Elevate Becomes Nrth After Nearly a Decade Building Canada’s Tech and Innovation Community

The Canadian non-profit is expanding beyond its flagship festival with a year-round focus on helping founders and industry leaders navigate technological change.

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Elevate, the Canadian non-profit behind one of the country’s largest tech and innovation festivals, today announced it is becoming Nrth. Co-Founder and CEO Lisa Zarzeczny revealed the new name live on stage during Elevate Festival’s Opening Night. With the announcement, the organization and event rebranded in real time, marking the first-ever Nrth Festival.

When Elevate launched in 2017, Canada’s innovation ecosystem needed a stronger platform to come together and show the world what was being built here. That mission shaped the organization’s first nine years, welcoming more than 89,000 attendees and showcasing hundreds of Canadian companies.

Today, the challenge is different. New technologies are emerging faster than most businesses can determine what matters and where to focus. AI is changing how companies operate and compete, while startups need customers as much as capital. Canada’s challenge is increasingly not whether we can innovate, but how we turn that innovation into stronger companies and economic growth. In that environment, Canada’s innovation community needs more than an annual moment of connection and celebration.

Nrth exists to help founders and industry leaders make sense of what’s changing, identify what matters and connect with the people who can help them act on it. For founders, that could mean meeting a first major customer, finding an investor, learning from someone who has scaled before or getting in front of the right decision-maker. For business leaders, it could mean understanding how AI is changing their industry or finding a Canadian technology that solves a real problem.

“Elevate was created to lift Canadian innovation into view,” said Lisa Zarzeczny, Co-Founder and CEO of Nrth. “But visibility alone isn’t enough anymore. Nrth is about direction and expanding the role we can play for this community.”

Nrth Festival will remain the organization’s flagship annual event, while Nrth expands its work throughout the year. Beginning in 2027, that will include more frequent events, new ways to connect Canadian companies with customers and investors, hands-on programs to help business leaders understand and adopt new technologies, and insights into the technologies, companies and trends shaping Canada’s economy.

“Canada is at an important moment,” said Arlene Dickinson, Nrth Board Member. “The challenges we’ve been talking about for years, from scaling Canadian companies to improving our productivity and competitiveness, are only becoming more urgent. We have to get better at turning the innovation we create here into stronger Canadian companies and a stronger economy. That takes more than good ideas. It takes bringing the right people together and acting with greater urgency.”

Nrth Festival, formerly known as Elevate Festival, runs from September 22-24, 2026, in Toronto, bringing together over 10,000 attendees, hundreds of speakers, and content tracks focused on AI, fintech, tech sovereignty, and more. Visit nrth.ca to learn more about this year’s festival and where Nrth is going from here.

Nrth is proud to enter this next chapter alongside its Founding Sponsors, TD Bank Group, Moneris Solutions Corporation and Interac Corp., whose longstanding partnerships have helped shape the organization and make this next chapter possible.

About Nrth
Nrth is a Canadian non-profit helping founders and industry leaders navigate technological change. We provide the insight, connections and hands-on opportunities to understand and adopt emerging technologies and build and grow companies. Our vision is a Canada where innovation becomes our greatest competitive advantage. For more information, visit nrth.ca.