Canada’s Semiconductor Symposium 2026

Agenda

Monday, October 19

Opening Reception

6:30 PM

Opening Reception

Join us for an intimate kick-off to two intense days at our opening reception. Connect with fellow attendees, guest speakers, panelists and partners in a relaxed setting. This will be a great opportunity to network, exchange ideas and initiate new relationships.

Gordon Harling

WELCOME

President & CEO
CMC Microsystems

Sir Terence Matthews OC OBE FREng FIET

OPENING REMARKS

Founder and Chairman
Wesley Clover International

Day One: Tuesday, October 20

Sovereignty

The Symposium opens with a series of discussions exploring what a stronger, more self-sufficient – more resilient – Canada looks like. We’ll explore existing and emerging opportunities; the importance of a coherent national strategy and how other nations have transformed their economies with strategic investments in the sector.

9:00 AM

Welcome

Madison Rilling

Director of Strategic Development and Financing
Femtum

9:15 AM

Setting the stage

Mining. Advanced manufacturing. Semiconductors. Three foundational sectors that contribute profoundly to a competitive, sovereign Canada.

Canada is a resource-rich nation; whose skilled innovators and entrepreneurs are building sophisticated technologies and developing powerful advanced manufacturing capabilities reshaping domestic production from aerospace & defence, automotive to medtech, advanced and ocean/marine.

Gordon Harling

President & CEO
CMC Microsystems

Douglas Morrison

President & CEO
CEMI

Helen Papachronis

Project Development Director
NGen

9:30 AM

Opening Keynote: What does a more resilient Canada look like

Building a resilient, prosperous economy depends on high-productivity industries capable of operating efficiently and competing globally

10:30 AM

Morning Break

11:00 AM

Fireside Chat with Hamid Arabzadeh

Hamid Arabzadeh

Chairman & CEO
Ranovus^®

Gordon Harling

President & CEO
CMC Microsystems

12:00 PM

Luncheon Session — An Outsized Impact: Taiwan and the Semiconductor Sector

The semiconductor sector transformed Taiwan from a low-value commodities exporter — sugar, textiles — to a high-tech manufacturer. That transformation didn’t happen in isolation. It spawned an entire ecosystem: equipment and materials suppliers that make the machines, the chemicals, the silicon wafers and speciality gases that the fabs need; the Integrated Circuit (IC) design houses that design the chips; the downstream assembly, testing and packaging industry that takes finished wafers and packages them into usable chips as well as electronics and IT manufacturing — laptops, servers, networking gear and AI hardware.

In 2022, the economic impact of that broader ecosystem was roughly the same as that of the fabs: NT $4.89T for the fabs vs. NT $4.04T for the spillover.

That’s the cliffhanger. More to come.

Henry (Chih-hung) Liu

INTRODUCTION

Executive Director
Economic Division, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada

Alex Perng

Executive Director
Converged Computation Engineering Center (CCEC)

Vincent Lin

Director, Corporate R&D
ASE Group

Jett Chen

Special Assistant to Chairman
WaferChem

Stephen Coates

Founder & Principal Consultant
YuXuan Semiconductor Consulting Limited

Jay Yu

CEO
ICP Technology

1:15 PM

Semiconductors: Critical infrastructure at the heart of industry

Semiconductor technology is pervasive across the industries any country — including Canada — relies upon for its economic health. Whether it’s the products themselves or the manufacturing equipment that produces them, that dependence is profound, if not always obvious. Moreover, there are knock-on effects for products that don’t themselves include semiconductors, but that integrate into final goods that do. And that means when there are shortages — like during the pandemic — there are a cascade of impacts across industry that trace their origins to semiconductors.

Romano Hoofman

MODERATOR

Strategic Development Director
imec

Hamid Arabzadeh

Chairman & CEO
Ranovus^®

Todd Deaville

Vice President, Advanced Manufacturing Innovation, Corporate R&D
Magna International Inc.

Vallen Rezazadeh

CEO
TransEON Inc.

