When Small Cities Make Big Leaps

The Intelligent Community

What makes Canadian cities such as Waterloo, Ottawa and Toronto hubs of high-tech entrepreneurship and successful Intelligent Communities? Since moving to Canada, Professor Darius Ornston, author of When Small States Make Big Leaps, which chronicled how the Nordic countries developed the ability to enter new, tech-based markets, has similarly studied two Intelligent Communities of the Year in Canada and tells us how these Canadian communities represent a collaborative approach which has resulted in Canada having more designated Intelligent Communities than any other nation. Darius Ornston is an associate professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto where he specializes in innovation policy, specifically the relationship between cooperation and economic change. His first book, When Small States Make Big Leaps, illustrates how the Nordic countries use cooperation to enter new, high-technology markets. In Good Governance Gone Bad, he demonstrates how the same, tight-knit networks which accelerate reform and restructuring can lead to policy overshooting, overinvestment, and economic crisis. Professor Ornston’s work with Dan Breznitz on the politics of innovation and the design of innovation agencies has been published with multiple outlets, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the OECD. Since moving to Canada, Professor Ornston has focused on high-technology entrepreneurship in Ottawa, Waterloo, and Toronto.