbage, with talks directed towards helping attendees to grow and scale their businesses.

“Traction is known for consistently bringing a solid lineup of unicorn founders and leaders delivering actionable insights that attendees can implement in their businesses right away,” says Ray Walia, CEO of Vancouver incubator Launch Academy. “We are excited to have an impressive lineup of speakers and partners that are all contributing towards a successful seventh Traction Conference in Vancouver.”

New to the event this year is the chance to attend a more specialized set of talks on the first day. August 7 will feature four unique tracks that deep-dive into some of the biggest problems for companies, and address them as part of distinct summits: Product, Growth, C-Suite, and the newest addition, the Fundraising Summit. The four events will conclude with an opening reception at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, where individuals can mix and mingle.

The second day brings all attendees together for a number of attention-grabbing talks from founders and C-suite executives from multi-billion dollar companies. Primarily focusing on growth, the second day promises to provide individuals with insight on how to better their business with rapid-fire keynotes and fireside chats, set in the surroundings of the luxury JW Marriott Parq.

“There has never been a better time to be a Canadian startup,” says Adam Nanjee, managing director at Microsoft for Startups Canada. “Traction provides an invaluable platform for founders to learn hard-won advice from proven entrepreneurs.”

Traction Conference is at various locations on August 7, and at the JW Marriott Parq Hotel and Casino on August 8. More information and tickets are available here.

Kate Wilson is the Technology Editor at the Georgia Straight. Follow her on Twitter @KateWilsonSays