With an impressive corporate roster and their highly educated workforces, the Greater Seattle and Vancouver regions have the potential to become an important innovation corridor. By working together to overcome their challenges and by building on the strengths of their innovation ecosystems, Seattle and Vancouver could advance economic prosperity throughout the Cascadia region.
Innovation Enablers: How Cascadia Stacks Up
Large economic gains are increasingly going to metropolitan regions that are innovation hubs. Global benchmarks show that Seattle and Vancouver have similar advantages in human capital, but they also have distinct strengths and unique challenges, such as the current immigration policy and suboptimal university collaboration.
Realizing the Cascadia Opportunity
By collaborating, the two regions could combine their industry strengths to achieve scale, while pooling complementary capabilities. To accomplish this, the two cities and surrounding regions must become more connected. Transformative efforts will be required to realize Cascadia's full potential, but many pragmatic near-term actions could help pave the way, including coordinating education programs and fostering investor-entrepreneur relationships.
About This Report
In the spring of 2016, leaders from Microsoft, the Washington
Roundtable, the Business Council of British Columbia, and The
Boston Consulting Group began working together to explore the
possibility of greater economic collaboration between the Greater
Seattle and Vancouver regions. Inspired by the rise of innovation
hubs around the world, business and government leaders in both
Seattle and Vancouver see great promise in building on the region's
strong foundation of innovators and innovation assets. This report
summarizes the impetus behind this exploration, our findings, and
proposed next steps.