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C2MTL is on the move — again.
Montreal’s most eclectic business conference returns this spring for a 13th year in yet another location — the cruise-ship terminal of the Old Port’s Grand Quay — with a renewed sense of purpose. The 2024 edition is scheduled for May 21 to 23, a stone’s throw from the port’s 65-metre-high observation tower.
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Thematic days, built around some of the key industries driving the Montreal economy, should give the event a sharper focus, says chief executive and nine-year C2 veteran Anick Beaulieu. Issues surrounding virtual and augmented reality, innovation, durability and artificial intelligence will be discussed at length, she says. C2 stands for commerce and creativity.
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“This is a strategic realignment that we’re making,” Beaulieu said Monday in an interview. “The reason for this realignment is to simplify our offering. Our initial vocation was to stimulate business opportunities for local companies. We want companies to recognize that C2 is a tool, a platform that they can use.”
Confirmed speakers include London-based architect Indy Johar, who founded the not-for-profit architecture firm Dark Matter Labs and helped create the WikiHouse open-source project for designing low-carbon buildings; Princeton University professor Ruha Benjamin, who speaks on issues concerning innovation, equity, health and justice; and David Levine, creative and visual strategist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Scientists from Mila, the Quebec artificial intelligence institute, should also be part of the full lineup, which will be unveiled later, Beaulieu says. It’s too early to say whether Mila scientific director and AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio — whose discussion with Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari provided one of the 2023 conference’s highlights — will again be among the speakers, according to the C2 CEO.
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The Grand Quay will be C2’s sixth site since its inception. New City Gas, Little Burgundy’s Arsenal, Grandé Studios in Pointe-St-Charles, the circus-arts venue Tohu and downtown’s Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth Hotel have all hosted the event.
The contrast with the Queen Elizabeth, which C2 called home in 2023, couldn’t be greater, Beaulieu says.
“For us, the move to the Grand Quay is a return to the DNA of C2. It’s a place that’s atypical and really showcases Montreal,” Beaulieu said. “Compared to last year, when people could very easily leave the Queen Elizabeth and blend into the downtown area, this is almost a self-contained village, a community. We’re very excited to be able to express our creativity in a place like this.”
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Attending C2 doesn’t come cheap. One-day passes sell for $995, while unlimited three-day passes normally go for $1,795 — though with the 30 per cent discount that’s being offered for a limited time, the price drops to $1,256.
Organizers are aiming to draw as many as 5,000 participants this year from more than 30 countries, Beaulieu says.
“C2 is a little bit like a reverse trade mission where we try to attract the world to Montreal,” she said. “That’s why we picked the themes that we picked this year. If we did a conference on fashion in Montreal, I don’t think industry people from Paris would come here for that, but if we talk about topics like AI or immersive technologies, Quebec already has a credibility in those fields.”
Innovation “is in our DNA,” added Beaulieu. “People expect to be surprised, to be taken to new places. If we manage to help participants disconnect from their daily reality, it opens the door to fruitful conversations.”
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