Iman Yahyaie

Senior Director, Industry and Ecosystem Engagement
ICTC | CTIC

2:15 PM

We Have the Pieces. Do We Have the Plan?

Canada has never had a stronger base for a semiconductor future: design talent, fabrication capability, world-class photonics, and real demand from AI, aerospace, automotive, mining, medtech, and beyond. Yet raw material isn’t a strategy. The nations that turned semiconductors into economic sovereignty didn’t win because they held one decisive asset — they won because they coordinated, and committed, for a decade. Resilience isn’t something you buy; it’s something a system produces. This talk argues that Canada’s central challenge is not a shortage of assets but a shortage of coherence – and it lays out the connective tissue a genuine national strategy requires, and the role Canada’s Semiconductor Council, representing this industry sector, intends to play in building it. We have the pieces. The question we need to answer is how we can turn them into a plan.

Paul Slaby

Managing Director
Canada’s Semiconductor Council

2:35 PM

Afternoon Break

3:00 PM

The Foundation Layer: How Canada's semiconductor skills gap shapes every sector that matters

Semiconductors are foundational technologies that fuel economic performance across industry. From advanced manufacturing to AI, mining, medtech, automotive, defence, ocean/marine: the skills gap in integrated circuit (IC) design is not a niche problem; it’s the upstream constraint that limits Canada’s ability to effectively compete in those sectors. If we are unable to design and build chips domestically, everything built on top of them is dependent on someone else’s infrastructure.

The bottleneck isn’t candidates — it’s the time it takes to make a new hire independently productive. Companies report two to three years, gated entirely by senior engineer availability, not candidate quality. There is no structured, industry-calibrated pathway from graduation to job-ready in Canada. And because semiconductor capability underpins AI hardware, clean energy systems, quantum infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing, this gap compounds across every sector FABrIC is invested in.

Yassine Hariri

MODERATOR

Manager – IoT & Edge AI
Lead – FABrIC Semiconductor Upskilling Program
CMC Microsystems

Nima Khadem Mohtaram

Head of MedTech Initiative
ventureLAB

Iman Yahyaie

Senior Director, Industry and Ecosystem Engagement
ICTC | CTIC

4:00 PM

IoT: The Products inside the Products

A selection of Made-in-Canada FABrIC-funded IoT projects embedding advanced functionality into everything from consumer products to industrial equipment. Like the famous “Intel inside” campaign, they are the hidden products inside the products.

Douglas Morrison

INTRODUCTION

President & CEO
CEMI

Richard Dunda

MODERATOR

Senior Advisor, FABrIC Challenge Projects
CMC Microsystems

Ridha Ben-Mrad

President and CTO
Sheba Microsystems Inc.

Alan Clack

Co-Founder & President
Micro-°K Sensors Inc.

Niraj Mathur

Co-Founder & CEO
Blumind

Frederic Nabki

Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer
SPARK Microsystems International

Mike Sekerka

Vice President & General Manager, Defence and Government Business Unit
Ranovus^®

Day Two: Wednesday, October 21

Prosperity

Day Two focuses on the intersection between the semiconductor sector and the most important drivers of Canada’s economy. Featuring industry leaders from aerospace & defence, automotive, mining, medtech, advanced manufacturing and oceans, we’ll explore the innovation issues they face and where semiconductor technology has a role. The Symposium explores how Canada’s semiconductor expertise can contribute to the ability of these critical domestic industries to innovate and compete.

9:00 AM

Welcome

Madison Rilling

Director of Strategic Development and Financing
Femtum

9:15 AM

Keynote: The Semiconductor Sector: A fulcrum for economic reinvention

Economic reinvention is not only possible, it can catalyze prosperity. The Kingdom of the Netherlands has experienced a tremendous economic cascade generated by a vigorous semiconductor sector. And that has had both economic and competitive impacts on other domestic industries.

In 2026, the Netherlands is a high-labour cost nation with a strong advanced manufacturing sector. Known as The “Silicon Valley” of Europe, The Netherlands’ Amsterdam-Delta region’s ecosystem value has risen from $12B in 2015 to over $86B, with a 53% average annual growth rate.

