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The pandemic has reminded us that we’re a storytelling species. Just witness the binging boom on Disney+ and Netflix. But unlike in previous eras, our new stories are emerging not just in novels and movies, but through games, videos and social media posts. These new forms can be never-ending in their flow and deeply collaborative, as audiences and creators co-write a new human narrative.

“It’s not just the content itself, it’s about the connection,” says Allen Lau, co-founder and CEO of Wattpad, a Toronto-based startup that now has 80 million users on its storytelling platform. “It’s about building the fan base. Any writer on our platform can connect to his or her fans.”

Lau is the featured guest on the latest episode of the RBC Disruptors podcast, which focusses on the storytelling revolution.

Wattpad’s user base has grown 23% in the past year, with writers and readers now sharing content in 50 languages. From January to early April, the number of new stories written on the platform grew by 151% compared to the same period last year, while the number of new writers was up 125%. Moreover, reading time among those users jumped 30% from early March to early April, with Mexico and Brazil posting the fastest growth.

All that traffic has generated lots of data about user preferences, which publishers and studios are increasingly keen to have.

“We can extract more insights, we can ensure more stories will be much more targeted and the fan experience will be richer,” Lau says.

Global internet traffic rose 40% between February 1 and April 19. Almost all of that growth took place in March and April – much of it on the backs of content-sharing platforms. In a survey of 4,000 Internet users in the U.S. and Britain, 80% said they had consumed more content since the outbreak, especially through streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ and video platforms like YouTube and TikTok.

Netflix added 26 million subscribers in the first half of the year, while Disney+ reached 60 million subscribers in the second quarter, four years ahead of plan. Facebook’s active monthly users rose 12% in the same quarter, to 2.7 billion.

As those platforms are showing, the new storytelling age is about much more than being a couch potato. Through the pandemic, we’ve all been looking for content that connects us with other people, and a bigger purpose. YouTube has noted a spike in sharable content, with views of #WithMe videos – where creators and viewers share in an activity – increasing 600% during the pandemic.

The major platforms can track their own data but they’re also looking to communities like Wattpad for insights on what works best.

“On our platform, unlike the traditional publishing industry, there’s no gatekeeper,” Lau says. “As a writer, you write, you feel good about your draft – you press the ‘publish’ button, and boom, it’s available to the 80 million monthly users who can access the content freely.”

Wattpad has built a team of software engineers and data scientists to develop algorithms that can help writers understand what’s working with readers – and signal to publishers and producers what might sell.

Among its successes: the Kissing Booth on Netflix, After We Collided, which just opened in theatres, and the book She’s With Me, a Penguin Random House bestseller.

But the future of storytelling is no longer exclusively in the hands of the storyteller, as audiences demand a role in shaping and sharing content. And they are among the most powerful allies a producer or publisher could want.

“Kissing Booth was the most popular story on Wattpad in 2012, and then it got a book publishing deal with a UK publisher,” Lau explains. “Netflix spotted that a few years ago and turned that into a movie… …that became, at that time, the most-watched, and for sure the most re-watched movie in 2018.”

The reason is very simple, he says. “The story itself was already good, it’s already validated, and of course, it has the built-in fan base on our platform already. So when Netflix launched the movie, we also ran a big marketing campaign on our platform that activated the old fans and new fans, and that kind of pushed them to watch the movie.”

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Will the decade ahead be shaped by a similar coding revolution in genomics?

Genomics is the use of gene editing to create materials and products. Part of a new wave of bio-engineering, it could help firms overcome daunting supply chain challenges exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

It could also transform agriculture, energy production and the way we make everything from clothing and food to metals and plastics.

“We can actually now use biology to make useful products,” Bettina Hamelin, president and CEO of Ontario Genomics, a provincial group that bridges business, research and government, says on the latest episode of RBC Disruptors.

According to research by the McKinsey Global Institute, 60% of physical inputs into the global economy could be produced biologically. That could save producers $4 trillion a year — about what we’re spending to stave off a pandemic-induced economic collapse. It could also help the world reduce carbon emissions and deforestation, and address economic inequality by redistributing production to smaller centres.

Indeed, by allowing inputs to be engineered in the same place as the finished product, genomics could help companies manufacture goods closer to consumers – enabling smaller economies like Canada to reduce their reliance on sprawling global supply chains.

