Survey Participants - Business Leaders and Accelerators alike - expressed deep concerns about the state of the world. The COVID-19 pandemic is currently an acute and enormous global challenge. Beyond this, Survey Participants highlight the overarching importance of the challenges of climate change, inequality and inequity, lack of trust and social cohesion, Canada’s deteriorating place in the world, and Indigenous reconciliation. Survey Participants agree that business has an essential role to play in addressing these issues. An argument brought forward by some Survey Participants is that the significance and complexities of global challenges call for a concerted effort by all institutions to address them, including businesses. Another argument frequently expressed is that businesses have played a substantial role in creating these challenges - or at the very least exacerbating them - and, consequently, should support the efforts to combat them. Possibly one of the strongest arguments submitted by some of the Survey Participants is that businesses are able to have a massive impact on the effectiveness of collective effort to overcome the most pressing challenges facing this generation.
1) The Status Quo is Not Sustainable “We have essentially mortgaged the future of the next generation already.” – Yung Wu, CEO of MaRS Discovery District There are immense and consequential challenges facing the globe. Many participants argued that that the current generation is not leaving a better world for the next generations. The first question Survey Participants were asked when interviewed was: “What are the most pressing challenges in the world?” Even though Survey Participants often name more than one challenge, there are clearly challenges that are more top of mind than others. With most interviews being done before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Canada, the most pressing challenges facing the world ranked by frequency of being named by the Survey Participants are climate change, inequality and inequity, a lack of trust and social cohesion, and Canada’s place in the world.
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