Canada has a scaleup problem. We create entrepreneurs, but too many of them feel they need to leave to build world-class companies.

Fred Lalonde is one of the exceptions. He is the founder and CEO of Hopper, the Canadian travel-tech company that used data, prediction and fintech to help travellers book with more confidence.

Now Lalonde is bringing that same ambition to Deep Sky, a Canadian carbon removal company.

In this episode of Disruptors, recorded in front of a live audience, John Stackhouse speaks with Fred about what it takes to build and scale from Canada - and why the country needs more founders willing and able to do it here.

Fred is funny and blunt, but underneath it all is a builder's clarity: disruption is not something he manages. It is something he assumes.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Hopper became one of Canada's leading tech success stories
• Why Fred thinks entrepreneurs better be motivated by building, not just money
• Why AI, energy and advanced manufacturing are central to Canada's next growth chapter
• What it takes to build a world-class company without leaving Canada

RBC Thought Leadership

Keywords: Fred Lalonde, Frederic Lalonde, Hopper, Deep Sky, John Stackhouse, Disruptors podcast, RBC Thought Leadership, Canadian unicorns, Canadian startups, Canadian founders, Canadian scaleups, Canada startup ecosystem, Canada founder gap, Canadian entrepreneurship, Canadian innovation, venture capital Canada, growth capital Canada, RBC growth fund, homegrown Canadian companies, AI disruption, climate tech, carbon removal, direct air capture, energy transition, advanced manufacturing, Canadian productivity, Canadian competitiveness.

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In this episode, John Stackhouse visits Ross on the outskirts of Ottawa to talk with CEO David Ross about how the company grew from a small Canadian manufacturer into a global live-production infrastructure player. They discuss why the economics of live events changed so dramatically, how cheaper and more powerful screens transformed stadiums and concerts into multimedia platforms, and how Ross helps turn live data into visual storytelling through graphics, overlays, motion systems and production control.

Ross Video is one of Canada’s most consequential technology companies, even if most audiences have never heard of its name. They work across more than 100 countries. Their technology now sits inside countless modern live-event and broadcast experience:  On field graphics, robotic camera systems, data-rich stadium presentation, newsroom and broadcast automation and the production systems behind concerts, major sports, studios and major event coverage for clients like MLB, NFL, PGA, NHL, Premier League, Metallica, Taylor Switft, Coldplay the list goes on and on and on.

The conversation also surfaces a bigger business story. Ross describes its work as brand amplification technology, helping sports teams, venues, concerts and companies use screens, graphics, motion systems and production tools to deepen audience experience and strengthen commercial value. David lays out the company’s operating logic clearly: expand into adjacencies, acquire expertise when needed, keep founders and technical talent engaged, and never fall behind in technology. That approach shows up in Ross’s reinvestment model too: roughly one-third of the company is in R&D.

This episode is about sports broadcast innovation, stadium technology, robotic cameras, concert production, real-time graphics, data storytelling, and the broader live-entertainment economy.

Ross sits inside a much larger market shift: a world where live sports, concerts, venue systems, and production technology are becoming more immersive, more data-driven and more economically important.

For more ideas and insights on Canada’s economy, innovation, and competitiveness, visit 

RBC Thought Leadership

Primary keywords: Ross Video; David Ross; John Stackhouse; Disruptors podcast; Ottawa technology company; Canadian tech company; live production technology; sports broadcast technology; stadium technology; robotic cameras; spidercam; sports graphics; NFL first down line; MLB All-Star Game; Olympic broadcast technology; concert production technology; newsroom automation; data visualization in sports; live event infrastructure; sports media innovation

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Congestion isn’t just annoying, it's an economic drag. In this episode of Disruptors, John Stackhouse speaks with Kurtis McBride, co-founder of Miovision, about how a Waterloo-built company turned intersection data into a real-time operating layer for cities and how that platform is scaling globally.