“You’re able to distribute manufacturing centres in locales all over the place,” says Rob Annan, president and CEO of Genome Canada, a federally-funded not-for-profit that helps develop genome-based technologies. “This gets to the idea of supply chain resiliency – you don’t need to manufacture everything offshore and then ship it all over the world.”

We’ve long depended on genomics for critical products like insulin. But the field has accelerated in recent years thanks to strides in computing power and artificial intelligence. A human genome once required 15 years and $2 billion to sequence. Now it can be done in 24 hours, for less than $1,000.

Today, the pandemic has intensified the race to advance genomics applications for new vaccines and drugs.

Dr. Annan sees genomics as “more of a philosophy than a technology” in our approach to living organisms – one that can help us embrace new strategies for the end-to-end use of materials.

Britain’s approach to synthetic biology has led to the creation of 150 startups in the genomics field, and $1 billion in new investments. The United States, Australia, China and Singapore are also viewed as leaders.

Dr. Annan believes Canada too, has an opportunity to apply genomics to an array of traditional sectors – transforming an economy still seen as one of “hewers of wood and drawers of water.”

But to keep pace, we will need a more innovative approach to regulations, including the management of genetic data, Dr. Hamelin said. The field of genomics generates almost as much data as YouTube and Twitter combined, benefitting regions where scientists and supercomputers can most effectively map data.

Public acceptance is another hurdle. The McKinsey study found 70% of success in genomics depends on consumer adoption and regulation.

Canada also lacks a sophisticated financial system to fund entrepreneurs working in the field or to capitalize larger companies that use genomics to remake their supply chains.

Dr. Annan points to the growing number of younger people entering the discipline as a competitive advantage for Canada.

“Our researchers are using these tools to … develop really new, advanced diagnostics,” he says. “They’re using them to produce candidate vaccines for COVID-19 in bacterial or yeast cells. We’re using this to do bio-monitoring of ecosystems and tracking of endangered species in the Arctic. So there’s lots of ways genomics and genomic sciences are being applied to everyday life.”

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The concrete industry is responsible for about 7% of global emissions, and that’s set to rise sharply over the next quarter-century as cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America balloon and create new demand for high-rises, highways and hydro dams. A new study by the World Economic Forum says emissions from cement could rise 23% by 2050, eating into possible gains made by energy and agriculture.

A bold engineering effort to recycle that carbon – literally burying it in concrete – may be the best hope to offset that growth.

Think of it as a blue box for carbon.

“Carbon utilization” involves sucking carbon out of the atmosphere and injecting it into concrete. It’s a rapidly growing practice.

Rob Niven, a Canadian pioneer in the field, sees the technology as an economic opportunity as much as an environmental one.

“Instead of throwing (carbon) away, you’re actually turning it into something valuable,” Niven says on the latest episode of RBC Disruptors, our weekly podcast on how technology is changing everything around us.

Niven’s Halifax-based company, CarbonCure, has its technology installed in more than 250 sites worldwide. As countries like China and India spend heavily on urban infrastructure, Niven believes there could be 100,000 sites globally in need of the Canadian technology.

“We’re building a New York City every month for the next 40 years,” says Jennifer Wagner, CarbonCure’s president.

According to a recent study by McKinsey & Co., new technologies could help the cement industry cut its 2017-level emissions by more than three-quarters by 2050.

A coalition led by the World Economic Forum is trying to get major emitters to commit to targets and put the concrete and cement industry on a path to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. But they’ll need breakthrough technologies to get there.

“If you can find alignment between the economic gain and the environmental benefit, then you have something that’s truly scalable in a global fashion,” Niven says.

Some other highlights from our conversation with Niven and Wagner:

1. The world won’t get to Net Zero without concrete

A lot of the climate debate focuses on oil and gas, as the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Concrete plays a critical role, too, as a major source that could increase in the decades ahead without new technologies.

2. Industry needs change

The cement and concrete industries are among the least efficient users of energy, and will need to become much more cost-effective as governments push builders to do more with less.

3. Technology is key

The McKinsey study found process improvement might account for only 20% of the needed emissions cuts in the sector. Every cubic yard of concrete that uses carbon utilization technologies, on the other hand, can save 25 pounds of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. A highrise can do the work of nearly 900 acres of forest.

4. Governments can shift markets

Government is the biggest buyer of concrete, largely for big infrastructure projects. In the U.S., many states and municipalities now require builders to commit to lower emissions – something Canadian governments are starting to do, too.