Eindhoven has been described as the “heart of the European semiconductor ecosystem”.

Over 40% of all Dutch patent applications come from the High Tech Campus Eindhoven. Companies like ASML, Europe’s most successful technology company, Philips, NXP and Intel are part of the ecosystem — as is a vibrant photonics sector: PhotonDelta. In 2024 the Co-founder and CEO of PhotonDelta made a major move — leaving to Co-found PhotonVentures. A venture capital firm dedicated exclusively to photonics; they are committed to accelerating the adoption of photonics technologies by investing in visionary entrepreneurs shaping tomorrow’s industries.

Between the privatization of the CPFC and Canada’s deep and differentiated expertise in photonics, we are delighted to welcome Ewit Roos

Amanda Naaum

INTRODUCTION

Senior Innovation Advisor
Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands

Ewit Roos

General Partner & Co-Founder
PhotonVentures

10:15 AM

Morning Break

10:45 AM

The Defence / Dual-use Unlock

Building a resilient, prosperous economy depends on high-productivity industries capable of operating efficiently and competing globally.

In the 20th century, the interplay of semiconductors and the defence sector led to an unprecedented period of industrial growth. In a 21st century Canada, focused on domestic production and a new Defence Industrial Strategy, there’s a formidable economic unlock at hand as dual use applications – some obvious; some not – flourish.

Maura Campbell

MODERATOR

President and CEO
OBIO^®

Morteza Ahmadi

Founder and CEO
Qidni Labs Inc

Jack Fairbanks

Founder and CEO
Hylid Diagnostics Inc

Jarrod Morley

Vice-President
Espace Aéro, Quebec’s Aerospace Innovation Zone

Sonya Shorey

President & CEO
Invest Ottawa

11:45 AM

Lunch: TEXPO Awards

Brian Barge

Co-Founder & CEO
The Evidence Network

Gordon Harling

President & CEO
CMC Microsystems

Tyler Tippens

Applications Engineer
COMSOL

Marie-Josée Turgeon

CEO
C2MI

1:00 PM

Silicon Stirring

The federal government is definitive: there won’t be a stand-alone semiconductor strategy. But this is an industry thick with ambition and determination — and it’s forging ahead. What’s stirring in the private sector? What about provincial governments?

Manon Duclos

MODERATOR

CEO
Technum Québec

Cornelis (Cees) Draijer

Vice President, Technology
Teledyne Canada

Romano Hoofman

Strategic Development Director
imec

Marie-Pierre Ippersiel

President & CEO
PRIMA Québec

Daria Riabinina

Director of Collaborative Research
Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Energy

2:00 PM

Investing in atoms

This will not be the same old Canadian struggle session about all the things we can’t do. When a high labour cost jurisdiction like the Netherlands can successfully host and benefit economically from something as “niche” as photonics, what is our excuse, exactly?

MODERATOR

Joe Costello

CEO
Inpho

Charles Lespérance

Partner
Celesta Capital

Ewit Roos

General Partner & Co-Founder
PhotonVentures

Peter Shi

Associate Partner
Maverix Private Equity

3:00 PM

Afternoon Break

3:15 PM

Fabrication: Advanced (nanoscale) manufacturing

A glimpse of some of the frontier Made-in-Canada FABrIC-funded fabrication projects building domestic semiconductor capacity.

Jayson Myers

INTRODUCTION

Chief Executive Officer
NGen

Tim Warland

MODERATOR

Senior Advisor, FABrIC Challenge Projects
CMC Microsystems

Philippe Babin

General Manager
AEPONYX Enterprises Inc.

Thomas R. Jones

CEO
Jones Microwave Inc.

Vallen Rezazadeh

CEO
TransEON Inc.

4:15 PM

Why Canada?

This panel features semiconductor leaders who have invested in or expanded their Canadian operations. What animated those investments? Why now? What opportunities do they see emerging for Canada — and what should we build next?