McBride explains how Miovision began with a simple insight from manual traffic counts, then evolved into a digital twin approach that helps cities reduce congestion, improve safety, support transit performance, and shorten emergency response times. He also shares how Miovision is applying AI including a conversational interface that lets traffic teams ask plain-English questions about their network and get actionable recommendations.

The conversation expands into a founder playbook for selling into cities, navigating cross-border requirements like Build America, Buy America, and building the connected intersection infrastructure that can make vehicle-to-everything (V2X) services and eventually autonomous mobility safer and more affordable.

For more ideas and insights on Canada’s economy, innovation, and competitiveness, visit RBC Thought Leadership

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We’re all using AI more, but how many of us actually trust it?

AI is now used by more than a billion people worldwide, but trust in these systems is far from settled. In this episode of Disruptors, John Stackhouse speaks with Yoshua Bengio, Turing Award winner, founder of Mila, and Co-President and Scientific Director of LawZero, about whether AI is getting safer or more dangerous as it becomes more powerful, more agentic, and more embedded in work, public systems, and everyday life. They explore LawZero’s mission to build non-agentic, trustworthy AI, including Scientist AI, and why Bengio believes the next generation of artificial intelligence should be designed to reason, evaluate, and supervise rather than independently pursue goals. John is also joined by Jaxson Khan, Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, to discuss AI sovereignty, the risks of dependence on foreign cloud and compute infrastructure, and what Canada should be thinking about as it prepares its next national AI strategy. This is a conversation about AI safety, Canadian AI sovereignty, trustworthy AI, and who should shape the systems that are increasingly shaping us. Yoshua Bengio’s work through LawZero offers one of the clearest Canadian answers yet.

Show notes links
Episode guests and organizations
Yoshua Bengio
LawZero
Jaxson Khan
Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Referenced reading
RBC Thought Leadership
RBC Thought Leadership on LinkedIn
Sovereign by Design: Strategic Options for Canadian AI Sovereignty
Bridging the Imagination Gap: How Canadian companies can become global leaders in AI adoption

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As Disruptors: The Canada Project earns a Webby Award nomination, we’re re-releasing the season finale, “Building Canada: A new generation takes charge.” 

How does Canada actually build faster, smarter and at greater scale?

In this episode, John Stackhouse speaks with Daniel Debow and Lucy Hargreaves of Build Canada about what it will take for Canada to move from big ideas to real execution. 

After a season exploring defence tech in Newfoundland, sovereign launch capacity in Atlantic Canada, critical minerals and refining in Quebec, AI-ready power in Alberta, and trusted data infrastructure in Ontario, this finale brings those threads together in one conversation about nation-building, productivity, infrastructure, innovation, and Canadian competitiveness.

If you’ve been following the series, please support Disruptors in the Webby People’s Voice Awards.  Vote.webbyawards.com

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Trust at Scale: Lessons from Wikipedia

Wikipedia is one of the internet’s most-used public resources, but what makes people trust it in an era shaped by AI, misinformation and institutional decline? On this episode of Disruptors, John Stackhouse speaks with Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales about how Wikipedia built trust, why neutrality still matters, and what generative AI gets wrong. They discuss community governance, social media, local journalism, online accountability, young people’s information habits and what businesses can learn from a platform designed around public trust.

In this episode you’ll understand:

• Why Wikipedia still earns trust when so much of the internet does not.
• What neutrality looks like in a polarized digital environment.
• Why AI makes trusted human systems more important, not less.
   

RBC – Thought Leadership

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Canada’s Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics delivered unforgettable moments — and also a hard signal: podium success is increasingly won upstream, through systems, sport science, and technology.

In a world where competitors treat sport science as infrastructure, Canada is trying to win with a thinner pipeline and a funding model that can push costs onto athletes. That’s not just unfair — it’s strategically risky.