5. It’s not just about future emissions

Even if the world shut down the use of fossil fuels and concrete today, there’s enough carbon sitting in the atmosphere to still cause problems. Carbon capture, utilization and storage can pull those old emissions back, and stick them in the ground – or in concrete.

Updated to clarify references that are to concrete instead of cement.

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From carbon dioxide absorption to temperature regulation to the fact that 90% of our goods are shipped across open waters—the importance of the ocean to our ecosystems and economy can’t be overstated.

But the ways we think about and use the ocean’s wealth of resources need to be reimagined.

Kate Moran and Julie Angus know a thing or two about the ocean, and both believe Canada has the potential to become a leading blue economy by empowering new technologies, entrepreneurs, and sustainable solutions.

Angus rowed the Atlantic in 2006 before co-founding a clean-tech startup—Open Ocean Robotics—that uses autonomous boats to gather ocean data. Moran received her PhD in ocean engineering from Dalhousie on Canada’s east coast before advising the Obama Administration on matters of marine science. She now heads Ocean Networks Canada, the world’s largest and most advanced cabled ocean observatory.

Moran and Angus’s organizations have already introduced exciting technologies to map, monitor, and analyze ocean data for scientific and commercial applications. University accelerator and commercialization programs can help entrepreneurs and scientists build even more, they say, while governments can directly support the sector through procurement, as ocean tech and data becomes increasingly important to economic, environmental, and defense interests.

Canada can be a global leader in the ocean’s future. Both Angus and Moran see no better time than the present to invest in it.

Takeaways:

1. Ensuring healthy oceans is critical to a sustainable future

The ocean absorbs 90% of the planet’s excess heat, produces over half of the world’s oxygen, and absorbs roughly 30% of the carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere. Oceans are crucial for our survival and also present immense opportunities for innovation and economic growth.

2. Canada has what it takes to lead a new approach to oceans

By 2030, the global oceans economy is set to be worth US$3 trillion, according to the OECD, and Moran believes it’s likely to be worth even more. Canada has the coastline, ample technical expertise, and strong complementary know-how in areas like AI to seize economic opportunities in critical areas of negative carbon aquaculture management, ocean renewable energy infrastructure, autonomous marine technology, and net-zero marine transportation systems, Moran believes.

3. Indigenous communities have a role to play in marine sustainability

Significant swaths of Canada’s three coasts are inhabited by Indigenous communities. As proven stewards of the land, they should play a leading role in Canada’s ocean sector. Providing technology to Indigenous populations can empower communities and enhance collaboration towards a sustainable future for our country as well as our oceans.

4. We need to harvest the bounty of data the ocean holds

A stunning 70% of our planet is covered in ocean, yet 80% of it remains unexplored, unobserved, and unmapped. Technological advances mean we’re more prepared than ever to capture and analyze ocean trends. Real-time data collection can help us better understand ocean ecosystems, the effects of climate change, and help us safeguard the Arctic and curb illegal fishing.

5. Let’s attract more innovators to the marine space

Angus believes university accelerators and incubators are key to unlocking the next wave of innovation. But we also need to enable more collaboration between entrepreneurs, large industry and government. Moran and Ocean Networks Canada have already begun engaging with oil and gas companies that see the need for sustainable ocean development.

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And it will be driven by creators, the entrepreneurs and business leaders who look to build industries, not just gobble up old companies with software.

Lazarow is a Winnipeg-born former banker and McKinsey consultant who lives in Silicon Valley and works with Cathay Innovation, investing in technology companies globally. He’s written a new book, Out Innovate, which draws on more than 200 interviews with founders, investors and ecosystem builders to explain how the landscape of innovation is shifting.

The era of Valley-driven disruption will be replaced by a more constructive era, Lazarow writes. Hopefully, this means more innovators will focus on critical human problems like food supply, health care and environmental sustainability. Tech powers like Canada should thrive. But while Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are among the 30 top tech ecosystems globally, the competition is growing. There are more than 480 tech startup hubs, and they’re home to 1.3 million startups.

He sees a centre like Minneapolis excelling as a healthcare hub, London growing as a fintech centre and Detroit regaining its place as the Motown of innovation. In each case, the clusters need big companies—“older siblings,” he calls them—to foster growth, through local procurement and research talent based in local universities.

The most successful centres have a “born global” mentality, Lazarow says. Singapore and Dubai may be the best examples of such places where entrepreneurs look in only one direction: outward.

