Five Canadian tech and innovation events on our radar for September

The best tech events give people something they can use once they hand in their badges and take off for happy hour. 

Maybe that’s a new skill, a useful connection, or a strategy move.

Lisa Zarzeczny, co-founder and CEO of Elevate, described that goal as helping attendees turn inspiration into action.

“I would love for people to walk away from Elevate having learned a new skill, met a co-founder, found an investor, received mentorship, and have really learned or done something that has allowed their business to grow and scale,” she said.

Most events in the technology and innovation communities want the same thing, whether the focus is AI, data, women in tech, startups, or procurement.

At every event, extra value comes from the conversations that happen outside speaker panels and sessions. Attendees can compare experiences, swap ideas, and work through problems with each other, all from a conference lunch table or comfy chairs in an event space hall. 

Fall 2026 has a busy lineup of innovation events across Canada, taking place in the shadow of an escalating trade war, AI showing up everywhere, and the word ‘sovereignty’ being used with increasing frequency. 

These are huge issues, no doubt. But the innovation and tech world keeps moving, and the agenda at each event focuses on what people are trying to build, fund, deploy, and figure out next.

Here are five September events bringing those conversations together.

YYC DataCon

Sept. 11
BMO Centre
Calgary, AB

YYC Data Society’s flagship annual conference, started in 2020, returns for 2026 with the theme “From Insight to Impact: Doing Data Right.” 

The focus of the practitioner-led event is what happens after the AI plan gets approved. 

In recent years, data teams have become AI teams. And as Mirna Damergi, co-director of YYC DataCon and chair of the YYC Data Society, told me in our recent interview, this is an advantage, as they’re already used to working with the data AI depends on.

As companies are moving AI projects from experiments to essential tools, Damergi sees DataCon as the place where you learn what happened next.  

With four tracks (technical, industry, leadership, and governance), and a workshop stream, the event features over 30 speakers including Clark Lai, CEO at Motiv, Noah McDonough, founder and CEO of Candidly AI, and Diane McLeod, Alberta’s information and privacy commissioner.

This year, the event also moves from the broader three-day format Digital Journal covered last year, to one concentrated day. 

ALL IN

Sept. 16-17
Palais des Congrès
Montreal, QC

Bringing all of Canada’s AI ambitions into one room, the fourth edition of ALL IN returns with more than 7,500 leaders, decision-makers, researchers, policy-makers, and investors expected from over 40 countries. According to organizers, participant mix is about 60% AI adopters and 40% AI providers. 

For 2026, the event wants to focus on the shared goal of building an AI-powered economy. 

There are five content tracks including AI and society, applied AI and enterprise transformation, AI at the frontier, AI, data and infrastructure, and physical AI and robotics.

More than 250 speakers will be featured across four stages, including Yoshua Bengio, professor at Université de Montréal, co-president and scientific director of LawZero, and founder and scientific advisor of Mila, and Aidan Gomez, CEO and co-founder of Cohere.

Life Sciences Week

Sept. 21-25
Calgary and Edmonton, AB

A free, community-led event, Life Sciences Week brings together researchers, founders, policymakers, investors, industry leaders, and students. 

Supported by not-for-profit life sciences commercialization organization Applied Pharmaceutical Innovation, the week offers a full picture of how Alberta’s sector is developing.

This year, the Life Sciences sector contributed $5 billion to the provincial GDP across 397 companies, according to Start Alberta. 

Last year’s event week had 6,252 registrations across 61 events in Edmonton and Calgary. This year, the two cities will host a wide range of events. 

In Edmonton, you’ll find a national femtech summit, the launch of the University of Alberta’s Regenerative Medicine Hub, and a conversation with Nobel Laureate Sir Michael Houghton on the province’s place as a global life sciences leader. 

In 2025, Digital Journal’s Chris Hogg hosted a conversation with Houghton on how Alberta was positioning itself for global growth. 

In Calgary, there will be sessions on how scientists become biotech founders, how to build teams that advance breakthrough science, scaling beyond Canada, and navigating Alberta’s startup ecosystem. 

Here’s a look at Digital Journal’s coverage from last year’s Life Sciences Week.

Elevate

Sept. 22 – 24
Meridian Hall and the St. Lawrence Centre for Arts
Toronto, ON

Across Canada’s tech sector, the pressures are practical, like how to fund growth, win customers, choose tech investment carefully, and make AI work responsibly inside organizations.

Elevate Festival’s Zarzeczny says she wants the festival to be where these conversations become next steps. 

For 2026, the event features a new sovereign growth content track, exploring how Canada can create a stronger innovation economy while competing on a global scale. It also includes more opportunities for founder-investor meetings, new hands-on crash courses about essential tools, and a new AI-powered networking app designed to help people find the right person in a very large room.

Featured speakers include Amber Mac, president of AmberMac Media Inc., Dr. Christian Weedbrook, CEO and founder of Xanadu Quantum Technologies, and Beah Burger-Lenehan, chief product officer at DuckDuckGo. 

Here’s a look at Digital Journal’s coverage of last year’s Elevate Festival.

Future Festival 

Sept. 30-Oct. 1
Steam Whistle Brewery
Toronto, ON

Trend Hunter’s Future Festival World Summit returns to Toronto Sept. 30 to Oct. 1, bringing together industry leaders working across innovation, technology, product, strategy, and transformation.

This year’s theme is “unlocking the human advantage in innovation,” with sessions on how AI affects judgment and creativity, digital transformation, decoding consumer trust across different generations, and how leaders decide which trends are worth acting on. 

The event is led by Trend Hunter’s team of futurists, including Jonathon Brown, chief growth officer and innovation strategy storyteller, and Sean Watson, SVP of transformation and future tech trend forecaster. 

The program also includes hands-on workshops, experiential exhibitions, networking, and “trend safaris” through Toronto, the city’s most innovative retail, tech, and cultural hot spots.