In our latest Disruptors episode, host John Stackhouse sits down with David Shoemaker, CEO and Secretary General of the Canadian Olympic Committee, and Jennifer Heil, Olympic champion (Turin 2006 gold; Vancouver 2010 silver) and Chef de Mission for Team Canada at Milano Cortina 2026.

This episode unpacks what “modernization” means.  It’s the same logic that drives performance in business: small gains compound when the system is designed to learn.

You’ll also hear why talent identification matters and how RBC Training Ground points to what a scalable pipeline can look like when measurement meets opportunity.

Home-field advantage: How to scale Canadian sport tech primer
RBC Training Ground
RBC Thought Leadership

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Quantum computing is accelerating — and putting today’s encryption on a clock. John Stackhouse goes inside Xanadu’s Toronto lab with Christian Weedbrook to meet Aurora, a networked quantum computer built to push scale in the right direction and speaks with Photonic’s Dr. Stephanie Simmons about “harvest now, decrypt later,” fault-tolerant quantum, and why every organization needs a post-quantum cryptography (PQC) transition plan.

It’s not all doom and gloom. Simmons also lays out what quantum could unlock as it scales: new possibilities in materials, chemistry, and discovery that are moving from theory toward real-world impact.

In this episode:

• Inside Xanadu: Aurora and what “networked quantum” looks like in the real world
• What “fault-tolerant” quantum means — and why it matters
• “Harvest now, decrypt later” and the trust implications for institutions
• Post-quantum cryptography (PQC): where leaders should start
• Quantum upside: materials, chemistry, and faster discovery

Read:

Quantum Explained

RBC – Thought Leadership 

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Canada is exporting too much of its agri-food upside—IP, talent, and value-add—because growth-stage financing doesn’t fit the sector. From Ottawa, John Stackhouse speaks with RBC’s Lisa Ashton to unpack Seeding Scale—RBC’s new report on Canada’s agri-food growth-capital gap. Joined by Vive Crop CEO Darren Anderson and Emmertech Managing Partner Kyle Scott, they break down why agri-food is “different money,” why companies hit a wall around the $15M mark, and the first moves to keep more Canadian innovation scaling at home.

Seeding Scale Report

RBC Thought Leadership

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Fresh from Davos, John Stackhouse shares field notes on how the world’s economy is reorganizing — and what that means for Canadians.

He is joined by Gerald Butts, Vice Chairman and Senior Advisor at Eurasia Group, to unpack the new RBC–Eurasia Canada risk outlook: what matter most, how to separate signal from noise, and the practical playbook for where to invest, what to protect, and how to diversify.

RBC / Eurasia – Risk Report
www.rbc.com/en/thought-leadership/the-growth-project/top-risks-2026-canada/

Davos ’26: Making sense of a new world order
www.rbc.com/en/thought-leadership/the-trade-hub/davos-26-making-sense-of-a-new-world-order/

RBC Thought Leadership
www.rbc.com/thoughtleadership

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If you’re trying to separate climate ambition from execution, this conversation is for you! John Stackhouse is joined by Clara Barby, Senior Partner at Just Climate, to pressure-test what’s scaling—and what’s getting stuck by diving into RBC’s new Climate Action 2026 report.

What you’ll hear:

Why 2025 was a year of “proof and pressure” and what that means for clean tech in 2026.

Climate Tech solutions that don’t require behaviour change.

The case for Canada’s ‘land transition’ as a ripe opportunity—investing in tools and inputs that help farmers and land managers decarbonize.

Why CCUS remains a complex case: carbon price, CapEx, infrastructure, and the fragmented value chain.

How AI-driven power demand is changing the investment lens on electrification and grid build.

Clara Barby is a Senior Partner at Just Climate (founded by Generation Investment Management). She previously led the Impact Management Project and supported the establishment of the ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board)

Links:

RBC Climate Action 2026 (report): www.rbc.com/cai

Unearthing Value (report): http://bit.ly/4qJZ9TQ

Just Climate: https://www.justclimate.com

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