“My advice to founders is if you’re going to spend the next decade of your life tackling one problem, you might as well make it something that’s going to have a lot of impact.” Lazarow says. “You might as well look for and find and reframe these big challenges into opportunities. And I think that’s what is going to give us an opportunity to support and promote this next generation of creators.”

Lazarow makes five critical points about innovation in the 2020s:

1. It’s more distributed than ever.

What used to be concentrated in a select few locations is now possible in most places. With 480 startup hubs globally, the next billion dollar startup could come from anywhere.

2. Ideas are global.

Gone are the days when only rich developed countries could capitalize on good ideas. This means more competition, but also more opportunity. For Canada, which lacks density of either consumers or companies, the opportunity lies in addressing big global challenges and being unafraid to think of the whole world as our potential market.

3. Hiring ‘A’ talent isn’t the same as building ‘A’ teams.

Startups should think creatively about how to help existing employees stay and grow, rather than accepting employee churn as a part of their business model. And when the depth of local human capital is not enough, they need to think more expansively about hiring talent and building distributed teams.

4. Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” motto doesn’t necessarily work in other, non-software sectors.

Startups must be more conscious towards managing risk when it comes to areas like healthcare and financial services. Any risk that threatens the customer should be mitigated rigorously.

5. Venture capital is due for a refresh.

The original VC model was inspired by the 19^th-century backers of America’s whaling industry. It worked well for a long time. But global capital flows have changed over the past quarter-century, and Canadian entrepreneurs and investors need to shift too. This means finding new ways to bring risk capital to Canada and new ways to invest Canadian risk capital abroad.

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See transcript

When it comes to business disruption, there’s a saying that the impact usually takes much longer to hit than anyone predicted – and then hits with a force no one thought possible.

Exhibit A: food delivery.

The lockdowns in mid-March shut down pretty much every restaurant in Canada, and led to an overnight boom in food delivery that’s been years in the making and now shows few signs of slowing.

Winnipeg-based SkipTheDishes has been at the forefront, moving to get roughly one-quarter of Canada’s 100,000 restaurants on its platform while also retooling that platform to help the sector respond to changes in consumer tastes that few might have imagined. (Cocktail kits, anyone?)

Skip, which was bought in 2016 by Britain’s Just Eat plc, is now part of a global network that’s in a race for scale, as the world shifts to an “eat anything, anytime, anywhere” model.

The model is about much more than data analytics and service optimization. As Skip’s CEO Kevin Edwards sees it, food delivery needs to continue to find ways to connect local creators and local consumers, in a new world that focuses on food quality as well as food efficiency.

As that shift accelerates, food delivery will transform many restaurants into 24/7 operations, Edwards says on the latest episode of the RBC Disruptors podcast. And it will help them draw the new customers they’ll need to rebuild.

Some other key takeaways from our podcast:

1. Delivery doesn’t have to displace restaurants; it can help them grow

Roughly 80% of Skip’s customers have not been to the restaurants they order from, highlighting the ability of technology to build markets. Yet going into the pandemic, few restaurants had the tools or mindset to seize on this disruption. One 2019 survey found only 52% of restaurant owners had a website.

2. Digitizing the restaurant is not just a click away

Posting a menu online is not a digital strategy. The post-pandemic economy will require restauranteurs to employ tools like social media and data analytics to get in front of markets and move quickly with changing tastes.

3. Restaurants will need blended models

Look for restaurants to employ blended models moving forward, bridging enjoyable in-house dining experiences with robust delivery offerings. It will be critical to building and retaining core markets – the loyal patron – as well as developing creations that work only in restaurants. (Hello, Baked Alaska.) At the same time, most restaurants will also need delivery to reach new customers, stay connected with old ones and – critically – develop more robust revenue streams.

4. The food industry is now a tech industry

Canada has a rapidly growing supply of tech workers, who are critical to the development of Canadian-made platforms. Skip is a clear winner in that environment, with 2,000 employees in Winnipeg, many of them skilled immigrants. But Canadian tech needs to focus on helping restaurants transform, too. Getting the digital tools and mindset to restauranteurs is a big opportunity for the Canadian recovery.

5. It matters to every community

Restaurants are part of the connective tissue of communities, from the local coffee shop to the family diner. They’re also an integral part of the Canadian economy – the fourth-largest employer and biggest source of first jobs. And then there’s procurement. The broader food-services sector spends roughly $30 billion on food and beverage purchases, supporting Canadian farmers and the agri-food sector, and accounts for an estimated 4% of Canadian GDP.