On 20 September 2016, a conference entitled The Emerging Cascadia Innovation Corridor took place in Vancouver, B.C. The event was co-organized by Microsoft, the Business Council of British Columbia and the Washington Roundtable, although in reality, Microsoft was the event driver. Absent from the Cascadia-themed discussions was the third city of the I-5 corridor.

The conference included remarks from Canadian Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Singh Bains; Washington Governor Jay Inslee; B.C. Premier Christy Clark; Bill Gates; and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. A planned PM Skype address from New York did not take place due to scheduling challenges.

Minister Bain's mention of a new federal government initiative (later reflected in Budget 2017) that would use government procurement as a tool to support early-stage companies garnered particular attention. Such funding would provide start-ups with much-needed seed funding that could help them validate their technology solutions, commercialize, scale up quickly, and go global.

The conference and related B.C.-Washington MOU was the first step in building momentum for more work to be done on a number of fronts to capitalize on the strengths of the Cascadia region (access to talent, venture capital, close geographic proximity, top-rated universities and research centres, and tech-oriented companies), and make Cascadia a more vibrant, integrated, and prosperous regional economy that can compete together as one on the world stage.