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On Wednesday night, the region’s technology industry will gather to celebrate its own at the annual VIATEC awards gala.

It’s also a chance for the industry, which prides itself on its forward-thinking, proactive nature and entrepreneurial spirit, to put its collective head together to tackle a new set of challenges.

Those challenges have forced some global technology players to announce mass layoffs, slowed hiring in many sectors to a crawl, seen investment dry up and forced some firms to restructure.

The industry is definitely having “a moment,” said Dan Gunn, chief executive of VIATEC — the Victoria Innovation, Advanced Technology and Entrepreneurship Council — which organizes the annual gala.

Gunn said locally, geopolitical unrest, economic turmoil and disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence have resulted in a shift toward caution, rather than stagnation. That’s new for an industry that has always seen adversity as an opportunity.

“When you don’t have people feeling like they can, they don’t,” he said. “And they won’t feel like they can until the world calms down.”

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Author: Andrew A. Duffy
Photo by: Darren Stone