Hello again Kanata Networkers,
After several months away, I am thrilled to be returning to Canada’s largest technology park!
As I return from maternity leave, I am eager to contribute to improving our community and creating an impact that will make my children proud.
As I hand over the reins to my husband to take over as primary caregiver, I feel grateful for how far we’ve come as a society that embraces this reversal of traditional parental roles. I consider how I will do it all and trust I will have the same strength and courage to lean in as I did before the baby arrived. But most of all, I am confident in the support I will receive from family, friends and colleagues to make it happen.
That is perhaps the greatest takeaway from my time away. Nothing of great substance and meaning can be accomplished alone. Over the course of my maternity
leave, partners, mentors, board members, teammates and confidantes have gathered to support KNBA. These leaders have guided and pushed our community to accomplish great things over the past year. Our organization’s achievements are theirs.
Leading the charge have been the dynamic KNBA team; Veronica, Deborah, Vanessa, Alycia and our summer student Neikko. Collectively, they’ve taken several of our flagship events to new heights, increasing opportunities for KNBA members and raising the profile of the park.
Close to 3,000 attendees and more than 90 exhibitors packed the Brookstreet Hotel earlier this year for the largest-ever Discover TechNATA career and technology expo.
More recently, two events reinforced Kanata North’s reputation as Canada’s autonomous vehicle capital.
In August, some 350 workers from 40 companies in the tech park travelled through the Marshes Golf Course in autonomous pods in a pilot project that could be part of Kanata North’s transportation infrastructure in the years to come.
That set the stage for the Connected and Autonomous Vehicles Canada conference a few
weeks later, which attracted automotive and technology heavyweights including Ford, General Motors and Uber as well as local firms such as Irdeto, Flex and BlackBerry QNX.
All of these major milestones could not have been met without the tremendous leadership of our outgoing chair, Amy MacLeod. Her vision and unwavering commitment towards progress have been invaluable and will have a lasting impact on
our business community for years to come.
As a business association, we are here to foster an environment of boundless opportunity. An environment where businesses can innovate, scale leading-edge technologies and thrive. The founding leaders of this community envisioned an
environment ripe for innovation, one with which we all are a part of today.
It is our time now to decide the vision and path forward. What do we want for our future in Kanata North? For our children, our companies and our community?
I am focused in this next phase on continued collaboration, improved transit and infrastructure, attracting top level talent to Canada’s largest technology park and supporting the needs of our world class companies here in Kanata North.
Sincerely,
Jamie Petten
Executive director
Kanata North Business Association